Feast of St Oswald of Northumbria

The Mad One has a lovely post up on St Oswald of Northumbria, in the context of which today's prayer list is found. I commend it to you all.

As a former vicar of a church dedicated to St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, I found myself caught up in the golden age of Northumbria, the era rich in saints and in cultural interaction and artistic production. When I was in Durham we had some day trips.

On one trip we stopped at Heavenfield where Oswald was victorious over his foes. G'wan, read the story at Maddy's.

The church felt hallowed by prayer and leaflets in the pews invited visitors to pray. I did.

Oswald was considered a martyr. His head wound up buried with Cuthbert. Sometimes Cuddy is depicted holding Oswald's head.

We who have historic and spiritual roots in the British Isles owe a debt to this man. Our heritage would have been so very different if he had not invited Aidan to evangelize.

Holy Oswald, pray for us. Pray that Christ will teach us in our day to make the Good News available in a language understanded of the people as you once translated for Aidan.

Twelfth century mural of Oswald in Durham Cathedral (courtesy of Wikipedia)

--the BB

Saint Hild of Whitby

Learn about her from the learned Padre Mickey.

Saint Hild of Whitby
Retablo by PES

O God of peace, by whose grace the abbess Hilda was endowed with gifts of justice, prudence, and strength to rule as a wise mother over the nuns and monks of her household, and to become a trusted and reconciling friend to leaders of the Church: Give us the grace to recognize and accept the varied gifts you bestow on men and women, that our common life may be enriched and your gracious will be done; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

--the BB

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez

Caminante reminds me, and all of us, that today is the feast of Blessed Óscar Romero, Archbishop and Martyr of El Salvador. I love the poster of him that she found and shares in her post. Thanks, Caminante!

She notes:

Twenty-eight years ago San Romero de las Américas was assassinated while celebrating a requiem mass in the small chapel at La Divina Providencia, San Salvador.

From the biography at the Westminster Abbey website:

Romero was impressed, though not always uncritical, of the new Catholicism that was affirmed with such confidence in Vatican II. In 1970 he became auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, and there he busied himself with administration. Many found him a conservative in views and by temperament. In 1974 he became bishop of a rural diocese, Santiago de Maria. Three years later, in February 1977, Oscar Romero became archbishop of San Salvador.

In that month a crowd of protesters were attacked by soldiers in the town square of the capital. Then, on 12 March 1977, a radical priest, Rutilio Grande, was murdered in Aguilares. Romero had known him. Now he observed that there was no official enquiry. He recognized that power lay in the hands of violent men, and that they murdered with impunity. The wealthy sanctioned the violence that maintained them. Death squads committed murder in the cities while soldiers killed as they wished in the countryside. When a new government which represented a coalition of powerful interests was elected it was seen to be by fraud. There was talk of revolution.

More and more Romero committed himself to the poor and the persecuted, and he became the catalyst for radical moral prophecy in the church and outside it. Meanwhile, his church began to document the abuse of human rights, and to establish the truth in a country governed by lies, where men and women simply disappeared without account. The press attacked him vehemently. Romero, it was said, allied the church with revolutionaries. This he repudiated: the church was not a political movement. But when a succession of priests were murdered Romero found in their deaths ‘testimony of a church incarnated in the problems of its people.’

In May 1979 he visited the Pope in Rome and presented him with seven dossiers filled with reports and documents describing the injustices of El Salvador. But his friends sensed his isolation in the church, while the threats and dangers against him mounted outside it. On 24 March 1980 he was suddenly shot dead while celebrating mass in the chapel of the hospital where he lived.

“...En nombre de Dios, pues, y en nombre de este sufrido pueblo cuyos lamentos suben hasta el cielo cada día más tumultuosos, les suplico, les ruego, les ordeno en nombre de Dios: ¡Cese la represión...!” (Últimas palabras de la última predicación dominical de Monseñor Romero, dirigidas a los soldados ordinarios en el día antes de su martirio.)

"I want to make a special appeal to soldiers, national guardsmen and policemen: each of you is one of us. The peasants you kill are your own brothers and sisters. When you hear a man telling you to kill, remember God's words, 'thou shalt not kill.' No soldier is obliged to obey a law contrary to the law of God. In the name of God, in the name of our tormented people, I beseech you, I implore you; in the name of God I command you to stop the repression."

(Last words of the final Sunday sermon of Msrg. Romero, directed to the ordinary soldiers the day before his martyrdom.) [source, with photo of his tomb]

I had heard of Msgr. Romero but he "became real" for me when one of my professors and I went to see the film made of his life, starring Raul Julia as Romero. Since then I have read snatches of his sermons. He was a good man who, upon awakening to the agony of the people of El Salvador committed to his care, became a great man. As an honest man and a prophet, he was a threat to the wicked and powerful. His spirit lives on in the continued struggle for justice among the people of the Americas. Though his beatification process has far to go at the Vatican, in the hearts of many he is already recognized as a saint. He is certainly one that I honor. I will light a candle in front of his icon this evening.

"Before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God."

I must tell you, as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If I am killed, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people."


God of justice and compassion, you accepted the sacrifice of the life of Óscar Romero: May his blood be the seed of liberty and a sign of hope that the people, blessed with such a faithful bishop, may continue in the struggle for justice and, in the power of Christ's resurrection, never die. Amen.
--the BB

St Cuthbert's Day

Although today is Maundy Thursday, I cannot pass by St Cuddy.


Cuthbert was the most popular saint of the pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon Church. He was born about 625.

The Venerable Bede, who wrote a life of Cuthbert, tells us that in his youth, while tending sheep one night, and praying, "as was his wont," he saw a stream of light break through the darkness, and in its midst, "a company of the heavenly host descended to the earth, and having received among them a spirit of surpassing brightness, returned without delay to their heavenly home." Learning the next day that Aidan of Lindisfarne had died at that very time, Cuthbert "determined forthwith to enter a monastery."

Trained in the austere traditions of Celtic monasticism, Cuthbert was Prior of Melrose Abbey from 651 to 664, and then of Lindisfarne for twelve years. Bede says that he was accustomed to make visitations even to remote villages, to preach to simple folk who, "neglecting the sacrament of their creed, had recourse to idolatrous remedies; as if by charms or amulets, or any other mysteries of the magical art, they were able to avert a stroke inflicted upon them by the Lord...." Bede says that Cuthbert "often remained a week, sometimes two or three, nay, even a whole month, without returning home; but dwelling among the mountains, taught the poor people, both by words of his preaching, and also by his own holy conduct."

Archbishop Theodore recognized Cuthbert's greatness of character and made him Bishop of Hexham in 684, but Cuthbert continued to make his see at Lindisfarne. He returned two years later to his hermitage on the neighboring island of Farne, where he died on March 20, 687.

Cuthbert accepted the decisions of the synod of Whitby in 663 that brought the usages of the English Church into line with Roman practice. He was thus a "healer of the breach" that threatened to divide the Church into Celtic and Roman factions.

At the time of the Viking invasions, the monks of Lindisfarne carefully protected his relics during their wanderings, until, finally, they brought them to Durham, where one may see today the remnants of his shrine and visit his tomb.

[From Lesser Feasts and Fasts]
Almighty God, you called Cuthbert from following the flock to be a shepherd of your people: Mercifully grant that, as he sought in dangerous and remote places those who had erred and strayed from your ways, so we may seek the indifferent and the lost, and lead them back to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
--the BB

O Doctor optime

Gregory the Great
Icon written by the BB
Private Collection

I can always count on Grandmère Mimi and Padre Mickey both to remind me of the feasts of saints and to offer apt graphics, prayers, and ponderings to nurture my soul.

My ex is not named Gregory but we used the feasts of Saint Gregory the Great (March 12 on the Episcopal and pre-Vatican II Roman calendars and September 3 on the current Roman calendar) as saint's days. I usually track this sort of thing closely but today had almost slipped right past me. I clicked onto Wounded Bird and Mimi came to my rescue. I picked up the phone, wished a happy saint's day, and scheduled a future evening to go out to dinner to celebrate. Whew. Close call.

[I would not be in trouble for fogetting; I would just disappoint myself. But I'm the one I have to live with.]

You may click on the links above for edification. No need to duplicate their good work.

Oratio for the feast of Sanctus Gregorius
from the Breviarum Romanum

Antiphon on the Magnificat:
O Doctor optime, Ecclesiae sanctae lumen, beate Gregori, divinae legis amator, deprecare pro nobis Filium Dei.

O best of Doctors, light of the holy Church, blessed Gregory, lover of the divine law, beseech the Son of God on our behalf.
--the BB

ANNA JULIA HAYWOOD COOPER

EDUCATOR
(28 February 1964)

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, c1859- February 27, 1964). Educator, advocate and scholar. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina to an enslaved woman and a white man, presumably her mother’s master, Anna Julia was an academically gifted child and received a scholarship to attend St. Augustine Normal School and Collegiate Institute, a school founded by the Episcopal Church to educate African-American teachers and clergy. There she began her membership in the Episcopal Church. After forcing her way into a Greek class designed for male theology students, Anna Julia later married the instructor, George A.C. Cooper, the second African-American ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in North Carolina. After her husband’s death in 1879, Cooper received degrees in mathematics from Oberlin College, and was made principal of the only African American high school in Washington D.C.. She was denied reappointment in 1906 because she refused to lower her educational standards. Throughout her career, Cooper emphasized the importance of education to the future of African Americans, and was critical of the lack of support they received from the church. An advocate for African-American women, Cooper assisted in organizing the Colored Women’s League and the first Colored Settlement House in Washington, D.C. She wrote and spoke widely on issues of race and gender, and took an active role in national and international organizations founded to advance African Americans. At the age of fifty-five she adopted the five children of her nephew. In 1925, Cooper became the fourth African –American woman to complete a Ph.D degree, granted from the Sorbonne when she was sixty-five years old. From 1930-1942, Cooper served as president of Frelinghuysen University.
from the Episcopal Women's History Project

Borrowed in toto and shamelessly from here.

A truly awesome and inspiring woman!


Almighty God, you inspired your servant Anna Julia Heyward Cooper with the love of learning and the skill of teaching: Enlighten us more and more through the discipline of learning, and deepen our commitment to the education of all your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
--the BB

Feast of George Herbert

Our God and King, who called your servant George Herbert from the pursuit of worldly honors to be a pastor of souls, a poet, and a priest in your temple: Give us grace, we pray, joyfully to perform the tasks you give us to do, knowing that nothing is menial or common that is done for your sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

--the BB

Cyril and Methodius, brothers and saints

Photo source here

My blogging chums are all over this, so do visit Deacon Ormonde Plater and Padre Mickey for all manner of learned and godly material on these splendid chaps. Grandmère Mimi has comments as well.

I would only highlight their use of local language and customs in their evangelization. They did not impose Latin (as Frankish missionaries were wont to do). Ever since learning about them in classes on Balkan history and early Church history, they have been to me saints of plurality within the Body of Christ.

Almighty and everlasting God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit moved your servant Cyril and his brother Methodius to bring the light of the Gospel to a hostile and divided people: Overcome all bitterness and strife among us by the love of Christ, and make us one united family under the banner of the Prince of Peace; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
-the BB

In your heart

St Nektarios the Wonderworker,
of Ægina, Metropolitan of Pentapolis

Photo courtesy of JN1034

SEEK GOD daily. But seek Him in your heart, not outside it. And when you find Him, stand with fear and trembling, like the Cherubim and the Seraphim, for your heart has become a throne of God. But in order to find God, become humble as dust before the Lord, for the Lord abhors the proud, whereas He visits those that are humble in heart, wherefor He says: "To whom will I look, but to him that is meek and humble in heart?" [Source]

--St Nektarios, whose feast is today

Frenchy: most admired, least imitated

Francis by Zurbaran

Professor Gerhard B. Ladner, in his class on early and medieval church history at UCLA, commented that Francis was, perhaps, the most admired and least imitated of all the saints.

There are wonderful posts on Francis (here and here and here and here and here). My thanks to the online company of the faithful who nurture, challenge, and care about one another.

I would like to draw your attention especially to the post by Fr. Jake. He has the lyrics there. Here is the video meditation on Surely We Can Change, David Crowder Band, Remedy (2007):

Dear Francesco,
Please pray for us; we are making such a mess of it all. Help us to see, to really see and know and understand, God's gracious love manifest in all creation. May we see Christ in friend and foe, enemy and stranger, wherever we go. Give my fond regards to the wolf of Gubbio. Thanks.

--the BB

Update: Fr. Jake credits Bob Carlton, and I hereby do the same.

If you were to imagine....

If you were going to write fantasy fiction (which is what I am up to in most free waking and non-working hours) about some parallel world, what religions might you imagine?

Would any of them resemble Christianity as we have known it?

If not, what sources would you draw on?

If so, how might this faith be enacted (by which I mean first of all an Incarnation or parallel "Christ event"), how understood, how proclaimed, how lived in community? What would you tweak and make different? Remember you have full authorial license and it's fiction, for heaven's sake.
I realize these are unfair questions. I have been doing this and, because I wish to retain copyright on my stories, I cannot really reveal my answers except on the most cursory level.

The tales I write grow out of stories I told in the early 1970s. I have not abandoned those roots but have developed, altered, deepened, and enriched them. One of the most delightful imaginative exercises was teasing out a "pagan" mythology, the belief system of the world into which my young Christian hero from this world finds himself taken, without his consent. Like many folks I have known, he practices two faiths, accepting the imagery of the new world while still saying his rosary and, later on, baptizing his children. As in many indigenous traditions (or Hinduism) the many "deities" or holy ones are all understood as manifestation of the one Ultimate Reality, so the faith is not really polytheist. The various "gods" function more like friendly saints to whom one might turn for help or guidance, some heavenly assistance in the area that is their specialty. A folk religion with strong ethical elements, sufficiently vivid that I find myself thinking in its imagery.

But then there is a Christ event in that world and the missionaries come. When they meet the protagonist of my first two books they find someone already Christian! I have not gotten to that encounter as I am working on the background for all this, the family trees and interrelations of my principal characters and their children (and grandchildren) and the whole spread of Christianity (missionary history) in that region.

Since it is a fantasy world, I could play with the context of their Christ, and I get to do outrageous things like making the Church egalitarian from the get-go. My chief Apostle to the region where my tales take place is a woman and she is elected the first archbishop. No one gives it a second's thought. And why should they?

Sin and evil are not denied but the faith of that world is far less atonement-centered than the late medieval theology that has plagued us lo these many centuries. Mysticism is more central, and the path of self-giving love is prominent. But then, the choice between power and domination or love and community is a constant theme of all the stories. It seems I never get away from the abiding question: who is Lord, Jesus or Caesar? Our answer obviously determines how we live.

So.

If you were to imagine a new faith, or an old faith that you could embrace with joy, what might it look like?

What would be your John 3:16?

Your Lord's (or Lady's) Prayer?

What would be (or already are) the virtues of your favorite saint?

Have fun!
--the BB

Collective Nouns

Swarming Locusts

I believe I saw the question raised of late (probably at OCICBW): what collective noun ought one to use of bishops? Some alliterative suggestions were made.

I thought about it while driving to work the other day and felt it might be nice to work through some of the subsets of Christians. Here is what I came up with:

An assembly of the faithful

A task force of deacons

An infestation of priests

A plague of bishops

A pestilence of primates

As a member of the first and third categories I feel qualified to be skeptical about presbyters. I must also confess that I know a number of bishops whom I greatly admire and respect (and in some cases even trust). There are godly individuals throughout the church, even in holy orders! I consider some primates to be, or have been, saints. ++Desmond and his newly-retired successor ++Njongonkulu come to mind, the late ++Khotso of Central Africa, and ++Michael (Ramsey) Cantuar. These days, however, I am inclined to stick with “pestilence.” They seem to descend like locusts and destroy everything in sight, then fly off again. Awful. Deplorable. Someone should be deploring this behavior. Heck, I hereby deplore it.

My admonition: Gather to tell stories and share bread and wine and practice loving each other. Beyond that, stay in your own diocese and mind your own bloody flock.

Growing up among evangelicals (and a fair number of outright fundamentalists in the most narrow and traditional sense of that term), I heard plenty of denunciations of sin. At some point I realized that we all know we’re broken, imperfect, and often quite willful. Nobody needs to tell us we’re sinners, for the most part. And it’s not good news. The good news is that God loves us and that forgiveness is possible, and grace is real, and that death can lead to new life.

Those who go about denouncing sinners are not proclaiming Gospel.

Mind you, I do believe in judgment and I do believe that there is a reason prophets delivered judgment and salvation oracles together. I don’t believe we get from A to B without transformation. This is why I believe so strongly in the work of the Holy Spirit. Having said that, however, I still maintain that if you stop at the judgment you have not yet proclaimed Gospel. The world needs hope, not harangues; people who model transformation, not scolds. Yes, I am talking to you, ++Peter Abuja.

My first theological and spiritual reformation on a personal level took place when I realized that all my life I had heard that Jesus saves us from sin, death, and hell, but that I was not hearing what he was saving us FOR. “Heaven” and “eternal life” are code words, not answers to that question. This is what moved me from my Protestant roots to more Catholic and Orthodox understandings of the mystery of what we are about and what God is up to in dealing with us. Sanctification and glorification became more meaningful. Marcus Borg’s discussions of a transformative journey in relationship with God gave words to what I was thinking about in my last years of college and through seminary and into grad school.

Hope and healing are needed. Yes, challenge too! But not scolding. It shames, it creates resentment, it does everything contrary to enabling us to love ourselves and one another. It is the devil’s work, the task of accusing, and it leads to slander. The primates who are so busy denouncing LGBT folk have, I must say it, no idea what they are talking about. They may know all manner of scripture but they don’t have a monopoly on that. (I was a Baptist, c’mon, get real. You think I don’t know all the passages you love to invoke? I majored in Biblical theology because I loved it, not because I had to.) But they don’t know gay folk. As friend Richard points out, when we have “virtual” enemies we don’t have to engage them or get to know them and we can demonize them from a safe distance. They have openly said they are not interested in a “listening process.” They have concluded a priori that they have nothing to learn from us. They are wrong.

And I would be wrong if I thought I had nothing to learn from them. But what I want to hear is not their conceptions of biblical righteousness. I want to hear their personal stories. I want to understand what life is like in their part of the world. What are their challenges, their blessings, their concerns, their fears, their hopes? What did Good News sound like and feel like when they heard it? What threats do they experience daily? What unique gifts do they bring to the feast? I don’t need them to theologize for me, but I need their witness. We all need each other’s witness. But we don’t need each other’s judgments. That is reserved for the One who made us, redeemed us, loves us, is at work in us, and is the sole assurance of our destiny.

Everyone is happy when the locusts are gone. But there is still the devastation of their visit. I shall be glad when the current unpleasantness is a memory. But it is going to be very messy and painful in the meantime.

Whether the Anglican Communion survives in any form whatsoever is God’s concern, not mine. The communion that seeks to save its life will lose it; the communion that loses its life for Christ’s sake will find it. Just saying. I believe the People of God will continue. I believe the Gospel will still be proclaimed. I believe local communities will worship and serve.

The Anglican Communion has been a great gift to the world and has been a gracious home for me. I like it here. I will continue to pursue what I understand to be an Anglican way of being Christian whether the Communion abides, mutates, or vanishes. Since I am enough of a Buddhist to believe all things are transient and enough of a Christian to believe that God and God’s love are exceptions to that, I can only assume that the Communion will mutate. To cease changing is to die.

I see flourishing congregations and people awakening to new life, so I do not despair. I am concerned about pestilent influences, however.

Anyone have some pestilence repellant handy?

--the BB