Today the church remembers a 20th Century Sudanese saint remembered for her fierce bravery and gentleness: Saint Josephine Bakhita, Patron Saint of Those Caught in Human Trafficking.

Saint Bakhita (not her given name at birth…the trauma of her story prevented her from remembering her birth name) was raised in Darfur by her loving family until the age of eight. At this young age, she and her sisters were captured and forced into slavery, sold a number of times throughout Africa and the Middle East. It was then that she was given the name Bakhita, which means “fortunate.”

In slavery she was tortured, whipped, scarred and tattooed, and forced to care for children though she herself was still only a child.

When the Suakin region of Sudan, where her captors were living, was besieged by war, Saint Bakhita and her charges were placed under the care of Italian Canossian Sisters in Venice, Italy (because she had recently been “bought” by an Italian diplomat). When it came time to return to Suakin, St. Bakhita refused to leave the convent. Her captors appealed to the Italian courts, but so did the Sisters.

The courts ruled that, since slavery was not a legal thing in Italy, her captors had no rights to her whatsoever. In their eyes she had never been a slave.

It’s nice to hear a legal case where justice prevailed, no?

St. Bakhita, who claimed that the Sisters had exposed her “to the God she had known in her heart since her birth,” entered the process to become a Canossian Sister. She was assigned a place at the convent in Schio, and remained there the rest of her life as the chef, sacristan, and doorkeeper of the convent, putting her in direct contact with the people of her city.

She was remembered for being gentle, kind, and for “having her mind on God, and her heart in Africa.”

She died on February 8th in 1947. Her body lay in repose, and thousands from the city and across the church came to honor her legacy and memory.

Saint Bakhita is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that the church is a place of sanctuary and, in the face of systems that seek to chip away at the dignity of humanity, must speak out forcefully with both our words and our actions.

-historical bits from public access information

-icon written by artist and theologian Jan Norton

Today the church remembers a 1st Century Saint whose mention in Acts of the Apostles (chapters 10 and 11) is indicative of an event much more important than it might first seem: St. Cornelius, Centurion and Bishop of Caesarea.

We know scant about Cornelius other than he was a Gentile convert who heard St. Peter’s preaching, and had his heart “strangely warmed” to borrow a phrase from John Wesley. His conversion, and that of his household, led to a second Pentecost of sorts, as St. Peter, the leader of the Jewish-Christian arm of the early church, began to accept Gentiles into the fold.

This was a huge deal for that early church. It started the domino effect of honoring the missional work of St. Paul and the admission of Gentile-Christians as equal members of the fledgling apocalyptic community.

St. Cornelius, as a Centurion, was a commander of one hundred soldiers. As a full Roman citizen of rank, he was well paid for his work and undoubtedly wealthy and influential.

Lore has him becoming the second Bishop of Caesarea, leaning into his conversion and leading the early church in service.

St. Cornelius is a reminder to me that the church has, at it’s inception, been forced to wrestle with inclusion and, from the outset, chose to have open doors rather than closed ones.

Perhaps that’s a history the church should re-learn in some corners.

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

Today the church honors a Saint whose work was like a fine wine taking time to develop: St. Ansgar, Bishop of Hamburg and Apostle of the North.

9th Century St. Ansgar was, on the face of his work, not very accomplished. In all of his missionary zeal he was only able to establish two churches on the border of Denmark and appoint one priest in Sweden.

But the small seeds that St. Ansgar scattered across the frozen north eventually took root, settling and snuggling in with the Viking and Celtic practices found there.

At the beginning of the 9th Century the church was seeing Scandinavia as the next frontier for the faith. A few prominent nobles had embraced Christianity, including King Harald (cool spelling of that name, no?) of Denmark who sought to regain his throne from a pagan usurper. In response to some of these hospitable events, the church began sending missionaries to the Viking lands. The seafaring people they met there were hearty and quite sophisticated in their own way, and though they tolerated (sometimes) these missionaries, they mostly saw them as useful for creating trading markets.

Still, the message these missionaries carried did take hold, especially amongst the slaves that had been brought north who were eager to hear the stories of their childhood faith offering hope in a weary land.

In 829 AD a group of these merchants asked Emperor Louis the Pious (who’d want to be remembered like that?) to send a Christian mission to Sweden to help establish a regular trading route, and Ansgar was chosen.

Ansgar and his small party set out and were attacked by Vikings who took all of their possessions and money. Arriving at their destination penniless, King Bjorn (the local prelate) gave them food, shelter, and allowed them to preach their Gospel. Though they had few converts, King Bjorn’s bailiff took the faith to heart and, with his own capital, erected the first church in Sweden.

In 831 St. Ansgar was appointed Archbishop of Hamburg, seeing that as a good place from which to continue sending missions to the north. St. Ansgar was blessed with an organizational mind (probably an Enneagram One) and was able to create community systems to preach and gather small pockets of apocalyptic people together to practice the faith.

In 845 Vikings saw Hamburg as a growing site of wealth and organization and decided they wanted in on the action, so they pillaged it and burned it to the ground. Undeterred, St. Ansgar continued to rebuild after the destruction of the city, patiently working and restoring those missional pathways throughout Denmark and Sweden. He worked at this until his death in 865 AD.

St. Ansgar is now roundly regarded as a Patron Saint of Scandinavia having tilled the soil and planted seeds that, true to the agrarian reality of the frigid north, took a while to take root. He is usually depicted in a fur collar and holding a mini-church, a nod to his life’s work.

St. Ansgar is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes you don’t see the fruits of your labor, but you stick at it, by God.

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

Today the church honors The Presentation of Jesus, a minor feast day that mentions two major saints of the faith: St. Simeon and St. Anna, Elders and Prophets.

Yes, we don’t know much about these saints (noted at the end of Luke 2) except to say that their patience and wisdom is instructive for a humanity that too easily leans toward immediacy and easy answers.

They hold up the Christ child in all his potential, declaring Jesus a special one. Imagine what could happen if we lifted up all children this way, not just those born in privilege.

It could change the world. It has before.

Christians bless candles today, making the metaphorical shift that the Christ is also the light of the world.

The Celts, more practical, would haul out new candles today because it is the midpoint between the solstice and the equinox, and the early winter candles are now spent as we are in the belly of the snow season.

But light daily grows, Beloved.

Anna and Simeon knew this.

St. Simeon and St. Anna are a reminder for me, and should be for all of the church, that all who are fortunate become old, but not all become elders.

Becoming an elder takes time, intention, patience, and a wisdom that comes from trusting promises in the face of scoffers and opposition.

Today the church remembers a Celtic Saint (which makes her close to my heart): Saint Brigid (commonly called St.Bride in Scotland), Abbess and Protector of Ireland.

Sometimes called “the Mary of the Gael,” not much historically verifiable is known about St. Brigid’s early life, though legend and lore abound. On the island of Ireland she is revered as much as St. Patrick in most places, and her story is a mix of Christian and pre-Christian wonder. The daughter of a druid who had a vision from the Divine that his offspring would protect and change Ireland, St. Brigid was said to have been born at sunrise while her mother was walking over a threshold (a point of significance for the ancient Celts, because it meant that she was neither “in nor out” when St. Brigid arrived).

St. Brigid would live into this “neither here nor there” nature throughout her life. She was a peace-loving monastic, but also a fierce warrior. She was both wise and approachable. She was both Christian and pagan in her outlook.

She was known as a strong, happy, and compassionate woman who started a community of women at Kildare in the late 5th-early 6th Century. St. Brigid was said to be wise, and was sought out in life by many for counsel, and admired in death by poets, story-tellers and song-writers who used her as inspiration, many quite fanciful.

Lore has it that it was St. Brigid who spread out her green mantle over all of Ireland to make shine like an emerald.

In Ireland today more than a few rivers bear her name.

In addition to being a wise spiritual leader and community builder. St. Brigid was said to have been the protector of the land, officially the guardian of the pagan king Torc Triath of what is now West Tipperary. In a time when Ireland was a destination for all seafaring people, the need for protection was great. St. Brigid was an accomplished warrior. In ancient Celtic culture women were seen not only as capable leaders, but in many areas superior.

St. Brigid died in the early 6th Century, and her following grew to the point that her relics were prized possessions that had to be continually moved and hidden from invading marauders who sought to steal them as a trophy.

The most remarkable thing about St. Brigid, though, is not her historical self, but the part she now plays in Celtic Christianity. St. Brigid’s day comes in the “dead months” (marbh mhios) of winter when humanity in the northern hemisphere finds itself “Imbolc” or “in the belly” of winter. Her feast day is a reminder for the Celtic Christians that winter doesn’t last forever, and though you now might see only shadows, the sun is growing stronger every day, by God.

This reminder of St. Brigid, woman of wisdom and strength, works for the winter of the seasons, and in all the metaphorical winters of your life, Beloved.

St. Brigid is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, at least three things:

First: live in such a way that people write wonderful stories about your wisdom and strength.

Secondly: the intermingling of Christian and non-Christian sensibilities has helped the faith to develop, and this can be seen in no better place than in Celtic Christianity.

Finally: though we must live with winter, it never lasts forever.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

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

-Celtic lore found from stories of my ancestors as well as Freeman’s Kindling the Celtic Spirit

-icon written by Larry at IconWriterArtist on Etsy