On December 8th many Christian sisters and brothers mark the Immaculate Conception, the day when lore says St. Anne was miraculously “great with child” in the form of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, said to be “born without original sin.”

It’s a relatively recent Feast Day in the festivals of the church, and while there are many traditions who not only don’t honor it, but really wonder why it’s necessary at all, in solidarity with those of different traditions, the theological importance is worth noting despite the biological impossibilities.

I don’t note it as a way to lend credence to its veracity, but more-so to highlight the often overlooked fact that women have played not just an important role in understanding the Divine, but an integral role.

Or, well, perhaps St. Sojourner Truth said it best::

“That man say we can’t have as much rights as a man ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman. Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with it.”

(art by Vik Muniz)

Today the church remembers a triple threat of a politician, theologian, and hymn-writer: St. Ambrose of Milan, Peacemaker, Bishop, and Doctor of the Church.

St. Ambrose is the first Roman church leader born into and raised in the faith. His father was a Prefect of Gaul, and Ambrose was sent to study the classics of the law in Rome.

When he was just thirty-three years old he was appointed the governor of Liguria and Aemilia, and took his seat in Milan where the imperial court was regularly convened.

And then it happened: the Bishop of Milan, an Arian (the strain of Christendom that was competing with Orthodox Catholicism at the time…recall the legend of St. Nicholas punching Arius at the Council of Nicaea), and violent clashes started to break out between the Arians and the Catholics.

St. Ambrose kept his cool and quieted the clashes, and because he was so appreciated on both sides of the aisle, he was unanimously acclaimed as the new Bishop even though he hadn’t been baptized or ordained.

It was a “rush order initiation” for in the year 373 (or maybe 374?) St. Ambrose was baptized a Christian, ordained a priest, and consecrated a Bishop.

Immediately St. Ambrose began doing Bishop-y things like giving half his family wealth to the poor and changing his dress and tastes to reflect humility rather than opulence. He also began, in short order, to make Milan a center of learning, and through his own preaching, writing, organizing, and administration had influence far beyond his little corner of the waning Empire.

Through his writing he inspired one who is thought to be, next to St. Paul, the church’s crown jewel theologian: St. Augustine of Hippo (baptized by St. Ambrose in Milan at the Easter Vigil in 387).

But, see, all this influence and competency comes at a price. Justina, the Empress and mother of Valentinian, became jealous of St. Ambrose and how many fans, followers, and ancient retweets he was getting. She secretly devised a coalition to speak out against the Bishop, tried to retake and rename some of his cathedrals and basilicas in the name of the Arian streak of the faith, effectively pitting portions of the church against the other in order to gain their loyalty.

Doesn’t sound at all like politics today…

St. Ambrose decided not to play Justina’s games. He stood fast, at times seeking refuge inside his own church surrounded by his parishioners as Imperial soldiers attempted to capture him. During these moments of siege it is said that St. Ambrose led the gathered congregation in songs that he himself wrote, an impromptu sing-along to wage a non-violent war against the weapons of the state.

Again, doesn’t sound like any protests I know of…

Eventually Justina realized she was never going to have the following of St. Ambrose, and she stopped her assault, the courts withdrew their edicts for Catholic oppression and the arrest of the Bishop, and he got back to writing, preaching, and teaching.

A couple of fun facts: he’s considered one of the four pillar “Doctors of the Church,” and is credited with the saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans.” This last piece of advice was given to his charges who, when they came upon liturgical differences in the Mass that were regional, asked the good Bishop which ordo to follow.

The good Bishop, understanding hospitality, told them to do what the locals do. Because, well, “When in Rome…”

St. Ambrose died on the Vigil of Easter, April 4th, 397. Though some remember him on that day, today is a better opportunity, the day of his baptism-ordination-consecration, because it doesn’t conflict with the moveable Easter Feast.

St. Ambrose is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes the best church leaders are those who know how to stand against the headwinds of worldly power.

And no book can tell you how to do that.

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

-icon written by the saints at Monastery Icons (monasteryicons.com)

Today is one of my favorite Feast Days for one of my favorite saints: Saint Nicholas, Bishop, Patron Saint of Sailors, and Gift-giver.

It is ironic that little is known about the life of Saint Nicholas, this Bishop of a seaport town in what is now Turkey, because he’s one of the most beloved and recognizable saints in popular culture. We know that he was born in the 4th Century, and that he attended the Council of Nicaea where he is purported to have socked Arius (considered a heretic at the time) right in the face. Anyone who has served on a church council understands that it can get a bit testy sometimes…

But other than the above (and the whole “punched Arius” thing may not even be accurate), all else that is said about St. Nicholas is lore and legend.

It is said of him that, as an infant, he refused to nurse on Wednesdays and Fridays, typically fasting days for the pious.

It is said that he aided a poor family once by paying the dowry of three daughters, saving them from a life of prostitution. On three successive nights he threw bags of coins through an open window. This act is how he became known as the patron saint of gift-giving.

It is said that he saved three boys who had been kidnapped by a butcher and returned them to their parents.

It is said that he aided sailors in trouble off the coast of Myra by calming a storm, and showed great courage himself while out on the sea. This is why he is the patron saint of seafarers.

Today around the world Saint Nicholas will be impersonated by many utilizing a long, white beard, parading around in Bishop vestments. In some places small children dress up like the saint to beg for alms for the poor.

In America the rituals of St. Nicholas Day have almost all been moved to December 25th and melded with other Christian-Solstice practices. Still, in some homes (like mine), children leave their shoes out by the fireplace or in the foyer of the home, hoping that St. Nicholas will come by on his horse and leave chocolate coins, oranges, and small trinkets as gifts. The coins are an homage to the legend of the dowries.

The festivities and legends surrounding Saint Nicholas have melded with Norse and Celtic winter legends and lore in these days. Looking more like Odin now than a short, brown-skinned Bishop (which he most certainly was), common depictions of Santa Claus bear little resemblance to this ancient priest from Asia Minor. Still, the practice of gift-giving and charity is certainly worth continuing in whatever form it takes, and in that way St. Nicholas is kept alive age after age in one form or another.

Saint Nicholas is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that charity and love are languages that are universal and, in the form of Saint Nick, take on hands, feet, and a face every year. There is much to be learned about human nature and human connection from the fact that his appeal is so wide and varied!

It almost makes one hopeful, yes?

-historical notes gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations and too many Rick Steves documentaries on Christmas

In the breaking days of December the church honors a Saint who found himself in a church at a breaking point: St. John of Damascus, Hymnwriter and Priest.

Born in 675, St. John was born into a wealthy family and was elevated to a political position of prominence at quite a young age when he succeeded his father as an official in the Court of the Caliph of Damascus.

He felt a call to the faith, and became a monk at the monastery of Mar Saba (still in existence!), a hermit colony founded in the year 484. It was there that he gave up his position in the Caliphate Court and devoted himself to simplicity, the study of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, and the priesthood. He was ordained in 725.

It was about this time that the church began to crumble under the weight of melding practices. The Eastern and Western churches were evolving drastically different approaches to faith and life. It would take another 300 years for the split to become official, but it is here in history that we can see the fault lines.

In these days the Byzantine emperor Leo III forbade the veneration of sacred images and icons, and ordered their destruction. St. John of Damascus wrote vehemently that icons and sacred images were portals and glimpses of the Divine, not Divine themselves, and should be saved and maintained. As part of his logic, he successfully defended the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist as well, against those who would dismiss it.

St. John of Damascus wrote great mystical treatises on theology, too, that are still foundational for the Orthodox community.

For all of the above, St. John of Damascus is considered by the Eastern Church as the last of its Fathers.

We still sing the writings of St. John, by the way. That wonderful Easter hymn sung every year that goes, “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness!” came from his golden pen. He authored a number of Easter hymns that still sing out the faith to this day every Spring.

St. John of Damascus died near Jerusalem around 760. He is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that icons and objects can be glimpses of Divine presence in this world, and we need not take everything at face value.

Indeed, nothing is “face value” when it comes to the Divine. God is always more than they appear…and godly things can be, too.

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

Today the church remembers the Martyrs of El Salvador.

Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel were Catholic Missionaries, Ursuline, and Maryknoll Sisters murdered in 1980 for their outspoken defense of the plight of the powerless and poor. Accompanying the people there, they were irritating the powers of the day with their theology of liberation and hope.

These four sisters were murdered on this day in the same year that Archbishop Romero was murdered, though he was killed in March.

Instead of recounting the details of their lives, I’ll just share a bit from a letter Sister Clarke wrote to her companion, Katie, just before she was murdered:

“There are so many deaths everywhere that it is incredible.

The ‘death squadron’ strikes in so many poor homes. A family of seven, including three small children, was machine-gunned to death in a nearby town just last week. It is a daily thing–bodies everywhere, many decomposing or attacked by animals because no one can touch them until they are seen by a coroner. It is an atmosphere of death.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring…Write to me soon. Know that I love you and pray for you daily. Keep us in your heart and prayers, especially the poor forsaken people.”

The days surrounding Christmas are filled with Feast Days, some beautiful (like St. Nicholas), and some tragic like today. This is because the Divine entered into the world not as we would like it to be, but as it is: beautiful and tragic.

These martyrs today are a reminder to me, and should be for the church, that the first victims of any sort of violence are the poor and vulnerable.

If you need confirmation of that, just ask any medical professional who they are treating for COVID-19.

Those with means, good insurance, fewer health conditions (that are easily and often exacerbated by poverty!), and who can take off work to get treatment without fear of losing their job largely recover.

Those without, do not.

Looking at you Joe Rogan and Aaron Rodgers.

It is a different kind of violence, a more negligent kind on the part of the powers of the world, but it is violence none-the-less.

Today, November 30th, the church honors an often overshadowed apostle, Saint Andrew. He’s usually called “brother of Peter,” and rarely seen without that qualifier, making him, in essence, known to the world only in relation to his brother…which many people can probably identify with.

St. Andrew is the patron saint of sea-people, but also the informal saint of all who stand in the shadow of someone else.

He is the saint for the B-side of the record, the underdog sibling, the cobbler and the cooper who are no longer appreciated in their crafts.

Lore notes him dying in Greece, crucified because he refused to make sacrifice to the local gods and kept talking about Jesus.

And though he stood in the shadow of his brother his whole life, Andrew gets a place of prominence in the end: his feast day is the official marker for the start of Advent because the First Sunday of Advent every year is the Sunday that falls closest to St. Andrew’s day.

Today the church remembers a 20th Century Mexican priest, St. Miguel Agustin Pro, Martyr of the Faith.

St. Miguel was born in 1891 in Zacatecas, Mexico, and was known as a happy, cheerful, and privileged child. Despite his relatively high-born status, he developed a deep love and kinship for the working class families around him, and began to spend all of his time and energy working alongside the poor.

He eventually became a Jesuit novice at the age of twenty, and was exiled during the Mexican Revolution. He went to Belgium, where he was ordained, and eventually returned to Mexico in the wake of the war. He found churches closed, priests hiding, and being a Catholic now illegal. Fr. Miguel would regularly dress up in disguises to conduct secret and underground ministry, especially offering pastoral care, comfort, and the sacraments to the afflicted.

In 1927 St. Miguel was accused of being a part of a failed bombing attempt, though it is widely believed that the charges were false. He was handed over to the police and sentenced to death without so much as a trial.

As he was put in front of the firing squad he cried out, “Long live Christ the King!”

Though the government forbade a public funeral, people poured out of their homes to line the streets as his body passed by.

St. Miguel is a reminder to me, and should be for the whole church in the United States, that it was not so long ago that real religious persecution so close to home was a thing, so we should be very hesitant to claim it over baking cakes, serving pizza, and performing weddings and whatnot today.

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

-icon by Iknu Arts (https://displate.com/displate/2513912)

Today the church honors an apostolic pillar whose writings almost (and should have!) made it into the Biblical canon: St. Clement, Theologian and Bishop of Rome.

Little is known about the life of St. Clement, who was probably the fourth Bishop of Rome. He lived and died right around the year 100, and may be the same Clement written about in the book of Philippians (4:3). He was certainly the writer, though, of the Epistle of Clement I (though probably not the Epistle of Clement II).

Ordained by St. Peter, Clement was said to be banished to Crimea during the reign of Trajan, forced to work in the mines. It was there, it is said, that he was tied to an anchor and thrown into the Black Sea (the anchor is his saintly symbol).

But though so little is known about Clement, we certainly know much about his thoughts and his voice. In the year 96 Clement authored a letter from the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth. This letter is the earliest Christian document we have in existence, with the exception of some New Testament writings, and was written to encourage the Church at Corinth to avoid a schism and remain steadfast to one another. It’s a letter of pastoral advice.

This letter was so widely known, and so widely revered, at early manuscripts of the New Testament include it in the canon.

St. Clement is a reminder for you, and should be for the whole church, that not all that is holy is contained in the canon, Beloved.

-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s _New Book of Festivals & Commemorations_

Today the church remembers a masterful storyteller who wove a tapestry of tales that continue to teach: Clive Staples Lewis, Writer and Dream Maker.

St. Lewis (you know him better as C.S. Lewis, no doubt) was born in Northern Ireland to a barrister father and mathematician mother. After years of boarding schools, he attended University College, Oxford and, after graduation, was appointed as a Tutor and Fellow there, and eventually as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature a Cambridge.

At his heart, he was a writer. Scholarly works, fictional works, essays regarding the state of humanity, C.S. Lewis was born with one pen in his hand and another in his mouth.

As a youth he had rejected Christianity, probably as a rebellion around the death of his mother when he was ten years old. In 1929 he had a conversion experience that eventually led him back to the church in 1931. This journey from atheism to theism to the church was recounted in _Surprised by Joy_, published in 1955.

As many it is with many converts, C.S. Lewis spilled a lot of ink defending the faith. _The Problem of Pain_, _Mere Christianity_, and _The Screwtape Letters_. In these works for art…which they are…he eloquently and imaginatively honors various human realities through the lens of faith.

Most of the world, though, knows him not for his essays, but for his works of fiction and science-fiction. The seven book _Chronicles of Narnia_ and his lesser known _Space Trilogy_ present for humanity a fanciful retelling of Christian faith and morals through a lion who dies yet lives, children who are awake and yet dreaming, honorable mice pirates, witches, and distant planet explorations that are right in your backyard.

It’s widely known that he and his fellow writer, JRR Tolkien, often met to discuss their works over a pint or three. He thought Tolkien was too verbose (he was), and Tolkien thought Lewis was too “on the nose” with his allegories (he was). And yet we’re all better for it all, right?
The works of Lewis that most affected me, though, weren’t any of the above, but two works separated by time yet linked in theme: _The Four Loves_ and _A Grief Observed_.

In _The Four Loves_ Lewis mines the realities of human love, seeking to make a connection between these loves and the deep feelings of the heart. English is such a limiting language. We only have one word for “love,” and yet many ways of feeling it. Lewis goes deep into analysis around this, offering some clarity to what we feel when we say “I love you.”

In _A Grief Observed_, though, Lewis is at his most vulnerable, most bare, most thoughtful (at least in my opinion). He wrote this reflection on grief after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman Gresham, after they had only been married four years. Here St. Lewis is less apologist for the faith and more barrister with faith and fairness of life put on slow, subtle trial. Gone is the idealism of the new convert, and in its place we find an honest conversation between C.S. Lewis and a faith that he considered an old friend that kind of let him down (though the work does end on a hopeful note).

It is real. It is honest. And, in my opinion, is required reading.

St. Lewis died on this day in 1963 at his home in Oxford.

One of my favorite notions of his, which I believe to be totally true, is found in _The Screwtape Letters_ where the young demon being tutored by penpal is told that “God only coaxes, and cannot coerce.”

God only coaxes, and cannot coerce.

St. C.S. Lewis is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that story has always been a way that we learn about the Divine.

And always will be.

-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s _New Book of Festivals & Commemorations_
-opinions mine
-icon written by Claudia Kilby