In the second half of the 4th Century the world was blessed with a preacher still unsurpassed in eloquence, and today is his feast day: St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople.

St. Chrysostom (which literally means “golden-mouthed”) was born in Antioch and trained under the famous philosopher Libanius, who named him “brilliant,” and the biblical scholar Diodorus. Though Libanius wanted him to become a lawyer, John chose the more-secure-but-less-lucrative route of ministry, and was baptized at the Easter Vigil in ca 368 at the age of 18.

He lived as a hermit for a while, contemplating the life of a, well, contemplative, but was finally ordained into the priesthood and served the Bishop of Antioch, Flavian.

He became famous for his sermons as he preached with the “scriptures in one hand and the headlines in the other,” to borrow a popular phrase. His sermons were thematic and contemporary, addressing topics like social justice, the equality of women in society, his opposition to slavery, and emphasizing the role of laypeople in worship and the church.

He even did a whole series on “toppling statues” as the people of Antioch had rioted and destroyed some statues of the emperor. How’s that for timely?

In 398 St. Chrysostom was chosen (surprisingly) to become Bishop of Constantinople (or is it Istanbul?). This was an important and consequential post in the Church. He won people’s affections for his simplicity, honesty, clarity, and eloquent sermons. Unfortunately, these qualities also caused many people to despise him…if he were around today he’d have gotten many emails. He refused to play political games, and had no problem ousting clergy and Deacons for murder, adultery, and the like.

In 403 the empress and Theophilus of Alexandria conspired to take down this popular and principled prelate at a conference called the Synod of the Oak. There they condemned St. Chrysostom on false charges of heresy and he was officially banished from the city.

The people were outraged and riotous and, coincidentally, the empress herself had a personal tragedy. These events were taken by religious leaders as “signs from God” that they had made a mistake, and they brought St. Chrysostom out of exile. But, because he wouldn’t admit any wrongdoing, they prevented him from taking his seat in the cathedral. Still, John had enormous pull, and on the Easter Vigil, 3,000 converts came to the Baths of Constantine for baptism that year, which amounted to a riot itself. Soldiers broke up the service, and some were killed.

Unable to control the people with this golden-tongued popular prophet around, John was once again exiled, this time to Armenia. He continued to write, however, and was able to be enormously influential even in exile as he corresponded with friends back in Constantinople.

Pope Innocent I finally was prompted to get involved and, following the people’s lead, supported his Bishop. He condemned the Synod of the Oak as illegal, and when he sent papal envoys to Constantinople to investigate the ordeal, his envoy was treated poorly, some were even jailed, and sent back to Rome.

Now Pope Innocent was furious.

As retaliation for the Pope’s intrusion into his matters, the emperor had St. Chrysostom further exiled, and moved to an even more remote location. Having been given orders to vacate Armenia and move to isolated Pityus, John took up this cross on foot, bareheaded, and began the journey that would be his last.

He died at Comana in Pontus, never reaching Pityus. In his last breath he said, “Glory to God for all things.”

His grave is in the choir chapel at St. Peter’s Basilica. He is still remembered as the most eloquent preacher the church has ever produced, and his Christmas sermon is still preached by many faithful clergy every year.

St. Chrysostom is a reminder for me, and for the church, of a few things:

First, a sermon isn’t worth its salt if it doesn’t say something that connects God’s promises to the headlines of the day.

And, secondly, that every good pastor/prophet who does the above will have enemies. Sometimes, unfortunately, those enemies are close to home.

Indeed, it has always been so.

But the work continues, Beloved.

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

-They Might Be Giants references are yours truly’s

Today I would lobby hard that the church remember a modern muse whose lyrics live on: Saint Johnny of the Cash, Minstrel Man in Black.

Saint Johnny was born in 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas, living his childhood on New Deal land offered by the Roosevelt Administration during the Depression where tenets could pay off the land through working it. There he picked cotton with his family, singing while they worked. Even there the family was not immune from the Depression, with flood and insect causing typical farming issues that seeded some of his future songs.

He was extremely close to his brother, Jack, who died in 1944. Johnny felt continual guilt for Jack’s death, feeling he should have prevented him from going to work at the factory that day, the place of the tragic accident. These dots of hardship and tragedy became fuel for Johnny’s work.

In 1950 Saint Cash enlisted and served in the Korean War as a morse code operator. After being discharged, he and his new wife Vivian made their way to Memphis where Johnny would sell appliances by day and jam by night. He rubbed shoulders with many of the wandering bards of the day, including a hip-swinging Presley who struck up an impromptu jam session with Cash at the studio one night. Having been raised on Gospel, Cash understood Elvis’s style and they meshed well.

It’s just one of many duets Cash would do in his fateful life.

After playing back up for many, Cash began making his own albums, finding good success with “I Walk the Line,” eventually signing with larger and larger labels. He had the distinction of wearing all black while performing, apparently because it was easy to keep clean, which garnered him the nick name “The Undertaker” by other performers, and eventually “The Man in Black” by his fans.

As Saint Johnny got deeper into the music, he also got deeper into the “scene,” admittedly becoming addicted to various vices. He would wrestle with these addictions his entire life, with periods of being clean and relapse, making him a very human saint, in my estimation. These addictions would both hinder his personal life and bolster his performance life, with “Ring of Fire” being the crossover hit it is due to a frenetic mindset fueled by addiction.

Tragically, though, addiction would be what he would cite as the reason his first marriage dissolved. “I was taking pills, and then they started taking me,” he would be known to say.

He worked hard to get clean, and proposed to June Carter in 1968, who agreed to marry him if he got clean.

Saint Johnny was known for reaching out to those the world marginalized. He was a tireless advocate for First Nations populations, highlighting the way that they’ve been hurt and abused by the government. He also was known to perform at local prisons, finding the imprisoned population at risk of being hurt or forgotten in a system that keeps boots on necks.

He lived a life of touring and tv shows, recording and reacting to the calls of the time. His deep convictions and deep contrition at a hard-lived life provided for a pattern of confession and forgiveness that told of a deep faith and internal mysticism, some of it playing out in his music.

Even toward the end of his life he continued to record, producing music as he slowly struggled with Shy-Drager Syndrome and began to lose functionality of his limbs.

He died on this day in 2003, preceded in death by his beloved June only a few months prior.

Saint Johnny of the Cash is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that a life of forgiveness (and seeking forgiveness) is ever possible, and sometimes that should come out in song.

-historical bits from public sources

-icon written by Sarah Kirk

As dawn breaks on 9/11, a saint deserving to be held is brought to my mind: Saint Mychal Judge, Saint of 9/11 and Chaplain of Engine Co/1 and Ladder Co/24.

Saint Mychal was not the first victim of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, but he was the first identified victim: “Victim 0001.” He served as New York City Fire Department’s chaplain. A Franciscan friar and priest, Saint Mychal was known for going above and beyond for the women and men he cared for. He often made hospital visits. He was at most every funeral.

And he went to fires, keeping his radio nearby, which is how he heard about the World Trade Center attacks.

While others fled the scene, Saint Mychal rushed toward it in his priestly garb, following the steps of his fellow fire fighters. He immediately started administering last rites to those who were critically wounded, and when he saw his company rush into the North Tower he ran toward it, too, despite the evacuation order.

Outside that North Tower he helped people escape and, while standing there praying, was killed by flying debris as the South Tower fell.

Saint Mychal was more than just NYFD’s chaplain, though, he was also a gay priest (out to his friends) who openly counseled those suffering from AIDs in the 1980’s, performed funerals for AIDs victims when other shunned them, who admitted quite honestly his struggles with alcohol, and who showed up to New York City’s first gay-inclusive Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in his friar’s garb, taking interviews for the media despite the Archbishop’s warning against it.

Saint Mychal is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that the true work is to walk with the people, especially when their lives are on the line, even as the world falls down around them.

-historical bits taken from Illes’ Daily Magic

-icon written by Br. Robert Lentz and can be purchased at Trinityicons.com

In honor of Mary Oliver’s birthday.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-icon written by Kelly Latimore

Today the church honors a 17th Century pioneer in equality and human dignity, St. Peter Claver, Jesuit, Servant and Reformer.

St. Claver was born in Spain, became a Jesuit priest, and was sent to Columbia and the mission fields of the new world. There he came under the wing of Fr. Alonso de Sandoval, a fellow Jesuit who was dedicating his life to the well being of the slaves being brought in massive numbers to work the Colombian fields and mines.

St. Claver worked on behalf of the slaves from the minute they were forced from their boats in the inhumane slave trade. Their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being became his primary concern, and he felt he needed to live among them to serve them, taking a stand with them against the inhumane practices of the powerful.

He argued through the means available to him that slaves, once baptized, should be freed, an argument that seems nonsensical and colonialist to our ears, but which was probably his best means of persuasion at the time. Fellow Christians, he thought, deserved the rights all Christians deserve.

He was known for following up with slaves after their work days in the mines and fields, and faced great hatred and opposition from slave owners and the rich elite who knew his care threatened their control.

St. Claver also found himself in the jails and work camps, often coming alongside those being tortured during the Inquisition. Though Fr. Claver was sympathetic to the Inquisition’s goal, he felt that everyone left imprisoned and alone deserved a friend and advocate. In his work in the hospitals he was known for showing no racial partiality in his care for patients, which to us sounds like “not enough,” but in the 17th Century was “far too much” for the powerful padding their pockets on the backs of cheap human labor.

Often stubborn and difficult to work with, Fr. Claver had many admirers for his guts, but few friends. At the end of his life he became paralyzed and was left in a small room, neglected for four years until his death.

Ironically, in his time of need he was not offered the same care that he had offered others.

St. Claver is often called the “Saint of the Slaves,” not only because he cared so much for them, but also because he argued passionately for their legal rights.

Certainly we can say that he did not do enough. But contextually, he was a unique voice of opposition and action…a combination that was rare in the 17th Century.

He is a reminder to the church, and to me, that words without actions are just noise in a world drowning in a cacophony of noise.

Social media posts and generalized outrage are no strategy for world change, Beloved.

We must find ourselves living in and with our neighbor, advocating with them, not just for them. We must find ourselves utilizing our power to preach both to and against the powerful.

And we don’t do so as some sort of insurance policy, believing that someone will one day do the same for any of us…they may not.

We do so because it’s the right thing to do, by God.

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

Just about a month after they honored her feast day, the church brings Mary back into focus, honoring her again today with The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The church only honors the birthdays of three people in the church calendar: Jesus, John the Baptizer, and Mary. And for each of these, the dates are chosen to reflect the seasonal calendar as a helpful tool in the rhythm of life.

Jesus’ birthday is put near the Winter Solstice, close to the pagan feast honoring “The Undying Sun,” when daylight was almost-but-never-fully gone. The people would use the sun, at a premium in those December days, as a reminder of the “resurrected son” of God who would never fail, despite all appearances.

John the Baptizer’s natal day was then placed six months out from that, coinciding not only with the story of the Visitation, but also with the Summer Solstice. That placement echoed John’s words “I must decrease so that he might increase.” From then on the sun begins to decrease until Christmas.

Mary’s natal day, September 8th, seems to be the odd duck in the lot, except for the fact that it falls in that “in-between” time of the year. September is a season that ushers in change, a bridge between the heat of summer and the breeze of Autumn. Perhaps that is one of the ways Mary is known best: as the change agent from what was to what will be.

It is also thought that September 8th was chosen because it was the day that St. Anne’s Church was completed in Jerusalem, sometime in the 5th Century. Lore has it that Mary’s mother was named Anne. The location of the church is supposedly the site where Mary was born. At the dedication of the construction it was said that angels could be heard singing to proclaim the day as her birth day. As early as the year 500, it appears from hymns and writings that the day was accepted as her natal day by the church in the East, and came to be accepted by the church in the West.

Despite the fact that there is a whole church erected on the supposed (though quite unfounded) site of her birth, and despite the fact that much lore has crept up around Mary, it’s worth recalling that she was, on the day of her birth, as much of an unknown as you or I, and in the eyes of the world was unremarkable.

Perhaps even a “nobody,” especially in the time and place of her birth.

Everyday similar “nobody’s” are born in this time and place, cast aside by public opinion, insurance corporations that don’t want to pay birthing fees, and social norms that judge not only how children are born, but when and to whom.

And yet she came to be the Theotokos. The “God-bearer.”

And I just have to wonder what the world would be like if we saw every child, every “nobody” in the eyes of the world, as a God-bearer. As a change-agent. As a conduit for the in-breaking of Divine action.

…bet we’d remember more birthdays.

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

-icon by artist Jenn Casselberry

Today’s feast day is a great example of how cultures adapt ancient feasts and tweak them to make meaning.

Today the church remembers The Black Madonna of Regla, a feast honored in homes around the world, but which is especially important for our Cuban sisters and brothers (though similar feasts are held in Spain and the Philippines).

The Black Madonna of Regla is an extension of tomorrow’s feast day, the Nativity of Saint Mary, but honors a particular carving of the Madonna from North Africa out of dark wood. The carving was supposedly commissioned by Saint Augustine himself!

When Spain pillaged North Africa (modern day Algeria), they took the statue and placed it in Chipiona, Spain. When the Moors went on their own conquest in Spain, the statue was hidden in a well, and forgotten about for hundreds of years, only to reappear after a vision was given to the church describing its location.

When Spain came brandishing their swords to the Caribbean, they found an ancient feast at this time of year to the goddess of the sea and “mother to us all,” Yemaya. Venerated in Santeria, a blend of many ancient religions, Yemaya is the black goddess dressed in blue who birthed life through the sea, and thus birthed everything. This goddess draped in blue looked, to those Conquistadors, like the Virgin Mary depicted in this ancient African statue so popular in Spain. Thus the festival for Yemaya was adopted as the Feast of the Black Virgin of Regla, because the Christianized celebration was instituted in Regla, Havanna, Cuba.

As with most holidays/holy days coopted by the church, ancient practices of the old remain blended into the new. The Black Madonna, clad in blue with sequins (mirroring the sparkles of the sea) is paraded through the town. The people give thanks for this “Mother of All” and celebrate life. The water of the ocean, like amniotic fluid, is used to symbolize the divine birthing of all life.

For those of a more Christian bent, the Madonna is honored and the life celebrated on this day is the life made whole in the person of the Christ, “Firstborn of All Creation” (Colossians 1:15).

For those who follow Santeria and the more indigenous religions, the woman dressed in blue is Yemaya, who births all life (especially to those who live on an island).

For some, she is both…and that is perfectly fine by them. Clear-cut distinctions in these kinds of matters are important only to people with too much time on their hands and too much at stake with either claim.

By the way, if you think this is unusual, this coopting of feasts and festivals by the church to tweak a practice, know that most of the highest, holiest days of the church are examples of this very thing. Christmas is a cooption, hence why trees of more pagan practices appear in Christian sanctuaries. Candlemas, in February, is a cooption of the Celtic festival of Imbolc. Easter, even, is in some ways a cooption as the very name is derived from the pagan “Goddess of Spring,” Eostre. This is why bunnies sit alongside empty tombs.

This happens. No need to hide it.

The Black Madonna of Regla is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes the Divine is more prism than photograph, with many facets depending where you look…or whose eyes do the looking.

-historical bits by public sources

-icon written by Metu

Today I would also lobby hard that we remember St. Freddie of the Mercury, Reformer and Musician.

Freddie (birth name Furrohk), was born in Zanzibar (modern day Tanzania) to Parsi-Indian parents. During the Zanzibar Revolution, Furrohk’s family fled and settled in Middlesex, England.

In 1970 he formed the rock band Queen and became the unlikeliest of frontmen. With an amazing four-octave range, which is almost unheard of, Freddie’s stage persona was as lively as his personal life, despite his intense shyness when not on stage. He interacted with his audience. He craved the spotlight while performing, but had few people he considered true friends. And despite having a serious overbite, never sought dental intervention for fear it would ruin his voice.

Mercury wrote 10 of Queen’s 17 greatest hits. His ambiguous and fluid sexuality caused many tabloids to stir with rumors. In a day when anything but heterosexuality was seen as deviant, he kept people guessing. He was diagnosed with AIDs in 1987, and confirmed he had the disease the day before his death in 1991. He was 45 years old. His birthday, September 5th, is still revered by rock enthusiasts and activists alike.

Mercury is a reminder to the world that the underdog in life should never be underestimated nor counted out. He challenged contemporary tropes relating to masculinity and what it means to be a rock star, and with a unique voice changed the way we think about both.

He was born to sing, and he did what he was born to do…may we all be so fortunate.

Today the church also remembers a woman who had a small frame but was a giant in the life of so many around the world: Saint Mother Teresa, Servant, Renewer of Society, and Woman full of Existential Doubt.

Born Gonxha Agnes Bjoaxhiu in Skopje, Albania in the year 1910, this slight saint was raised in the faith by her mother, as her father died when she was just eight. In September of 1928 Gonxha left home intending to become a missionary and entered the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland. Being only eighteen at the time, she changed her name to Sister Mary Teresa after St. Therese of Lisieux, and prepared to head to India that December.

In January of 1929 Saint Teresa arrived in Calcutta and began her formal ministry with the people she would eventually identify with. In 1937 she made her final vows and was given the title “Mother,” an homage to not only her status within the ecclesial body of the church, but also as a testament to her outlook: tender, heart-felt, and courageously fierce when it came to the care of her people.

It is no exaggeration to say that many of us were the children of Mother Teresa.

On September 10th (it’s really amazing how many of the events of her life happened in September until we realize that this month is really a month of transitions in all creation) in the year 1946 she received a nudge from the Holy Spirit that a religious community should be formed in Calcutta, dedicated to serving the lowest caste of the societal system there.

In August of 1948 she officially received permission to found the Missionaries of Charity, with their white a blue bordered garb as a tell-tale sign of their work.

By 1950 her movement to serve the poorest of the poor in the world had spread from Calcutta to Venezuela, Rome, Tanzanie, and eventually to every continent throughout the known world. She truly inspired a movement that can be called world-changing.

In 1979 she was honored with the Nobel Prize for Peace and gained larger international fame. What is less-known about Saint Teresa, our common Mother, is that she was plagued by doubt and existential questions. Even as she gained fame as a woman of faith her private life was one of wrestling with the God she professed and the destitute poverty she witnessed. Only after her death did we all realize the deep struggle she faced daily to profess a God of love when so many in the world went without.

In this way, she truly is the Mother of so many of us.

In 1997, having served Calcutta for so many years, Mother Teresa died. She was given a state funeral in India and buried in the motherhouse there at the Sisters of Charity. She remains both an inspiration and an honest participant in both the service that Christ calls us to and the questions surrounding the idea of a benevolent God when there is so much hurt and pain and sorrow in the world.

Saint Mother Teresa is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that no amount of faith can shield us from the honest questions that come when we’re in proximity of those who go without in this world.

Honestly, anyone without questions has not examined their faith…and this saint is a reminder of that.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

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

-icon written by Brian Nicholas Tsai

Today the church honors someone theologians have called “a better doctor,” and who doctors have called “a better theologian,” Albert Schweitzer, Physician and Theologian.

St. Albert was born in Upper Alsace (which is now a part of France, but was German land at the time) in 1875, the eldest son of a Lutheran pastor. He studied philosophy and theology, and was even known to tickle the organ keys during his schooling at Stasbourg. He earned his doctorate in philosophy, and was a lecturer in the field. He then earned his doctorate in theology, and was also ordained as a pastor.

He, apparently, had a lot of time on his hands.

He also found the energy to study organ performance in Paris and, while there, wrote a book on the life and art of J.S. Bach. Around that same time he also wrote his seminal Quest for the Historical Jesus, which remains a foundational text for the historical-critical study of theology. He dared to suggest that Jesus’ own working theology was shaped by his belief in a “soon and very soon to be realized eschatology.” In other words: Jesus thought the world was going to end pretty quickly.

In 1905 St. Albert did a nice little pivot in his life and career and announced that he was going to become a medical missionary. He abandoned his lecture circuit and his scholarly appointments, married a nurse, and went to medical school.

One wonders about the amount of debt he incurred…

On Good Friday in 1913 he and his partner embarked on a journey through French Equatorial Africa and constructed a hospital near the Ogooue River.

During the first World War, Schwietzer was interned as an enemy alien due to his German heritage. While imprisoned he wrote Philosophy of Civilization which encouraged a “reverence for life” in all its forms. After the war he eventually returned to Africa to rebuild the hospital, and added a leper colony as part of the expansion.

He won a Nobel Prize for Peace in 1952.

Though he was sometimes known for being patriarchal and difficult to work with, and despite the fact that his medical knowledge appears to have been, er, lacking and lagging behind the best advanced practices, he was an undeniable humanitarian. The world was not ready for most of his thoughts, in both theology and in medicine, where he focused more on the comfort and dignity of the patient over cold progress. He spoke against the practice of using atomic bombs in the years after the second World War, and stuck to his belief that all humanity deserved dignity.

St. Schweitzer died at the age of 91 in 1965.

Fun fact: my internship parish had a statue of him in the sanctuary.

He is a reminder to me that it is never too late to follow the interests of your heart, and that dignity is worth fighting for.

Even if it takes a lifetime.

-painting by Norman Rockwell

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