On November 19th three 13th Century German mystics are honored by the church, two Matildas and a Gert: Mechtild of Magdeburg, Mechtild of Hackeborn, and Gertrude the Great, Visionaries of the Church.
Mechtild of Magdeburg (“Matilda” is the Anglicized version of the name) was descended from nobility. She left home in her 20’s to join a Beguine community (a lay sisterhood leading religiously pious lives), and adopted a rigid austerity. She spoke harshly against the excesses of the church and the clergy, believing that greed was corrupting the message of the Gospel. She also believed the clergy were poorly trained and advocated for stricter requirements for the priesthood.
She began having visions and dreams, and wrote them down in a poetic work entitled The Flowing Light of the Godhead, one of the best examples of female authorship to survive the Middle Ages.
Mechtild of Hackeborn was the sister of the Baroness of Hackeborn, and in charge of the monastery school in the area. She was a fabulous instructor (and would instruct Gertrude the Great, mentioned below), who shared her spiritual insight, teachings, and experiences with her students. The work The Book of Special Grace, made public after her death, records these mystical visions as remembered by her beloved students. She loved to sing her visions, being called a “nightingale of Christ.”
Gertrude the Great was entrusted to the Cistercian foundation at Helfta a the age of five, and came under the tutelage of Mechtild of Hackeborn there. She quickly became fluent in Latin, was well educated in the liberal arts, and well read in literature and the sciences of the times. At the age of twenty-five she, too, began having mystical visions and dreams which continued throughout the whole of her life. At their onset she began to study Augustine, Bernard, and Hugh of Clairvaux (interestingly enough, our own Blessed Martin Luther favored these scholars as well). She went on to compose the Legatus Divinae Pietatis, widely considered one of the best products of Christian mysticism.
Gertrude the Great’s mystical visions almost all happened during the liturgy, and she felt that worship was the spring that fed her spirituality.
These three great mystics of the church are a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes the most obscure individuals hold the grandest insights. I’ve long said that the best sermons preached on any given Sunday are preached to less than fifty people.
It’s true.
-historical bits by Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today the church remembers another delightfully obscure saint who, because of her Celtic heritage and bent, has carved a nice niche in my own heart: St. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, Sage of the Ages.
St. Hilda was a Northumbrian princess who was born in the early 7th Century. She was raised in the Christian faith and baptized at the age of thirteen in York. She lived her early years as a member of the King’s court, where she was respected for her insight, and eventually entered into monastic life at the age of thirty-three.
In the year 649 she was appointed Abbess of Hartlepool by St. Aiden, and a few years later went on to found a “double house” in Whitby, a monastery for both men and women, of which she became Abbess. The monastery grew in reputation due to the wise scholarship taught there.
It was here at Whitby in 664 that a meeting took place where the gathered religious elites argued on what to do with the divide between those following Celtic-Christian traditions (earth-oriented, feminine-friendly, wisdom-focused, egalitarian), and those who followed the Roman-Christian traditions (male-centered, punitive, dogmatic, strictly hierarchical, forced piety).
The Synod resulted in a union between the two philosophies, though Hilda remained favorable to the Celtic way of being.
Nevertheless, she was obedient to the decision of the council, and incorporated Roman thought into her official teachings. But, in her practice, she was Celtic to the core. She was known for being wise, and many people would come to her seeking sage advice. The Venerable Bede held her in extremely high regard. She insisted that those preparing for the priesthood study the scriptures, and felt that proper readiness for the office included extending peace and charity beyond the monastery walls.
The towns people, as well as her monastic companions, all called her “Mother.”
In the last years of her life a lingering illness festered and finally took her. She died on November 17th in 680, but due to the number of saints already honored on the 17th of November, St. Hilda received her own date, the 18th, her resurrection morning.
St. Hilda is a reminder for me, and should be for the church, that wisdom is not found in adhering to dogma, that peace and charity are necessary for clergy, and that while much of the church, and much of its history, has a problem with women in positions of power, they have always been there and should always be there.
-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today the church celebrates the brief life of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, Princess of Hungary and Friend of the Outcast.
You’ve never heard of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia? That’s not surprising. Nestled in the middle days of November, she’s not widely known. But this 13th Century royal made a great impact to those she cared for in her short twenty four years of life.
She was the daughter of King Andrew of Hungary, and was betrothed at the age of one to the son of a local noble whose name was Ludwig. This sealed the political alliance between the king and the count.
She was known to be serious and generous, and even at an early age showed a devout faith. Ludwig was fond of her, despite the forced marriage.
They were married when Elizabeth was fourteen (Ludwig was twenty one) and had three children. Their marriage, by all accounts, was a happy one, and Ludwig supported St. Elizabeth in her increasing generosity. For instance, during a regional famine, Elizabeth gave away most of her own fortune and grain to the local poor. She was heavily criticized by other nobles for this, but Ludwig approved.
St. Elizabeth founded two hospitals during her time as Duchess. She regularly tended the sick and the lame herself, and gave money for the specific care of the ill children, particularly orphans. Ludwig followed Elizabeth’s lead, and tried his best to find jobs for those in the area who had trouble earning a living.
In 1221 Franciscan monks came to town, and Elizabeth was immediately drawn to these kind, poor preachers. She came under the tutelage of Brother Rodeger who taught her the way of St. Francis. She took the example so seriously that she ended up taking a leper into her own home to stay the night when he was wandering aimlessly. Ludwig found him in their bed and, though at first startled, understood that Elizabeth was fulfilling her calling.
On September 11th Ludwig died of the plague while on the crusade. Elizabeth left the castle and went to live in Eisenbach where she found a cold welcome from the townspeople. She was eventually taken under the wing of her uncle the Bishop of Bamberg, and on Good Friday in 1228 she officially took her monastic vows, devoting herself to the way of St. Francis. She secured the safety of her children, built a small house near Marburg, and set up a hospice center for the sick, the aged, and the poor.
St. Elizabeth’s life ended in isolation and austerity. Her confessor, Conrad of Marburg, was not a kindly monk, and seemed to take pleasure in forcing Elizabeth to live in harsh conditions. Her health began to fail, and she died not having yet seen her twenty fifth birthday.
So many hospitals around the world are named for this saint.
The Wartburg castle, in which Elizabeth lived for most of her life, would later have a new resident. our own Blessed Martin Luther, who would pen his German translation of the New Testament there.
St. Elizabeth is a reminder for me, and should be for the church, that time is of the essence. We do not have to wait until tomorrow to make an impact, because we’re never confident how many tomorrows we will have.
So, make an impact.
-historical tidbits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today the church remembers an 11th Century pillar of piety who is often overlooked, but deserves some attention: Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland.
Born of German stock in Hungary because her father had been a victim of political exile, Saint Margaret was of royal lineage as her grandfather had been Edmund Ironside, King of England. In 1057 she was brought back to England in the court of Edward the Confessor, leaning back into her heritage apart from her family of origin.
In 1067 the whole family fled after the Battle of Hastings and were shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland. There King Malcolm III welcomed the family and took romantic interest in Saint Margaret.
They were married, and she effectively became a bridge between two royal lines.
Here’s the thing, though: Margaret didn’t want to be married to anyone but the Church. She longed to be a nun.
Nevertheless, despite this inner desire, all accounts show their marriage a happy one, and they had eight children together who would, for better or for worse, be released into the royal spheres of the world.
The Church of Scotland as Saint Margaret found it was an amalgamation of ancient Celtic ways and Christian ideas (as it still rightly is). Saint Margaret worked hard to reform some of the rougher edges of their practice in order to more seamlessly match the practices of the rest of the Western Church. She took to founding new churches and new monasteries, and was keenly concerned for the welfare of the poor, the sick, and the underclass in Scotland.
Her piety was legendary, and she helped curb her husband the king’s baser instincts, resulting in relatively good rule for the people of Scotland.
Saint Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle on this day in 1093. Some say she died of a broken heart because she had just recently learned that both her husband and her eldest son had been killed on the battlefield. She is buried alongside her husband and son in Dumfermline Abbey.
Saint Margaret is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that appropriate piety is not a bad thing as long as it is focused not on the scoffing and “shalt-nots” too often found in the overly pious, but rather in taking care of the “least of these” in this world.
-historical bits gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today I would urge the church to remember with affection and curiosity a 16th Century astronomer and deep thinker: Johannes Kepler, Seeker of the Divine and Gazer of Stars.
Kepler was born in what is now Germany to a family of fading fortunes. He was technically nobility, but didn’t have the bank account to match the title. While he was sick as a child (having been born premature), he was intellectually curious and showed his obvious genius with numbers at an early age. As a young adult he attended University at Tubingen, studying theology under Jacob Heerbrand (who was, himself, a student of Melanchthon), but while his theological scores were so-so, his mathematical scores were off the (planetary) charts. This was back in the day when astronomy and astrology held hands, and while his numbers were solid, he would pass the time creating horoscopes for his fellow classmates based off of star charts he created himself.
A little side-show is always fun in college.
He would go on to teach mathematics in Graz, and took a fancy in a young widow, Barbara Muller. She was quite wealthy and, though he was of noble stock, was deemed unacceptable to her family. So what did Kepler do? He published a book on mathematics to woo her family into seeing him as worth something.
It worked.
Kepler than began to plot out his life’s publications, much like you might plot out planetary motion (because that would be his main subject). He drew connections between planetary motion and the nature of created order itself, and though through today’s scientific lenses we see many of his connections were nothing more than wishes and guesses, it should be noted that this is one of the ways that science moves forward: by making guesses and testing them.
It does not, however, move forward by ignoring data and replacing it with wishes…as many are wont to do today.
Kepler was using the best data that was available at his time, and he got into a number of discussions with other astronomers and mathematicians, testing one another and prodding each other to do more and do better.
Despite his genius, he wasn’t awesome at making money (probably because he was a teacher and no one was reading planetary physics for fun). He was also wrestling mightily with philosophical questions, particularly around the notion that planets might be “alive” things with souls which imbued them with purpose and reason in their courses.
He thought that the universe was created by a God who wanted to be known through reason, and all we had to do was figure out the logic to figure out the great eternal “why.”
Speaking of the Divine, Kepler refused to convert to Catholicism and, since his teaching appointment at Graz was in a Catholic territory, found his way to Prague (which, though officially Catholic did tolerate some Lutherans who they deemed intellectually valuable) and, through twists and turns and missteps and some crazy theories that didn’t hold water, eventually did find his way into his most productive years as the Imperial Mathematician to the Emperor.
Fortunately this gave him some stability and a place to do his greatest scientific studies. Unfortunately he was basically hired to tell the emperor’s astrological fortune. Regardless, it was a means to a scientific end for him. Through this appointment he came into contact with other great minds, and in 1604 Kepler observed a bright new star (SN 1604) in the sky, a Super Nova. His calculations of the star challenged the assumption that the night sky was essentially “fixed,” noting that new things could happen there all the time. He shrugged off any astrological importance, and leaned into the science encouraging the world to see space not as a tapestry, but as a dynamic system. This emboldened his groundbreaking idea that the planets moved around the sun in elliptical orbits, not straight circular patterns.
He was right about this, and the first to posit it in a way that had mathematical weight.
As a little side-quest, though, he also became obsessed with plotting chronology using the stars as a guide, and attempted to find meaning in the movement of the heavens and the events on Earth (like, oh, how a star just appeared above Bethlehem and was said to appear at the birth of Alexander the Great).
But his ideas weren’t exactly en vogue with a very traditional Lutheranism and Catholicism running around in that day (they thought he might be a secret Calvinist!), and he was eventually excommunicated from the Lutheran church and his mother was brought up on charges of witchcraft, a tactic used back then (and still today!) that tried to mar the reputation of those who disagreed with theological teachings.
Eventually the charges were dropped, though the excommunication stood. He moved to Linz and remarried after the death of Barbara Muller, and fell ill during travel on October 8th in 1630, eventually dying on this day of that year. He was buried in a Protestant churchyard, having been officially rejected by both Lutheranism and Catholicism and, as if to hammer home the reality that the time was politically and religiously fraught, his gravesite was completely destroyed in the 30 Years War.
Kepler was a person on the edge of two worlds. He straddled both imaginative fantasy and mathematical reality. In fact, these two worlds came together in a now lost book Somnium (The Dream) where he wrote about the planets from the perspective of other planets, perhaps the first sci-fi novel of modern history! I hold him with both curiosity and sympathy, with appreciation for his brilliance and a bit of disdain for his tangential side-quests to find the “mind of God” in his work.
In this way, I guess, he’s like most of us: a mix of steps forward, steps side-ways, and blowbacks.
One cool thing about him, though, is that when it came to religion he said very clearly that denominations of every stripe should be able to take communion together. “After all,” he said, “Christ was not a Lutheran, a Calvinist, or a Papist.”
Let those with ears to hear, hear.
Johannes Kepler is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that science moves forward with intelligent guesses that are tested, not ignorant beliefs that are untested. We need to raise up leaders willing to think great thoughts and then test them, not just think untested thoughts and hold them as great.
Today the church honors an important leader in the church that most church-goers have never even heard of, St. Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome and Mediator of the Church.
Long before the church was arguing about the nature of humans and their race and sexuality, the church set about arguing about the nature of Jesus. In the 5th Century, when Pope Leo was consecrated as the Bishop of Rome, the Catholic faith was being torn asunder by schisms over who Jesus was and how Jesus was.
Yes, you read that correctly: how Jesus was.
How was Jesus both Divine and human?
Pope Leo refocused the question on faith rather than nitty-gritty explanation. He affirmed the idea that Christ had two natures and, as he was enlarging the influence of the Papacy around the known world, issued his famous (at least to churchy-people) Tome to Flavian, the Patriarch of Constantinople that had the clearest articulation of Christ as human and yet Divine.
You still talk about this idea, by the way, every time you say the Nicene Creed.
At the time all sorts of schisms were going on inside the church, there were tons of wars being fought in real-time, too. St. Leo kept Rome safe from Attila the Hun in 452, and a legion of Vandals, whom he persuaded not to destroy Rome, in 455. He put restrictions on who (under what training) could enter the priesthood, and affirmed the goodness of “all matter,” rejecting the idea that the created world is evil and we need only wait for some heaven, lightyears away.
He was a devoted liturgist, and further developed the words of the Mass, shaping the words we say yet today.
St. Leo was wise, if not particularly brilliant. He understood how to use power effectively and for twenty-two years led with theological ability and personal resolve.
St. Leo is a reminder for me that wisdom and brilliance don’t always hold hands, and you can certainly be one without the other.
But of all the things that Pope Leo the Great is remembered for, the thing that struck me is how he looked at creation and without hesitation affirmed what Genesis had already said: “this is good.”
Why does it matter?
Because, Beloved, it articulates clearly that everything that is created, matters, and therefore we can’t just do what we want with it…
-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today the church remembers an obscure saint, St. Willibrord of Utrecht, Missionary to Frisia.
Willibrord (b. 658) was raised in Ireland where he was ordained a priest in 688.
He was heavily influenced by the Northumbrian monk, Egbert, who told fantastical stories of his travels and work. Willibrord was enamored with these tales, and wanted in on the action. At Egbert’s invitation, Willibrord dedicated himself to exploration and missionary work.
He sailed to Utrecht in Frisia (the Netherlands) where he set up the first official see of the Roman Catholic church in that land (well, the Pope founded it, but gave Willibrord permission to do what he was doing: running it). Willibrord set to work founding schools, parishes, and monasteries. He was consecrated as Bishop by Pope Sergius I in 695, and did much to plant the church in the Netherlands.
In his old age he retired to a monastery he founded in what is now Luxembourg, and died there on this day in 739.
St. Willibrord is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that stories inspire. Hearing Egbert’s tales enticed him to explore the world! The faith is full of inspiring stories, and telling them in such a way that they’re heard as the wonderful tales and testimonies they are should inspire exploration, not entrench people in trite moralisms, stilted orthodoxy, or make the faithful fearful of what’s on the other side of any fence.
A lovely historical development: as one so inspired by stories, he now has so many stories about him shared throughout the Netherlands. These tales of his accomplishments are richly embellished and fantastical, ensuring that this one so moved by stories is the subject of many moving stories himself.
-historical pieces from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
-also, it should be noted that I will probably look like this old Irish saint when I become an old Irish saint…
Today the church remembers a more recent saint, though many have forgotten him in the cloudy cloud of witnesses: Saint William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury and Social Reformer.
Born in 1881, Saint William was the second born of Frederick Temple, another Archbishop of Canterbury, and he had a deep love for the Church of England despite his proximity to it growing up. He is considered by many to be one of the four pillars of post-Reformation Anglican thought, joining the ranks for Richard Hooker (whom we just commemorated), Joseph Butler (see June 16th), and Frederick Denison Maurice (honored on April 1st).
Saint William was brilliant. He forgot more philosophy than most philosophers knew. He genuinely cared about people. At the age of twenty-nine he became the headmaster at Repton School, and then rector of Saint James’ Church, Piccadilly, Bishop of Manchester, and Archbishop of York in quick succession. He was keenly atuned to the needs of the working poor, and sought social reforms, educational justice, and brought all of his leanings on the betterment of humanity back to the Doctrine of the Incarnation, saying concretely that everyone, regardless of sex or gender, was created in Divine likeness.
So, Beloved, when someone tells you you’re “socialist” for wanting social programs, remind them that you want social programs because everyone is a mirror of the Divine and deserves to be cared for.
That’s the reason.
In 1917 this pastor resigned his post to devote himself to the reform of the Church of England as it attempted to modernize, and then became quite active in trying to figure out how to reorganize Britain in a post-war era. He supported labor movements, and was a big fan of ecumenical efforts and dialogue that helped people eat, work, and live well.
In April of 1942 he was elected Archbishop of Canterbury, but the ongoing war and his ongoing health struggles kind of took the wind out of his sails. He died on this day in 1944, having only served in the seat for a scant few years.
Saint William Temple is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that when the Doctrine of the Incarnation is taken seriously, the health and welfare of every human must also be taken seriously.
In fact, I dare say that this characteristic might set someone who actually lives out their faith apart from those who hold up Bibles for photo ops or to garner votes…
-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today the church honors two ancient saints of the faith, perhaps the “Patron Saints of Waiting,” St. Elizabeth and Zechariah, the Parents of St. John the Baptizer.
This feast is honored in Palestine on this date, and honoring them begins to turn our collective faces toward the season of Advent, the season of hope and patience.
Zechariah is the pious priest in the line of Abijah, noted by St. Luke in his first chapter. Elizabeth, whose namesake is the wife of Aaron (the brother of Moses), was also of priestly lineage. This makes it, at least in the ancient world, an ideal marriage: pure and priestly.
By the time of Jesus, there were so many of priestly lineage alive that the duties of the temple were afforded by lot, as not all could participate. One day this privilege fell to Zechariah, as the story goes, and he was ordered to light incense in the Temple. As he was performing his priestly duty, an angel appeared to him and announced that he and Elizabeth would, in their old age, have a child.
By the way, if your Biblical mind isn’t brought back to the aged Abram and Sarai and their son Isaac at the mention of this story, you’re not paying attention…these stories are meant to invoke one another, Beloved.
If your Biblical mind isn’t brought back to Hannah and her son Samuel in the telling of this story, you’re not paying attention, Beloved.
Luke, in writing his Gospel, knew what he was doing with these lovely saints…
Elizabeth, that dear saint, did not, for whatever reason, have any children in her young age. In this way, she followed in the footsteps of Sarah and Hannah before her.
By the way, I note “for whatever reason,” because contrary to popular belief at that time (and even today), we have no biological indicators that note that anything was amiss with Elizabeth’s ability to conceive. Indeed, Zechariah could have had an ailment that prevented him from parenting. But, as with all history written by men, for some reason the fault falls on Elizabeth.
I love Saint Elizabeth, and St. Zechariah, too, because their struggle is so relatable to so many today.
Zechariah had a hard time believing that they could have a child, and for this reason he became both deaf and mute for a time being. This is a strange biological development…much like having a child in your old age would be…but the theological development is pretty clear: some things that the Divine makes possible are hard to talk about and hard to listen to.
Zechariah and Elizabeth named their dear child John, defying tradition. At the naming of their child (Zechariah wrote it down for those present), his voice was restored, and immediately he was blessed with a song that we still sing in the church today during the season of Advent, the Benedictus Dominus Deus. It is a song about promise fulfillment and echoes the Magnificat of Mary and the Hebrew Scripture song of Hannah in 1 Samuel.
St. Elizabeth and St. Zechariah are a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes Diving things take a little while to happen, and that patience and hope must continually hold hands in this life.
They are also a reminder for me that the church needs to openly and honestly talk about the difficulty of conception, a topic so few want to discuss because of its delicate nature. But, Beloved, this is such an important and wide-spread issue, the church must talk about infertility with honesty, and forget with the nonsense of “in God’s time” or any such mess that can be hurtful for those who want to be parents but have difficulty for whatever reason.
Today the church remembers an Anglican priest and eloquent writer who argued for a middle way between Roman Catholicism and the rising pietistic tide in the 16th Century: Fr. Richard Hooker, Apologist for the Middle Way.
Saint Richard was born in 1554 near Exeter in Britain in a time when the nation, and the church, was mightily confused. Though the Anglican church had embraced the Reformation, it was struggling with just how it fit into the sweeping changes rolling through religion and politics.
Roman Catholicism, on the one hand, saw the Anglican Church as having abandoned the one true faith. Puritans, on the other, thought the Anglican church had abandoned the Bible (which the pietistic movement saw as the only text with any authority at all).
Into this melee Saint Hooker was born, educated at Corpus Christi College in Oxford, and ordained. He served several country parishes early on in his priesthood, attending the needs of country people. Using his experience in the parish, in 1593 the good Father penned a seminal work, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, a roadmap for the Anglican approach to the faith.
In stark contrast to Martin Luther, Saint Hooker’s work was charitable and eloquent, meticulously laying out how Scripture, tradition, and reason (yes: reason) could provide a way for the faithful to organize themselves. The Puritans chaffed at the idea, thinking only the Bible provided any answers to any questions. Roman Catholicism could accept this trifecta in part, but thought that tradition trumped the other two, especially when it came to the Papacy.
Nevertheless, Saint Hooker plodded on, believing that the law of nature (reason) could help people organize themselves within a religious construct. His scaffolding became an overarching philosophical defense of Anglican practices where reason, scripture, and tradition all had a pillar in presenting a platform for encountering the Divine and interacting with one another.
Saint Hooker died in the year 1600, but his legacy lives on. He is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that checking your brain at the church door and deferring reason to tradition or even to scripture is too high of a price for admission.
-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s _New Book of Festivals & Commemorations)
Reluctant Xtian 