Today the church remembers one of those 3rd Century Christians who retains some notoriety in certain circles: Saint Apollonia, Martyr, Deaconess, and Patron Saint of Dental Workers.

Saint Apollonia was a follower of that very early church, born in the first half of the 3rd Century. She lived in Alexandria, Egypt, and was known as a prophet and Deaconess, serving the poor and the needy on the streets.

In those days at the tail end of Emperor Philip the Arabian, the Roman Empire found this new little faith to be an easy target to appease a people who were unpleased with much of Roman rule, scapegoating them and encouraging violence against them.

In the year 249 at around the millennial celebration of Rome’s founding, a mob arose in Alexandria and, after a prophecy of doom for the Empire, began rounding up Christians to torture them.

Saint Apollonia was caught in the mob massacre and beaten and tortured. According to Bishop Dionysus of Alexandria (in a letter sent to Saint Fabius, Bishop of Antioch), Apollonia’s wounds resulted in the loss of all of her teeth. Her assaulters built a large fire and threatened to burn her unless she recanted the faith. Bloody and bruised, Apollonia fought back, got from their grips, and jumped voluntarily into the fire, preferring to give herself to God rather than suffer any more abuse.

Due to her injuries and the story by Bishop Dionysius, Saint Apollonia is now regarded the patron saint of all dental workers. For this reason she is often shown holding dental pliers, or holding a giant tooth. She has quite the following in Britain, and remains one of those early saints that, while largely a footnote in hagiographical lore, is a testament to how that first church held women in high esteem as fellow-laborers and leaders in the church.

Saint Apollonia is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that we must remember our history to empower our present. There is no reason to bar women from the roster…the first church didn’t.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

-historical bits from Daily Magic by Judika Illes, and public sources.

-icon written by Yolande Denneulin

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 Turkey, 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 17th Century Reformer that, honestly, I struggle a lot with remembering as anything more than a cautionary tale: Philipp Jakob Spener, Pietist and Religious Zealot.

Spener was born in the 1635 in Alsace, Germany during the Thirty Years’ War. He studied history and philosophy at Strassbourg, and on a traveling tour of Switzerland fell head over heels for influential Jesuit-turned-Reformer Jean de Labadie, a champion of inner conversion and pietism.

After serving as a pastor in Strassbourg for a season, Spener when to Frankfort, the war-weary town torn by schisms and began “piety groups,” kind of like house churches that were devotional in nature and met first in his house, and then multiplied. He also published is Pia Desideria (Devout Desires) which was, and should be, required reading for all seminarians. Within that seminal text he proposed six reforms for the blooming Reformation movement, and revitalized a catechetical movement for adults and children within the parish.

One of the positives that Spener brought to the Reformation movement was a reminder that the laity were to be involved in all levels of the church. One of the negatives was, well, he was such a strict pietist (and frankly, kind of a jerk by most accounts) that his “my way or the highway” abrasiveness caused him to have both stalwart adherents as well as “never Spener” folks. He just couldn’t get along with people which, it seems, most zealots struggle with no matter what their cause.

This all being said his writing and preaching influenced many (and continues to), setting the foundations for learning institutes and missionary causes throughout the world. Ironically his preaching style was less polemical in nature, and he focused greatly on inner conversion. This, though, led to a great imbalance in his Christian practice, where he preached one thing, but his draconian ideas around morality and ethics produced another action contrary to what was said from the pulpit: The opera was off limits, as was anything other than very conservative dress, and don’t even think about dancing. Card playing was certainly out, drinking alcohol was out, the sacraments took second place to “giving your heart to Jesus,” and the unconverted were bound to burn.

I’m sure no one can identify with that experience…

Spener died on this day in 1705.

St. Spener is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that too much of anything can become a stumbling block…

-historical bits gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations and from too much schooling

-illustration/icon by Ingo Römling

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.