Today the church remembers a saint that everyone knows, but no one knows much about: St. Joseph, Step-Father of Jesus and Companion of St. Mary.

St. Joseph is only mentioned in three of the four Gospels (Mark doesn’t seem to know about him, or doesn’t think he’s important enough to mention), but because the Christmas tales are so popular in our age, St. Joseph is part of that other holy Trinity: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.

Matthew and Luke don’t even really agree on the genealogy of Jesus, but both trace Joseph through that singing Psalmist David, making a direct connection between Jesus and the House of David. Matthew indicates that St. Joseph was originally a resident of Bethlehem who made his home in Nazareth (which is how he met Mary for Matthew), but Luke says that Joseph was a longtime resident of Nazareth, and only went to Bethlehem for the census.

St. Joseph, like Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, seems to be a person without a known home, which I kind of like, because it means that St. Joseph could be anyone…like you, or me, and entrusted with the Christ-child for the sake of the world.

Scriptures say that he was a carpenter (though the Greek word used is kind of obscure and could mean anything from “artisan” to “rock mason”…I like to think he was an artist). The Gospels portray him as a fair individual, and a devout follower of Judaism who sought wisdom and understanding.

Because the Gospel accounts don’t mention him again, it is thought that he had died by the time Jesus is crucified. This is entirely plausible as marriages in the ancient world were often unequal in age, and wives typically outlived their spouses (hence why “widows and orphans” is noted so often in the scriptures). That all being said, nothing in the scriptures notes he was older, so why do we assume he might be?

I’m glad you asked…

There’s a fun (and fake) 2nd Century Gospel attributed to James the Less, a disciple of Jesus, that makes that claim. And in the 5th Century we find a History of Joseph the Carpenter that claims he was 89 (!) when he was a widower, and married Mary when he was 91 (!). That’s a stretch for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that hardly anyone in the ancient world lived that long.

The first commemorations to St. Joseph are recorded in the 8th Century from Northern France that calls him the artful “Spouse of Mary.” I prefer to think of him as the “Step-Father of Jesus” not only because the Gospels functionally portray him that way, but also because it gives a holy nod to the blended families that bless this world.

St. Joseph is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that everyone is called to be a step-father to the Divine Love Letter in this world.

We are all Josephs, no matter where we’re from.

-historical bits gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

Today the church remembers the church father who, in all likelihood, instituted the feast days of Palm Sunday and the observance of Holy Week: St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem and First (unofficial) Sunday School Teacher of the Church.

St. Cyril was born in Jerusalem sometime around the early 4th Century. At a young age he was ordained a priest and, despite his youth, was entrusted with catechizing those preparing for baptism. This work was traditionally reserved only for the Bishop, but Cyril’s skill in teaching and relaying the doctrine of the church was impeccable.

The catechesis that St. Cyril created, known as the Catechetical Lectures are the clearest surviving notes that we have on the catechetical process of the early church for the Rite of Initiation which leads to the Rite of Holy Baptism (at least for adults…for children the process is reversed).

Cyril became Bishop of Jerusalem around the year 349, and remained in that holy seat until his death on this day in 386. Yet, during his bishopric he led in exile more than a few times, as that early church fought over doctrine and dogma (seems like a pattern, no?).

St. Cyril was Bishop over the Holy Land, the site of holy pilgrimage for many early Christians, especially around Easter. It is quite likely that St. Cyril, in all of his catechetical acumen, instituted the Feast of Palm Sunday and the events of Holy Week as a way to teach Christians about the Passion of the Christ. In many ways you can thank St. Cyril for what are, I believe, the best parts of Christian ritual.

St. Cyril is a reminder for me, and can be for the whole church, that rites and rituals are not “hoops we jump through,” but formative experiences that create a rhythm in our being that can be supremely meaningful in the right hands.

-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

-icon written by Brother Simeon Davis of Monastery Icons

Today the church remembers St. Patrick, the 5th Century missionary to Ireland.

He was not religious as a child, and as an early teen was seized by Irish raiders and sold as a slave in Ireland. In his bondage and loneliness, he began to pray every day.

He eventually managed to escape in his late teens and returned to Roman-Britain, now spiritual and convinced that he was called to serve the Irish people not as a slave, but as a shepherd.

He studied for the priesthood, and became Bishop of Ireland in the 430’s.

Lore is legion for this Irish saint, and he became known for standing up for the Irish, even against the will and decrees of his native Roman-British. He was known for leading a vigorous and historic life. He died in 461 in County Down.

Prayer of St. Patrick (modern adaptation by me):

Christ with me,
Christ before me, leading to stand between my neighbor and those who would harm them, shoot them, slur them,
Christ behind me, pulling me back from being the harmer, the shooter, the slanderer.
Me in Christ.
Christ beneath me, showing me how to care for those trod under the feet of a system that favors the already-favored,
Christ above me, pulling me out of the pit of depression and all the personal hells we all find ourselves in,
Christ on the right of me, teaching me to love those more conservative than me,
Christ on the left of me, teaching me to love those more liberal than me,
Christ when I lie down, making my bed in the many and various agreements I find myself in that I am proud, and not so proud, of…agreements that betray my values, and also ones that speak to the kind of human I want to be,
Christ when I sit down with the protesters…(Christ make me sit down, that should say), and when I sit down and keep quiet because I’ve seen my privilege and they don’t need another voice like mine in the mix,
Christ when I arise like a phoenix from the fires that almost take my life,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks, fondly or unfondly, of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks, kindly or unkindly, of me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me at my best and worst,
Christ in the ear of everyone who hears me, at my best and at my worst.

St. Patrick is a testament to how, when we fall in love with a people, we also fall in line with them against the powers of the world that threaten them. He was an ally for the abused Irish, and is now one of their patron saints.

Today the church remembers the yang to St. Vincent de Paul’s yin: St. Louise de Marillac, Patron Saint of Social Workers and Friend of Those With Depression.

Born in France at the tail end of the 16th Century, Louise encountered many challenges in life. She was born out of wedlock to a mother she would never know and a father who died when she was twelve. Despite the early hardships, she had received an exemplary education, and her uncle was part of the Queen’s Court, which gave her allies in high places…that is until the civil unrest of the time forced his untimely demise.

When her father died, St. Louise went to live with a kindly spinster in town who taught her herbal medicine (Louise was perpetually sick), and from a young age she felt the call to cloistered life.

Unfortunately, cloistered life did not feel the same about her. She was denied entry as a Capuchin, and had to pivot to a plan B for her life. Her family encouraged her to get married, and she stumbled upon Antoine, an ambitious young man whom she would, in time, grow to sort of love.

From their union one child was born, Michel, whom she loved dearly.

But in these days St. Louise still felt much inner turmoil. She had wanted to follow a life of devotion to God, and yet here she was with a husband and child. She felt like she had abandoned her call in life which, along with the failing health of her husband, led her into a deep depression.

Yet, like so many in life, she lived with the depression, tending her ailing husband and doting on her son. I think we would all be surprised to know the number of functioning people living with depression, doing what they must for those they love, even as their insides feel empty…

One day in prayer, St. Louise felt an overwhelming sense of calm. She realized that she must stay with her husband, though she felt a strong call to the cloister still, and should she outlive him, she would refuse to marry and then accept her vows. In this same clarity of purpose, she also said she felt a Divine assurance that a new spiritual director would enter her life.

Soon after she met St. Vincent de Paul, and that, as they say, is that.

Despite her excellent care, Antoine died in 1625. As a widow with a son and without income, she moved into a more modest home, and lobbied for St. Vincent to become her confessor. He eventually agreed, though he was already very busy giving his life away to the sick and infirm in France.

Over the next few years, under St. Vincent’s spiritual care, St. Louise came to see her life attain more balance. She joined St. Vincent in his care for the needy and sick in France, and found both joy and success in the work. At the age of forty-two she went on retreat and received a new vision for her life: she must lean into her vows and start the Daughters of Charity.

Part of the vision was a realization that social class and stigma prevented the upper class from aiding the lower class. Yeah, sure, they sent meals and provided some minor medical care, but the tension between the classes remained and made everyone hesitant to give, and to receive, care.

Plus, St. Louise realized the aristocracy didn’t like the work of caring for the needy…and they were kind of lousy at it, honestly.

So, St. Louise set up a system of care that leaned upon the aristocracy to raise funds, but left the practical hands-on work to a group of sisters who not only identified with those they were caring for, but were trusted by them, too. These women who would come to care for the sick and infirm were usually from rural areas of France, and their unique upbringing made them supremely capable of the task in a way that elite city-dwellers were not.

St. Louise organized these women into formational homes, teaching them practical care and spirituality. Being savvy with governmental regulations, St. Louise began organizing her work to have centralized places of care throughout the city where the medical and social needs of the poor could be handled. She enlisted the help of doctors, nurses, and politicians to have sites set up in hotels, hospitals, prisons, the battle field, and eventually orphanages and mental institutions.

In concert with those doctors and nurses, she created nimble teams of care-givers to provide comprehensive services to those in need.

She, in effect, created a modern-day social worker network.

At the age of 68, St. Louise breathed her last, having set up over 40 places of care throughout France.

St. Louise is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes being in touch with the difficulties in your own life make you supremely qualified to walk with others through their own difficulties. And yet, it is often those people the church…like St. Louise…rejects at first.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

Today, in the middle of Women’s History Month here in the States, I would lobby hard that the church remember a modern day saint who was the first woman to ever appear on United States currency: Saint Susan B. Anthony, Abolitionist, Suffragist and Sufferer of No Fools.

Saint Susan was born in 1820 to working-class Quaker parents in Massachusetts. The Quaker ethos would forever be a golden thread running through Susan’s life as she spent years teaching children, and then eventually met up with two other saints, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, both who were friends with her father.

This meeting forever moved her heart, and she decided to throw her voice behind the abolitionist movement despite the headwinds of patriarchy that told her that women should not speak in public spaces.

In 1851 Susan met Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a new adventure began in earnest: the fight for suffragist movement. For over fifty years Susan spoke and advocated and marched for the right for women to vote. She was mocked for it. She was denegrated for it. She was even threatened with arrest at times.

And still she persisted.

Saint Susan, like all saints, was not without her flaws. Through the backward lens of history (as Kierkegaard said, “Life is understood backwards but lived forwards…”) we can see that her opposition to the 14th and 15th Amendments that gave African American men the right to vote was short sighted. Part of their critque was the absence of women from the bill. Part of it was probably due to the ugly factor of deep-seeded prejudice that is wiley and pervasive.

In 1872 Saint Susan was arrested for voting and charged $100. This act of civil disobedience only emboldened her cause, and suffragist movements popped up all over the country, merging together into large forces, marches, and vocal activists that could not be ignored. The National American Women’s Suffragist Association was born as a merger of two of these organized entities, and Saint Susan led them until 1900.

She died on this day in 1906, never fully realizing the goal of her cause…the 19th Amendment would not be ratified until 1920…and yet, it persisted.

Saint Susan B. Anthony is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes we don’t see the fruit of our labors for justice and equality.

And yet, we must persist.

-historical bits from public sources

-minimalist design by thefilmartist available for purchase at redbubble.com

On March 12th the church honors and reveres one of the most dedicated early leaders of the church: Saint Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome and Reformer of Liturgies.

Saint Gregory the Great (you can call him Greg) was born into an important family in the middle of the 6th Century who had long been converts, his grandfather having been Pope when he was young and full of dreams. Saint Gregory was born into great wealth, had the benefit of a world-class (for the time) education, and became a Prefect of Rome (basically an Alderman), was in the Roman Senate, and proved that ambition and the roll of the privilege dice were all that were needed to be in the seat of power.

And then his father died.

In the shadow of this death, something happened to Saint Greg and he decided to not only become a monk, but turn his family home into a monasttery and give most of his inheritance to the poor.

Saint Gregory was ordained and was sent to Constantinople, learned about the church in the East, and then returned to Rome to become the personal counselor of Pope Pelagius II. While in Rome a plague devestated the city killing masses, including Pope Pelagius.

Once again Saint Greg would be called to take the seat of power, becoming Bishop of Rome in short order, but not being consecrated for a bit because the church of the East had to first give its blessing. While he waited to assume the miter Saint Greg kept himself busy by personally tending to the sick and dying in Rome, leading the people there in prayer for release and relief.

As if the plague wasn’t enough, in 592AD the Lombards besieged Rome. Because so many of the civil leaders had died of the rampant sickness, Saint Greg was the one to rally the people to defend the city and contribute to the rebuilding through a yearly tax.

Saint Greg basically became a real-day superhero for many in Rome. Civil government had failed. Appeals for help from others (looking at you Byzantine Empire) had failed.

Saint Gregory had empowered them to succeed and get through it.

And not only that, Saint Gregory the Great had done it with care and compassion for the poor and calls for justice for the needy. He instituted liturgical reforms, even presiding at a variety of parishes himself, writing chants and prayers (you know them as “Gregorian”), calling for the Alleluia to be sung except during Lent (you have him to blame), changing the second petition of the Kyrie to “Christ have mercy…,” reminding priests that their sermons needed to be timely and good, and to cap it off he stuck the Lord’s Prayer to the spot in the Mass where it currently remains during the Eucharistic rite.

He was busy. He claimed that he saw himself as the “servant of the servants of God.” Not a bad way of looking at the office, no?

But for those of us who come from the Isles, we know of Saint Gregory mostly because it was the missionaries he sent who decided to talk about Jesus in the frigid north of Briton.

Saint Greg was not particularly brilliant (relatable content), nor was he supremely profound (ditto), but he was known as sincere and masterful at understanding how power can both trample the people or elevate them, and he chose to elevate them.

Though he described himself as “sickly” his entire life, and said he longed to live as a simple monk somewhere in the countryside, he lived a very robust and public life until his death on this day in the year 604AD. Though our Roman siblings honor him in September (so as to avoid his feast during a potentially penitential season), Lutherans prefer to honor him today.

Saint Greg the Great is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that you don’t have to be brilliant or profound to be kind and make a whole lotta damn difference in this world.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations

-icon written by Theophilia at DeviantArt (where you can purchase it)

Today we remember a legendary (literally) character in Americana: Johnny Appleseed, Evangelist and Erstwhile Ecologist.

Born John Chapman in the late 18th Century, Johnny’s mother died at a young age leaving him and his infant sister in the care of their father, a Minuteman who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

At the turn of the 19th Century a young adult Johnny shows up in Pennsylvania, tossing around apple and pear seeds like they’re confetti at a ticker-tape parade, espousing the philosophical and religious teachings of a certain Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish spiritual teacher.

Yeah. All you forgot about that, didn’t you?

Because he carried around these seeds and threw them everywhere, wanting to “provide shade for all travelers,” Chapman became known as Johnny Appleseed. But chiefly he was a religious fanatic (not in a bad way, just was), preaching the Swedeborgian philosophical beliefs as he went along. With a pack of apple seeds you also got a free religious pamphlet, as if to say, “Please, throw this away for me.”

As unusual as his journey was, his dress was just as odd for the times. Like a mirror of John the Baptizer, Johnny traveled barefoot with a broad-rimmed hat, to keep the sun out of his eyes. He traveled largely by horseback or canoe, and lived off of the extreme kindness of strangers who found a place for the young evangelist at their supper tables.

Though Johnny’s birthday falls in September (and some heretics honor him in that month), the sane Americana-lovers like myself prefer this March date because now is the time of planting.

Do yourself a favor and check out Swedeborgian churches. There are some still in the United States, though it’s a quickly-shrinking religion.

One final note, and this is worth remembering: though Johnny Appleseed dressed funny and espoused an unusual religious creed, most every legend or personal account of him notes his pure kindness.

Honestly: despite all our quirks, if we’re remembered just for that…that’s a pretty good life.

“Oh, the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord,
for giving me the things I need: the sun, and the rain,
and the apple seed.
The Lord is good to me. Amen!”

Today the church remembers a 19th Century saint who deserves to be remembered much more widely than she is: St. Sojourner Truth, Abolitionist, Voting Rights Activist, and Fierce Protector of Humanity.

Born in New York under the name Isabella Bomfree, St. Sojourner was bought and sold four times by people who thought they could own other people. At 15 she was joined with another slave and birthed five children, eventually fleeing slavery with her infant Sophia to take shelter with an abolitionist family. That family bought her freedom for $20, and helped her sue to have her son Peter returned to her after he was illegally sold to a family in Alabama.

St. Sojourner Truth moved to New York City and, joining the Black Church movement there, became a charismatic speaker and preacher, proclaiming in 1843 that the Holy Spirit had called her to be renamed Sojourner Truth. In New York City she joined forces with Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison in decrying the demonic pandemic of slavery that spread across the land. She also began speaking out for women’s suffrage, taking up the mantle with Susan B. Anthony.

In 1851 she went on a national tour in the North, famously delivering her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at a women’s suffrage conference in Akron, Ohio. At six feet tall, St. Sojourner brought the audience to attention by pointing out both her strength and femininity make her extremely powerful in equal measure.

St. Sojourner eventually settled in Battle Creek, Michigan to be near her three daughters and help them raise their families. From her outpost in Michigan she continued to preach, speak, and help fleeing slaves escape to the North by providing safe harbor. As the Civil War began, St. Sojourner encouraged soldiers to join the cause of freedom, and became a gatherer of supplies for black Union troops. Because of her efforts, many black regiments were outfitted in ways that the neglectful Northern Army reserved only for white regiments. After the war she was invited to the White House to meet President Lincoln, and began on a new course in life to help the freed slaves find jobs in a fractured America.

Having spent her life as an advocate for others, St. Truth died in 1883 having used up most of her physical faculties (she was both hard of hearing and legally blind at death), but retaining her mental tenacity.

St. Sojourner Truth is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church (and all people), that the moral arc bends toward justice, but the Divine calls upon all of us to aid in the bending, by God.

Even if it takes a lifetime.

My favorite quote by St. Sojourner is,

“That man say we can’t have as much rights as a man ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman. Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with it.”

-historical bits gleaned from entry in the National Women’s History Museum

-icon from St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, San Francisco