Today the church remembers, with mixed-emotions, Cyril of Alexandria, 5th Century Bishop and teacher.

Cyril (a name that should make a comeback) was not exactly a stand-up individual, but had a keen theological mind. He was a ruthless ideologue who sometimes incited his followers to violence. Whether or not this was by intention or accident, history is unclear.

He was quick to raise hell against church leaders he found heretical, focusing most of his ire against Nestorius, who was taught in the theological school of Antioch. Nestorius argued that Jesus was of two persons, one human and one divine. Cyril championed the opposite, that Jesus was of one person, both human and divine. He presided over the Council of Ephesus in 431 where this was discussed and where Nestorius was condemned as a heretic.

In the years following the council, Cyril mellowed, though, through wise counsel from Isidore of Pelusium.

He grew up, aged though he was.

He left a great number of writings, and is cited in several places throughout the Lutheran Confessions.

Cyril is a reminder for me, and the whole church, that brilliant people are not always kind, and kind people are not always brilliant, and that we can honor the good in someone without honoring the whole of a person’s life and conduct.

For as much as we talk about “sinner and saint,” we’re sure quick to denounce and deride people who, though they contribute mightily to the common good, were greatly flawed themselves.

Cyril was brilliant but brash. He was even violent to the point of despicability. Yet we can take his brilliance and still denounce his character.

May none of us be remembered for our worst traits.

-historical notes gleaned from Pfatteicher’s “New Book of Festivals & Commemorations”

Today the church remembers the Siskel to Luther’s Ebert, the Burt to Luther’s Ernie, the Ginger to Luther’s Fred: Saint Philipp Melanchthon, Reformer, Renewer, and Editor.

Saint Philipp’s true last name is Schwarzerd, and he was born on February 16th at the end of the 15th Century. In Greek, though, his last name is Melanchthon, meaning, “dark earth,” probably a nod to his family’s farming heritage.

Saint Philipp was a great student and a natural talent. By the age of twelve he had already mastered Latin, and by thirteen had Greek under his belt as well. He attended both Heidelberg University and Tubingen where he was awarded a Masters Degree for his studies. He was brilliant, he was a humanist, and eventually he became the first professor of Greek at Wittenberg where he would encounter a grumpy, fiery Martin Luther in the Theology Department.

Luther encouraged Melanchthon to study theology as well as Aristotle, and he eventually started teaching that as well at Wittenberg, proving quite popular with the students. With this outstanding professor roaming its halls, Wittenberg became a leading university in Medieval Europe.

In the fall of 1520 Saint Philipp entered unwittingly into the arena of politics when he married the daughter of Wittenberg’s mayor. Their marriage was both a blessing and included a good bit of tragedy as two of their children died quite young. In this both Saint Philipp and our own Blessed Martin shared a similar heartache. All the same, Saint Philipp and his wife, Katherine, were known to be generous and hospitable to everyone they encountered.

In 1521 Saint Philipp published his Loci Communes, the first compilation of Lutheran doctrine ever assembled. But Saint Philipp was not only interested in theology. With Luther’s help, Saint Philipp would go on to tackle social issues in Germany, reorganizing schools and championing public education. It was Saint Philipp who would take the lead in the development of elementary and secondary education, making the study of the classics as the bedrock of public schooling.

Saint Philipp was often called upon to make appearances at debates and meetings where he would draft reports, refutations, and articles of reconciliation. He was a master writer and had a way of tempering Luther’s often bombastic treatises.

Saint Philipp never entered the priesthood, but rather played the important role of invested layperson. He died in Wittenberg just three years after his beloved Katherine in 1560. He is remembered on this day because today is the anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession, the founding document of the Reformation. Melanchthon’s influence and pen is all over that document, and he presented it to Emperor Charles V at 3pm at his diet to settle religious controversies because Luther had already been excommunicated.

Saint Philipp is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that every endeavor is a team effort. Luther would not have gotten far without Saint Philipp, who quietly, brilliantly, created the road on which the Reformation trod.

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

Today the church celebrates the Nativity of John the Forerunner, you probably know him as “John the Baptizer,” popularly called the Cousin of Jesus.

John is the miraculous child of the aged Zechariah and Elizabeth, and we first hear of John’s movement in the world when a very pregnant Mary visits a very pregnant Elizabeth, and the still-wombed John leaps for joy.

John was religiously an Essene, otherwise known as a Son of Zadok, an extremist streak of Judaism known for odd behavior and dress. The Essenes focused heavily on repentance, rejected an immoral life, and publicly critiqued the rulers of the day, the Herodians.

This last part will get him killed in the end.

There are still followers of John the Forerunner in Iraq, believing that he is the rightful and true Messiah. They are a severely oppressed minority.

John’s birth day is no accident and is certainly not factually bound. The ancient church put it squarely six months before Jesus’ natal day, near the other pole of nature’s sequence, the Summer Solstice. As Jesus’ birth was placed near the Winter’s Solstice where light will ever increase, John’s natal day was placed near the Summer Solstice, where light will ever decrease, but never be extinguished. This dating of John the Forerunner’s feast pairs nicely with his own words in the Gospel of John (3:30) where the baptizer says, “I must decrease so that he might increase.”

Interestingly, Saint John the Forerunner is the patron saint of Quebec, and is celebrated all across French Canada.

Saint John the Forerunner is a reminder for me, and for the whole church, I think, that the call of the faithful is the call of both personal and societal critique. So much of what passes for Christianity today is focused too heavily on personal reform. John reminds us that our own internal reform should always lead us to call for societal reform.

Even if we lose our life in the process.

Today the church remembers a 4th Century saint that has largely been lost to history, but whose name continues to be used on church signs, street markers (even here in Raleigh), and a number of notable British towns and landmarks: Saint Alban, Master of Disguise and Martyr.

St. Alban was a Roman soldier stationed in what was then the far reaches of the Empire: Verulamium, twenty miles north of London on the British Isles.

One night a priest came knocking at his door seeking shelter from bounty hunter soldiers who intended to kill him for the reward offered. St. Alban took him in, and when the marauding soldiers came to his house, St. Alban dressed as the priest and let the old Father escape.

The soldiers took St. Alban, tortured him, and martyred him in place of the priest, even though they knew they had the wrong person.

At the place of the martyrdom an abbey, St. Alban’s Abbey, now stands.

St. Alban is the earliest person we know tied to the Christian faith on the British Isles, and he’s largely considered the first Christian martyr of Britain (though we have no knowledge of his belief system).

Personally, I like to think that St. Alban was not a Christian, but rather just a good human who understood that when someone knocks at your door intending to harm someone in your house for their beliefs, their skin color, or their heritage, you have no choice but to tell them the truth: there is no one in that house that they can take.

St. Alban is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes salvation isn’t found in people who believe like you do, but rather in wonderful humans of every creed and stripe who just know the face of the Divine when they see it.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

Today is a day when the church laments.

It laments of white privilege which, by the way, I’ve had more than a handful of “good, God-fearing church members” tell me is fictional. What an ignorant pleasure it must be to ignore truth.

It laments of racism, in which it is (not has-been, is) complicit.

And it honors the Emmanuel 9, gunned down in Bible Study and prayer, after they welcomed the stranger, Dylann Roof, in their midst, a boy taught in a Lutheran church and raised on a supposed diet of grace and peace.

There are no fail-safes in this world, Beloved, not on guns nor gospel perversions.

Today I am reminded of the words of the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, my spiritual mentor and muse, when he said,

“Believers know that while our values are embodied in tradition, our hopes are always located in change.”

So as the Confederate monuments (real and metaphorical) continue to topple around us, as Mary predicted they would in Luke 1:52, we also today lift up our voices in confession for having erected too many racist monuments in our lives by the things we have done and left undone.

Indeed, in many cases the cross, our symbol, has become a racist monument, twisted into the swastika, burned in front of hanging bodies, a barrier between peoples.

But not just those literal monuments. Most especially we repent of all of the figurative ones we erect, too.

Today we cry and lament and work for that change which is the currency of our hope.

(art by Philippe Lazaro)

Today many parts of the church remember a duo of 4th Century saints, a mother and son: Saint Cyricus and Saint Julitta, Family of Fortitude.

Saint Julitta was of noble birth, living in Asia Minor. During the persecution of Christians during Diocletian, she is said to have fled to Tarsus with her young son, Cyricus. To avoid detection, she hid her noble status, and tried to pass as a typical citizen, but having been widowed early on in her life, had little protection in the eyes of the law. As she fled, Saint Julitta was captured by the governor of Tarsus, along with her child, and tortured and interrogated until she admitted she was a follower of The Way. Her son was said to have called for his mother even as she was being hurt by the system that sought their demise.

Legend has it that St. Cyricus, when grabbed by the murderous governor, scratched his face and screamed. They both were reportedly martyred for the faith, victims of state-sanctioned violence against the vulnerable.

So, here’s the thing Beloved: I make note of these two saints of the faith, obscure as they are, because I believe we are still witnesses to state-sanctioned violence against the vulnerable and the weak.

Saint Cyricus is a patron saint of children, one we need to lift up in these days where schools are still shot up. Saint Julitta is the patron saint of single mothers and, unfortunately, is the unwitting saint of mothers whose children are victims of state-sanctioned violence.

Black and Brown citizens are gunned down shopping for their daily bread, just weeks ago. Babies were killed learning their ABC’s, just weeks ago. And lest we think this happens occasionally: gun violence happens every day in this country.

Every day.

A unique occurrence here in America. Perhaps this is “American exceptionalism” at it’s most raw.

And it’s not like other nations do not have mental health crises. They do. What’s the difference?

Access to assault weapons.

Saint Julitta and Saint Cyricus are reminders for me, and should be for the whole church, that the state is absolutely willing to put up with violence, especially at the expense of the weakest amongst us.

But the church? The church cannot be willing to put up with it…and neither should the larger citizenry.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

-historical bits gleaned from publicly available sources and from Judika’s Daily Magic.

-icon written in the traditional Greek Orthodox style

Today the church remembers a recent spiritual hero, Saint Evelyn Underhill, teacher of mysticism within the church.

Born in England and taught at King’s College in London, she was already a promising writer when she underwent a spiritual conversion. Initially drawn to Roman Catholicism, she eventually was unable to make the Catechumenate oath due to the church’s rejection of modernism.

Instead, she turned to the mystics, of all denominations, for spiritual guidance.

She devoted her time to compiling and anthologizing the writings and lives of saints and mystics, resulting in her tome Mysticism (1911). She then came under the influence of Baron Friedrich von Hugel, a spiritual director who led her to her own mystical experiences. This led to her second major work, Concerning the Inner Life, which incorporated the the life of the saints with her own reflections, ponderings, and insights.

She eventually joined the Anglican church, and led retreats for spiritual seekers. After her death various letters of hers were published, indicating that she cared for her retreat attendees long past their individual retreats.

A lovely quote she’s known for is, “A certain wise Prioress said, ‘Most books on religion have thousands of words–we need only one word, GOD–and that surrounded not by many words but by silence.'”

Saint Underhill is a reminder for the church, and for me, that the spiritual quest need not be found in one doctrine or under one umbrella but a seeker, in the end, should at least anchor themselves to one as a way of rooting and grounding. That rooting and grounding doesn’t prohibit you from exploring, but rather keeps you solid as you spiritually stretch.

-historical notes from Pfatteicher’s “New Book of Festivals & Commemorations”

Today the Church celebrates one of our moveable, and most confounding, Feast Days: The Feast of the Holy Trinity.

Here’s the thing about the Holy Trinity: it is a mystery to be held, not a problem to be solved…so we should stop trying to solve it, already.

At its best this doctrine, and this Feast Day (which has been celebrated on this Sunday after Pentecost since at least the 10th Century), honors the ineffable nature of the Divine. Using ancient numerology and a mystic mindset, it acknowledges that some things are unknowable, always spinning, and that this can be comforting for a humanity that longs to peg everything down.

A God who cannot be pegged down is endlessly possible.

At its worst this doctrine has become a (primarily masculine) box that explains in ways that don’t make any sense who God is and how Jesus and God are related, and then throws in a bird (or are they all the same and not related at all? See what happens when you think about it too much?!).

The Trinity is a Divine whirlwind of creativity and love.

The Trinity is a thought that is foundational to all other thoughts.

The Trinity is mother of all, the stream in which time is caught up, the hovering mist that covers existence.

And it is also none of this.

The Holy Trinity is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that any effort to peg the Divine down is a fool’s errand (thank God).

-Icon is Crow Trinity written by Fr. John Giuliani

Though not an official saint day, I would lobby hard for it to become one.

Today the church (should) honor the 49 pulses stopped too soon in the Pulse Nightclub shooting, an act that was both domestic terrorism and hate crime wrapped into one bloody night.

In the days following I remember giving blood, and upon entering the waiting room, finding a number of young adults in tears, waiting. A young woman walked up to the attendant, asking, “How old do you have to be to give? If I bring my mom in, can she sign for me? She’ll give too.”

So much blood. On the dance floor. On the hands of a country that refuses to adequately deal with the scourge of gun violence. In vials filled to help the 53 victims wounded in the act.

The Saints of Pulse remind the church, and all of us, that until we tackle both the hate of the heart and the lack of regulations that allow people to wantonly act on that rage in mass murder, we’re not done.

We’re not done.

Today is one of my favorite feast days because an early apostle, who doesn’t get a lot of play, gets a nod from the church.

Today the church honors St. Barnabas, a Jewish-Christian from the Diaspora. His name means, “child of encouragement,” probably because he was such a dynamite preacher.

He has long been thought to be one of the seventy that Jesus sent out in Luke 10, and he was a staunch defender of Paul in the courts of the early church, believing that Paul had indeed had a conversion.

His early work was in Antioch, where the church was thriving, and he asked Paul to assist him there…yes, you read that correctly, Paul assisted Barnabas in his early career. Eventually Paul would take the lead, but he learned how to lead from Barnabas. This little tidbit has been lost in history due to Paul’s enormous influence and ego, but it’s worth remembering.

In the early church arguments over the inclusion of Gentiles, Barnabas sided mostly with Paul, calling for Gentiles to be accepted into the fold. Barnabas eventually took John Mark under his tutelage, leaving Paul to travel with Silas, and as Barnabas headed toward Cyprus, we lose track of him in the fog of history.

Lore states that Barnabas was stoned in Cyprus around the year 60.

The Epistle of Barnabas, supposedly written by the apostle, was widely used in the early church and almost made the canon, and some think Barnabas is the author of Hebrews (I don’t buy this).

Barnabas is a reminder for the church, and for all of us, to look just behind the shining stars to see who made them shine. He was Paul’s mentor and defender in Paul’s early days, and like every good teacher, encouraged Paul to outshine him one day (for better or for worse).

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