Category Archive

NOVEMBER 2011

T1: ALL SAINTS’ DAY 
W2: ALL SOULS’ DAY
This is the day when the Church
commemorates the faithful departed.
Th3: Richard Hooker (1600)
Richard Hooker was born at Heavitree near Exeter around 1554
& studied at Cambridge where he was ordained
& became deputy professor of Hebrew.
His marriage meant he had to abandon academic life
& become a parish priest,
serving in villages in Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire & Kent.
However, from 1588 to 1591 he was the Master of London’s
Temple church ~ yes, the Da Vinci Code venue.
Here Hooker clashed with one of the lecturers
who was trying to advance the Puritan cause.
The Archbishop sided with Hooker
& the lecturer was removed…
but the dispute led to Hooker writing his classic work
“On the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity”
~ a book which gave intellectual & spiritual strength
to the sort of Church of England that was being forged
by Elizabeth I:
a Middle Way Church that was both Catholic & Protestant,
a Church that was reasonable rather than dogmatic…
an untidy organization
but one which would stand the test of time.
Hooker died on this day in 1600.
Martin de Porres (1639)
Martin of Porres was of mixed race:
his father was a Spanish officer;
his mother an Indian from Panama.
He grew up in Lima as the Inca civilization
was being brutally sidelined by European “order”.
He was apprenticed to a barber who did surgery as a sideline,
but was then drawn, at the age of 15 to join the Dominicans,
where he worked as a hair-dresser & a doctor,
gaining great skill in the medicinal use of herbs.
On the hills outside Peru he planted orchards
& distributed their fruit to the hungry.
He founded an orphanage for abandoned children
& began begging from wealthy families
in order to be able to distribute clothes & food to the poor.
After his death of a fever at the age of 60
~ on this day in 1639 ~
he became one of the most popular saints in the Americas;
& visions of him were seen in Africa, Japan & the Philippines.
He has become the patron saint
of social justice & interracial harmony.
F4:
S5: Guy Fawkes Day
It was on this day in 1605 that the Yorkshire soldier Guy Fawkes
was discovered with 36 barrels of gunpowder
intending to blow up the House of Lords & King James I
& institute a pro-Catholic regime.
Fawkes & his fellow conspirators were hung drawn & quartered
in the January of the following year.
Prayers & hymns were composed
to mark the thwarting of “The Gunpowder Plot”
& money was given to establish annual sermons.
The burning of “Guy”s in effigy on bonfires made this a day
similar to the United States Independence Day or France’s Bastile Day
~ but with much more light-heartedness.
Its patriotism & protestant fervour has dwindled over the years,
but recent acts of terrorism has brought home to us
the dangers of extremism,
the urgency of vigilance
& the importance of reaching out to our world’s disaffected groupings.
S6: THE THIRD SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT
Leonard the Hermit (6th c.)
Legend says St Leonard refused to become a bishop,
but chose instead a hermit’s life in a forest.
Through this forest one day there came one day
Clovis, King of the Franks, & his wife
who suddenly went into labour.
Leonard ministered to them
ensuring the safe delivery of the child
~ & the conversion of the King.
Soldiers returning from the crusades in the 11th century
worshipped at his shrine
& once back home built churches dedicated to him.
Leonard has become the patron saint of prisoners & the ill.
William Temple (1944)
Temple grew up as a member of the privileged establishment,
son of a bishop, educated at a public school & then at Oxford…
but he became a member of the Labour party
& worked with enthusiasm for social & economic reform.
Despite doubts about a literal interpretation
of the Virgin Birth & the bodily resurrection of Christ
~ doubts which delayed his ordination ~
Temple rose swiftly in the Church of England.
From being Rector of St James’ Piccadilly
he became in turn Bishop of Manchester, Archbishop of York
& then Archbishiop of Canterbury.
Tragically, after only two years in this post, he died,
on this day in 1944.
His integrity, intellect & common touch
still shine through his books:
Basic Convictions, Readings in St John, The Hope of a New World.
M7: Willibrord of Frisia (739)
Willibrord was born in Yorkshire in 658.
when he was 6 years old his father left home
to live in a hermitage near the Humber Estuary.
Willibrord went to Ripon to be taught by Wilfrid
the champion of the cause of Roman Christianity
over that of the Celtic tradition of Aidan & Cuthbert
~ the cause that had triumphed at the Synod of Whitby in 664.
Willibrord travelled with Wilfrid to Ireland
where he was ordained priest.
after twelve years he returned to England
where King Egbert encouraged him
to take the Gospel to Holland.
Having been made Archbishop of Frisia by the Pope
he founded the cathedral at Utrecht,
established a Benedictine community in Luxembourg
&, after clashing with the King of the Frisians,
led missions to Denmark, Heligoland & Germany.
The Society of St Willibrord works today
to strengthen links between Anglicans the “Old Catholics”
~ the Roman Catholic Churches of  the Low Countries & Switzerland
which could not accept the doctrine of papal infallibility.
Alcuin, in his Life of Willibrord,
describes him as
“comely of face, cheerful in spirit, wise in counsel, pleasing in speech, grave in character
& energetic in everything he undertook for God.”
Francis Thompson [1907]
Francis Thompson was born in Lancashire in 1859
& was given by his father a good education
which, it was hoped, would lead
to his becoming proficient in medicine.
However, he rebelled & ended up on the streets in London,
mending shoes & selling matches.
He was once turned out of a public library
because his clothes were too ragged.
He turned to opium, but also wrote poetry.
Wilfrid & Alice Meynell who ran a Catholic magazine
discerned talent in one of his poems, sought him out,
& took him into their home.
Although he never fully recovered
either from his addiction
or from the ill health he had contracted,
the friendship extended to him by the Meynells
allowed his genius to flourish.
Since his death his work has been recognized
as among the most inspiring of visionary Christian poetry.
T8: The Saints & Martyrs of England
W9: Margery Kempe (c.1440)
Margery Kempe was born in around 1373,
the daughter of the Mayor of King’s Lynn.
She had 14 children
but then told her husband
it was not God’s will for them
to continue sleeping together.
Although she had run two businesses in Norfolk,
as a brewer & running a mill,
(neither with a great deal of success),
she set off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land
where she was greatly moved
as she contemplated on Christ’s passion.
A year or so later she became a pilgrim again,
this time to Compostela;
& then set out travelling again,
this time via Leicester & York to Beverley.
In 1431 one of her sons who had gone to live in Danzig
came with his wife to visit his parents.
Margery had spent some time
nursing her husband,
& at this juncture both he & her son died
& Margery set out with her daughter-in-law
escorting her back home.
In all her travels, & indeed in King’s Lynn itself
Margery attracted much attention,
some enraptured by her witness to Christ,
some shocked by her outspoken ways:
she showed little respect to clergy
or those in authority.
“We know she is possessed by a devil,”
her accusers once said,
“for she speaks of the gospel.”
She was unable to write
but towards the end of her life
dictated her “Book” ~ a spiritual autobiography
in very down-to-earth language.
Only extracts of it were published,
& these gave her the reputation
of being a mystic in the classic tradition;
but in 1934 the whole manuscript was discovered
& this brought into view a stranger personality,
suffering from great depression at times,
engaging in family arguments
as well as debates with the clergy,
but above all a very human woman
on a very other-worldly quest.
Th10: Leo the Great (461)
In 440 Leo was working as a diplomat in France
attempting to reconcile two warring factions
when news reached him of his election as Bishop of Rome.
By the time he died ~ on this day in 461 ~
his work had transformed his role from that of a respected Bishop
into that of a Pope: the key authority in the Church.
The imperial powers of Rome were crumbling,
& it was Leo who took on the task
of negotiating with the invading barbarians.
At the same time Leo superintended
the rebuilding much of the city,
& reforming its administration.
It was in many ways due to him
that as the Empire fell, Rome survived,
with the Church inheriting much of the old imperial power.
Leo was also a great theologian
seeing off three major heresies:
Nestorianism ~ the idea that Jesus was a superman or demi-god
rather than fully human & fully divine;
Pelagianism ~ the idea that one attains heaven
by being good rather than by admitting one’s inadequacy
& looking to God for forgiveness & help;
& Manicheeism ~ the idea that the world is a battleground
between forces of light & forces of darkness
rather than a single creation of one God,
ultimately responsible for the bad & the ugly as well as the good.
F11: Armistice Day:
The Armistice which ended the First World War
was signed in Compiègne, Northern France,
at 5am on November 11th 1918 & came into effect 6 hours later:
at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month.
The period of silence was first proposed
by a Melbourne journalist, Edward George Honey,
in a letter published in the London Evening News
on 8 May 1919.
This subsequently came to the attention of King George V,
who on 7 November, 1919, issued a proclamation
which called for a two-minute silence:
‘All locomotion should cease,
so that, in perfect stillness,
the thoughts of everyone
may be concentrated
on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.’
During the Second World War the commemoration was moved
to be observed on the nearest Sunday to November 11th
in order to avoid interfering with production during the war,
but more recently the Silence has been observed
on the 11th day as well, it being more effective
when supermarkets, schools & offices fall silent.
As well as commemorating the dead of the World Wars
those caught up in more recent conflicts are remembered;
& the money from poppy collections go to help
those left injured, impaired or bereft as a result of war.
Martin of Tours (c.397)
St Martin was born in Hungary
& following family tradition
he became a cavalry officer in the Roman army.
In a vision he saw Christ naked
& tore his cloak in half to share it with him.
Subsequently Martin was baptized
& after wrestling with his conscience gave up his post in the army,
saying, “I am Christ’s soldier. I am not allowed to fight.”
After a period as a hermit
& then as a leader of a group of ascetics,
in 371 he became Bishop of Tours
& spent the rest of his life challenging paganism
& spreading the Gospel in France.
S12:
S13: REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
Charles Simeon (1836)
Charles Simeon was born in Reading in 1759.
From Eton he went to King’s College Cambridge
where he was brought up short by the danger
of taking Holy Communion unworthily.
After weeks of angst he was converted & then ordained.
As Vicar of Holy Trinity Cambridge for 53 years
he became a key figure in the Evangelical movement
setting up what became the “Simeon Trustees”
~ patrons of parishes with the right to ensure
new incumbents held to a biblical tradition.
He was a great & stimulating preacher
& by teaching & example set a standard of sermons
that were not then fashionable moral denunciations
but rather uplifting bible based addresses
centring on Jesus.
M14: Samuel Seabury (1796)
Samuel Seabury was born in Connecticut in 1729.
Having studied both at Yale & in Edinburgh
he was ordained a priest in England
& set off for New York as a missionary.
During the War of Independence he remained loyal to the Crown
& in 1775 was briefly imprisoned.
In 1783 he was elected Bishop of Connecticut & Rhode Island
but could not be consecrated as that service
contained the vow of allegiance, & America was now independent.
He was therefore ordained on this day in 1784 in Aberdeen
using the Scottish rite ~ which had no oath of obedience.
Two years later, recognizing the problem,
parliament empowered the Archbishops of Canterbury & York
to consecrate bishops to serve outside UK jurisdiction.
This whole episode was thus a landmark
in the birth of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
T15:
W16: Margaret of Scotland (1093)
Margaret was born in Hungary
after her father & uncle, it is said,
had been sent there from England for safety
during the reign of Canute.
Her father returned to England with her in 1057
but left again when William the Conqueror invaded England.
Whether intentionally or because the ship was blown off course
they arrived on the coast of Scotland
where Margaret decided to become a nun.
However, she was persuaded instead to marry Malcolm
who had inherited the throne of Scotland
after the death of Macbeth.
She then used her influence to bring Christianity in Scotland
into line with the res of western Christendom,
while living a life of compassion & piety.
There are stories of her washing the feet of the poor,
visiting prisoners & tending the sores of lepers.
She founded schools, hospitals & orphanages,
helped restore Iona Abbey
& founded Dunfermline Abbey where she is buried
having died four days after her husband.
Their son David succeeded to the throne
& continued her work.
Their daughter Matilda
married Henry I of England.
Edmund Rich of Abingdon (1240)
Edmund studied at Oxford & Paris
& as a scholar promoted an academic study of scripture
in its historical context
while exploring its spiritual & allegorical meanings.
After a spell as treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral
he was chosen as Archbishop of Canterbury
after three other candidates had been rejected.
Though initially regarded with suspicion
as a royal or papal puppet
he stood firm for the Church of England
against both the monarch & the pope.
He sought to visit each diocese & religious house in turn
& took steps to root out corruption.
Seeking papal support for his reforms
he journeyed to Rome,
but although he had assisted Gregory IX
in the launch of a crusade,
the pope was not willing to lend support in return
& Edmund retired to Potigny
feeling himself betrayed.
His guidelines on the administration of religious houses
together with his spiritual work
on the journey of the soul
were studied & heeded long after his death.
Th17: Hugh of Lincoln (1200)
The story of the falling out of Henry II & Becket is familiar.
The story of Hugh is that story’s sequel & is less familiar.
Henry as part of his penance for Becket’s murder
founded a monastery in Witham in Somerset
& he asked Hugh to come over from France to be its prior.
Hugh only agreed on the condition  that the villagers
who had been displaced by its building had been re-housed.
Later Henry asked Hugh to be Bishop of Lincoln
& Hugh insisted that he would only do so
if the king’s wish was backed by a vote from the cathedral.
Later, Hugh refused the demand of Richard I
that he should raise money for his crusade.
And Hugh so angered King John
that he walked out of one of his sermons.
But Hugh was fearless not just in standing up to monarchs.
When he was dying the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested
Hugh might repent of the times Hugh had been rude to him.
Hugh sent word back that he wished he had been ruder.
F18: Elizabeth of Hungary (1231)
A Hungarian Princess, when aged only four
Elizabeth was sent to southern Germany
to be married to the King of Thuringia.
The wedding took place once she was 10,
& by the time she was 16 she had given birth to three children.
That year, however, her husband died
& Elizabeth gave up all she had
to follow the teaching of St Francis,
dedicating herself to the care of the poor.
She died on this day in 1231, aged 24.
Legend says she once disobeyed her husband
taking bread for the poor in her apron.
Her husband asked her what she was carrying
& she told him she just had flowers in her apron.
When he demanded to see them,
she opened her apron & the bread had turned to roses.
S19: Hilda of Whitby (680)
Two missions established the English Church…
that of Augustine of Canterbury in the south
with its loyalties to the Pope in Rome,
& in the north the Celtic mission of St Aidan
whose origins were from Ireland via the isle of Iona.
Hilda as a Northumbrian princess
grew up in this tradition;
but her sister became Queen of the East Angles
where in the southern custom was followed.
This helped Hilda decide to go to France
to take her vows there.
However, while on the way, a message came
from Aidan asking her to return to Northumbria,
This she did, & after a time of solitary reflection
took her vows & founded a religious house
for both men & women at Whitby
on the Yorkshire coast.
Here in 664 she hosted a conference
convened to iron out the differences.
She argued from the Celtic standpoint;
but when it was decided the authority of Rome
should be accepted throughout England
she accepted this with a good grace.
Thus was established the nature of the Church
until the time of Henry VIII;
& it may be well argued that even now
the broad nature of the C of E
comes more from Whitby than from Henry.
Mechtild of Magdeburg (1280)
Mechtild has never been made a saint,
but since her writings were published in the 19th century
she has been honoured as a great mystic.
Mechtild began having visions at the age of 12.
In her twenties she left home
to live with a group of Beguines in Magdeburg
(a group who led an a strict life of self-denial
without taking formal vows.)
Forty years later after a brief stay with relatives
she went to live with the Dominican sisters of Helfta
a centre of women’s intellectual achievement.
Mechtild was persuaded to write down her visions
in a book that came to influence Dante:
“The Flowing Light of the Godhead”.
It is partly in poetry & partly in prose
& describes a soul’s love affair with God.
S20: CHRIST THE KING
This Feast celebrates the end
of the Christian liturgical year
with the vision of the child born in a manger
bringing his just & gentle rule
to the whole of creation.
STIR UP SUNDAY
The Prayer Book Collect asks God
to “stir up our hearts”…
& it is a prayer to be used not just in church
but in the kitchen
with the tradition of making  ~ & stirring ~ today
the Christmas Pudding.
Edmund of East Anglia (870)
Edmund was born in 840
& at the age of 15 became King of the East Angles.
Legend says he was a kind & just monarch,
& that he once spent a year in a tower at Hunstanton
learning all the psalms off by heart.
He defended the coastline from Danish invaders;
but in the end they defeated his army
& used Edmund for target practice.
It is said that though they cut off his head
a wolf found it & brought it to a church
so it could be given decent burial.
Bury St Edmunds became a place of pilgrimage
& in 1914 it became the cathedral city
of the new diocese of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich.
Priscilla Lydia Sellon (1876)
Lydia Sellon was the daughter of a naval officer.
She never enjoyed good health
& was about to go abroad seeking a warmer climate
when she was drawn to respond to an appeal
issued by the Bishop of Exeter
for workers among the poor of Plymouth.
The Bishop perhaps lived to regret this moment,
for very soon his diocese was plunged
into bitter controversy.
Lydia was joined by other women,
& after they had tackled the 1849 cholera outbreak
they formed a religious community
~ the first of its kind since Henry VIII’s
dissolution of the monasteries.
With Lydia as their Abbess,
the community embraced the high church ideals
of Dr Pusey & the Oxford Movement,
& the Bishop had to deal with a public outcry:
the sisters were running an orphanage,
putting flowers on the “altar”
which the Prayer Book said should be described
simply as “the holy table”;
bowing  when they entered their “oratory”;
& showing the children pictures
of the Virgin Mary…
The outrage died away as several of the sisters
went to help Florence Nightingale
during the Crimean War.
Lydia herself at the request of Queen Emma of Hawaii
travelled to Honolulu to found a school there.
The priory of St Andrew she established there
is now the cathedral.
Lydia died on this day in 1876 aged only 55.
M21:
T22: Cecilia (c.230)
Legend says that St Cecilia was an aristocratic Roman
who was a Christian married to a pagan husband.
She brought him & his brother to faith in Christ
& was for this executed in 230.
As she died she sang…
& this led to her becoming the patron saint
of all musicians.
Clive Staples Lewis
C.S.Lewis died on this day in 1964.
He was brought to his faith at the age of 30 in Oxford
where he & other academics, such as J.R.R.Tolkien,
met regularly & discussed how new myths
might, in the twentieth century,
convey the eternal truths of Christianity.
This led to the creation of Middle Earth & Narnia.
During World War II Lewis was a regular broadcaster
broaching complex theological questions
in terms that the non-academic could grasp.
His “Screwtape Letters” chronicle the frustration
of an elderly devil attempting to instruct
a bungling junior demon in the strategy
of preventing a young man reaching faith.
His book “Surprised by Joy” tells of his marriage,
relatively late in life, to Joy Gresham,
& of her tragic death of cancer four years later.
W23: Clement of Rome (c.100)
Clement is numbered as the third Pope
& is said to have known both Peter & Paul.
He is said also to have been martyred
by being thrown into the sea
weighed down by an anchor.
Because of this legend his emblem is an anchor
& churches in ports or by the sea
are dedicated in his name.
Historically, however, a letter
written from Rome to Corinth
at the end of the first century
was quickly attributed to him
while it continued to be read publicly
in the Corinthian church.
The letter was prompted by a group
banding together to eject their leaders
& argues strongly for pastoral care
& a respect for authority.
That such a letter should command respect
gives evidence for the growing power
of the church in Rome
whether or not the papacy
had already emerged.
However, what is set out in the letter
with its emphasis on the Eucharist
& on the importance of church unity,
shows the writer as a person
with a calm & compassionate character.
Th24:
F25: Isaac Watts (1748)
Isaac Watts was born in Southampton in 1674.
where he attended his local grammar school.
A benefactor offered to pay for him to go to university,
but instead Watts chose to attend the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington.
It was in Stoke Newington,
after a brief spell as pastor of London’s Mark Lane Chapel,
that Watts worked as a Nonconformist Minister,
writing over 600 hymns
many of which are still sung:
e.g. Joy to the world,
When I survey the wondrous cross,
& Jesus shall reign where’er the sun.
Catherine of Alexandria (4th c.)
The Legend of St Catherine illustrates how the resilience of a woman
is able to turn the tables on those attacking her.
In the story the Princess Catherine at the age of 18
protests against the persecution of Christians
instigated by the Emperor Maxentius who ruled between 306 & 312.
The Emperor employs 50 philosophers
to convince her of her errors,
& when they fail,
indeed when some are converted to Christianity,
they are executed.
The Emperor then proposed to Catherine
& when she turned him down she was thrown into prison.
Here she converted both fellow prisoners & jailers,
& so was sentenced to death
by being bound upon a spiked wheel
~ which is how she gave her name to the firework.
As the wheel broke she was beheaded…
to become a venerated saint at the time of the crusades
& in the last century having her day adopted
by those campaigning
against all violence against women.F26:
S26:
S27: ADVENT SUNDAY
M28:
T29: Day of Prayer for Mission
W30: ANDREW
The cross of St Andrew,
white on a blue background
is said to have its origin
in the apostle’s refusal to be crucified
in the style of his master.
St Andrew’s cross, however, thus becomes
a multiplication sign,
a good symbol of one
who, as well as being the patron saint
of Scotland, Greece & Russia,
is the prototype missionary.
It was Andrew who brought to Jesus
the boy with barley loaves & fishes,
a small meal that multiplied;
& it was Andrew who brought to Jesus
the Greeks looking for him in the temple,
a few foreigners who were the first-fruits
of a world-wide church.
“Unless a grain of wheat,” says Jesus
at the end of that story,
“falls into the ground & dies,
it remains a single grain;
but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest.”
(John 10 v 24)
Mission germinates
through small  bold acts of self-giving.