Today the church remembers a relatively obscure 13th Century saint, St. Margaret of Cortona, Mother and Friend of Those Who Self-Harm.

St. Margaret lived an unconventional life in many ways, at least for one who is considered a saint of the church…which makes her so relatable. Her father was a Tuscan farmer and her mother died while she was quite young. In the hustle and bustle of all her siblings, Margaret was neglected and largely forgotten, which caused her to run off early in life with a local man and have his child out of wedlock.

Though her child was this man’s, she was not his wife, and remained his mistress for nine years. One day the man’s dog came bounding toward her without her lover, and following the canine, she found him murdered under a nearby tree with no explanation.

With her young son, St. Margaret attempted to be reconciled to her father, but he rejected her and his grandson. Having no where else to go, she turned to the Friars Minor of Cortona to take sanctuary.

She was so tormented by her life which she assumed was a failure, that she tried to harm herself a number of times. Our past can be difficult to carry, especially when we feel like we are rejected by those we most love. The systems we find ourselves in can trap us in cycles of pain; this is most certainly true.

The kind Friars she found herself with, though, would not let her hurt herself. Gently and honestly they walked with her, and because she knew intimately the pain of rejection, she made a wonderful nurse in their sick ward, and spent her days tending those others refused to touch.

She eventually joined the Third Order of St. Francis, and her son became a Franciscan as well. She deepened her spiritual practices, and was granted permission by the church to dedicate herself to the care of the outcast, the poor, and the sick as her life’s work. She gathered her small group of followers and eventually became known as “The Poor Ones,” standing in solidarity with those who felt rejected and hurt in life.

She died on this day in 1297.

St. Margaret of Cortona is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes people harm themselves not because they are selfish, but because they feel unseen, forgotten, and guilt-laden by a world that does a poor job at teaching us to transform pain rather than transmit it.

-historical bits gleaned from public source material

-icon written by Noah Gutierrez

Today the church rightly remembers an icon of the rights of humanity: Saint Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist, Author, and Activist.

Saint Frederick was born into slavery in Maryland, a state many people forget was actually part of the historic South. His mother died when he was a young boy, and he was raised by his grandparents. It was rumored that his birth father was the plantation owner, though Saint Frederick himself never truly knew. He also barely knew his mother, as the barbaric practice of separating children from parents was common practice on plantations across the states where slavery was legal.

He was extremely bright and savvy, he learned to read and write by bartering food for lessons from neighborhood children. He went on, then, to teach other slaves to read using the Bible and the Sunday School hour as the classroom.

He escaped from slavery by pretending to be a sailor, aided by a uniform given him by his love, Anna Murray, and successfully hopped a train that aided him in getting to the free commonwealth of Pennsylvania. From there he went to New York City, sending for Anna Murray to meet him there, eventually marrying her in 1838. The couple eventually settled in Massachusetts and Douglass became a licensed preacher.

A fantastic orator and writer, Saint Frederick would spend his days making connections with other stakeholders in the area, and writing for the “Liberator” magazine. He attended protests and organized boycotts of local transportation (he refused to sit in segregated areas), lobbying for the equal treatment of African-Descent citizens as well as women.

As his fame grew, especially after the publication of his autobiography, he traveled to the British Isles as both a touring opportunity as well as a safe-guard against his former owners hearing about him and trying to take him back. For two years he toured the isles, even meeting with Thomas Clarkson, the famous British abolitionist who had persuaded Parliament to outlaw slavery.

This meeting gave him infinite hope that the same could be true of America, an America that he lamented “didn’t recognize him as even a man.”

Saint Frederick returned to the states and began publishing his first magazine, “North Star,” writing against slavery and butting heads with politicians and leaders who suggested anything other than total freedom for slaves, and he lobbied hard for school desegregation.

By the time the Civil War was underway, the famous St. Frederick met with President Lincoln to discuss a future free from slavery. He argued that willing men of all races should be allowed to fight for the Union, and post-war was disappointed that President Lincoln didn’t have the decency to publicly advocated for suffrage for free Black citizens who had so faithfully defended the Union.

During Reconstruction Douglass worked hard through political and social avenues to ensure the newly-granted rights of Black citizens were respected. He supported the election of President Grant, and became the first Black citizen to be nominated on the Vice Presidential ticket of the Equal Rights Party (though he didn’t even know he had been nominated).

That year his house burned down. Arson is suspected. But he continued on his speaking circuit, writing and lobbying for equal rights.

President Hayes appointed Douglass as the Marshal of the District of Columbia, the first person of color so named.

In 1881 he published his seminal work, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, and in 1888 received a vote for the Presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention.

On February 20th, 1895 Saint Frederick, having attended a meeting of the National Council of Women, returned home and suffered a massive heart-attack. He was 77 years old. Thousands attended his funeral out of respect to his legacy of fighting for equality.

Saint Frederick is an inspiration and an icon. He worked with anyone as long as they were trying to “do good,” and this fact got him much criticism from radicals who thought no one should ever work with someone of a differing ideology, ever. But St. Frederick was fond of saying, “I would unite with anybody to do right, and with nobody to do wrong.”

Saint Frederick is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, of many things, but primarily it is simply this: laws that are unjust are worth disobeying.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

-history gleaned from Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove’s Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals as well as public source material

-icon written by Kelly Latimore

Today the church remembers the reformer and cranky theologian, Martin Luther. He’d wince at being called a saint, but welcomed the title of “baptized.”

Luther was as imperfect as he was ingenious. As the most prolific and public author of his day, his opinions on matters mundane (a homemade remedy for skin rashes) to mighty (Freedom of a Christian) are well-documented and well known by all students of history. He wrote beautiful theological treatises and stirring hymnody. He was a pioneer for women and children in his day.

Yet, he was a person of his era in many ways, and lamentably was unable to rightfully wrestle with his own prejudices, especially toward those of the Jewish faith.

His anti-Semitic writings have been totally and fully condemned by the Lutheran church.

With both his flaws and his fortitude he embodies one of his central theological discoveries: that we are all both sinner and saint, simultaneously. We are both perfectly imperfect, and perfectly loved by a God who has a tender spot for broken things.

One of his more poetic thoughts about the “now-and-not-yetness” of our human existence:

“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness,
not health, but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it,
the process is not yet finished,
but it is going on,
this is not the end, but it is the road.“

Today the world honors St. Valentine, but the church kind of shrugs toward that saint, and instead dedicates the day to two Greek biological brothers: St. Cyril and St. Methodius, both 9th Century missionaries to the Slavs.

Cyril, in an effort to translate the Gospels and the liturgy into the Slavonic language, created a whole new alphabet. Modern Russian is based on this Cyrillic alphabet.

After Cyril’s death, Methodius took up the missionary mantle and continued the work. Cyril and Methodius met great opposition within the church for their novel way of using the common vernacular to spread the Gospel. Their followers likewise faced oppression, and found themselves scattered…which actually helped the language, and the mission, spread throughout Eastern Europe.
The Slavic tradition in Lutheranism is still very strong, with a whole non-geographical Synod (Slovak-Zion Synod) representing the tradition in the ELCA yet today.

The brothers believed in a deeply contextual approach to engagement with those they were living with, even deconstructing and reconstructing their own systems (alphabet and liturgy) in order to communicate with clarity. They were transformed in the process, even as they transformed the information, and are still deeply revered in Slovak, Czech, Croat, Serb, and Bulgar traditions.
Those with ears let them hear.

-historical bits adapted from Pfatteicher’s _New Book of Festivals and Commemorations

Today the church remembers an often overshadowed 5th Century saint who dared to dare: Saint Scholastica, Monastic and Patron Saint of Overlooked Twin Sisters.

Saint Scholastica is the twin sister of Saint Benedict, born to noble Romans around the year 480 CE. Her mother died in childbirth, and Saint Scholastica was known, literally from her birth, to be both a blessing from the Divine and wholeheartedly dedicated to the Divine.

Her brother noted this often. He was in awe of his sister. So often we find this when one sibling overshadows the other: the one with the long shadow greatly admires the other one.

When Saint Benedict left to enter the ministry, Saint Scholastica stayed with the family home and business, tending to the practical needs of the moment. Yet, her heart called her to a monastic life, and she eventually heeded that call.

Saint Scholastica founded a community of sisters about five miles from her brother’s hermitage. Following the Benedictine rule of life, they gathered around prayer, contemplation, and service. She visited her brother once a year, meeting in a half-way house between the two communities, discussing spiritual matters and praying together.

On February 10th in 543 Saint Scholastica breathed her last. That night, long before he had heard of his sister’s passing, Saint Benedict had a vision where his sister’s soul, in the form of a dove, visited him and flew into the heavens.

Perhaps there is something to that idea that twins are connected in special ways, no?

The details of most of Saint Scholastica’s life are lost to memory, blotted out by the eclipse of her brother. Yet we know a few important things: Saint Benedict revered her, respected her, listened to her, and sought her spiritual guidance.

That’s a pretty good endorsement if you ask me.

Saint Scholastica is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that often the brightest sun is hiding a wise planet in another orbit. The pastors with the most prestigious pulpits aren’t always the stars they appear to be. Indeed: the best sermons on any given Sunday are preached to fewer than fifty people, in my opinion.

Let those with ears to hear, hear.

-historical bits gleaned from public access information

-icon written by Theophilia at DeviantArt

Today the church remembers a 20th Century Sudanese saint remembered for her fierce bravery and gentleness: Saint Josephine Bakhita, Patron Saint of Those Caught in Human Trafficking.

Saint Bakhita (not her given name at birth…the trauma of her story prevented her from remembering her birth name) was raised in Darfur by her loving family until the age of eight. At this young age, she and her sisters were captured and forced into slavery, sold a number of times throughout Africa and the Middle East. It was then that she was given the name Bakhita, which means “fortunate.”

In slavery she was tortured, whipped, scarred and tattooed, and forced to care for children though she herself was still only a child.

When the Suakin region of Sudan, where her captors were living, was besieged by war, Saint Bakhita and her charges were placed under the care of Italian Canossian Sisters in Venice, Italy (because she had recently been “bought” by an Italian diplomat). When it came time to return to Suakin, St. Bakhita refused to leave the convent. Her captors appealed to the Italian courts, but so did the Sisters.

The courts ruled that, since slavery was not a legal thing in Italy, her captors had no rights to her whatsoever. In their eyes she had never been a slave.

It’s nice to hear a legal case where justice prevailed, no?

St. Bakhita, who claimed that the Sisters had exposed her “to the God she had known in her heart since her birth,” entered the process to become a Canossian Sister. She was assigned a place at the convent in Schio, and remained there the rest of her life as the chef, sacristan, and doorkeeper of the convent, putting her in direct contact with the people of her city.

She was remembered for being gentle, kind, and for “having her mind on God, and her heart in Africa.”

She died on February 8th in 1947. Her body lay in repose, and thousands from the city and across the church came to honor her legacy and memory.

Saint Bakhita is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that the church is a place of sanctuary and, in the face of systems that seek to chip away at the dignity of humanity, must speak out forcefully with both our words and our actions.

-historical bits from public access information

-icon written by artist and theologian Jan Norton

Today the church remembers a 1st Century Saint whose mention in Acts of the Apostles (chapters 10 and 11) is indicative of an event much more important than it might first seem: St. Cornelius, Centurion and Bishop of Caesarea.

We know scant about Cornelius other than he was a Gentile convert who heard St. Peter’s preaching, and had his heart “strangely warmed” to borrow a phrase from John Wesley. His conversion, and that of his household, led to a second Pentecost of sorts, as St. Peter, the leader of the Jewish-Christian arm of the early church, began to accept Gentiles into the fold.

This was a huge deal for that early church. It started the domino effect of honoring the missional work of St. Paul and the admission of Gentile-Christians as equal members of the fledgling apocalyptic community.

St. Cornelius, as a Centurion, was a commander of one hundred soldiers. As a full Roman citizen of rank, he was well paid for his work and undoubtedly wealthy and influential.

Lore has him becoming the second Bishop of Caesarea, leaning into his conversion and leading the early church in service.

St. Cornelius is a reminder to me that the church has, at it’s inception, been forced to wrestle with inclusion and, from the outset, chose to have open doors rather than closed ones.

Perhaps that’s a history the church should re-learn in some corners.

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

Today the church honors a Saint whose work was like a fine wine taking time to develop: St. Ansgar, Bishop of Hamburg and Apostle of the North.

9th Century St. Ansgar was, on the face of his work, not very accomplished. In all of his missionary zeal he was only able to establish two churches on the border of Denmark and appoint one priest in Sweden.

But the small seeds that St. Ansgar scattered across the frozen north eventually took root, settling and snuggling in with the Viking and Celtic practices found there.

At the beginning of the 9th Century the church was seeing Scandinavia as the next frontier for the faith. A few prominent nobles had embraced Christianity, including King Harald (cool spelling of that name, no?) of Denmark who sought to regain his throne from a pagan usurper. In response to some of these hospitable events, the church began sending missionaries to the Viking lands. The seafaring people they met there were hearty and quite sophisticated in their own way, and though they tolerated (sometimes) these missionaries, they mostly saw them as useful for creating trading markets.

Still, the message these missionaries carried did take hold, especially amongst the slaves that had been brought north who were eager to hear the stories of their childhood faith offering hope in a weary land.

In 829 AD a group of these merchants asked Emperor Louis the Pious (who’d want to be remembered like that?) to send a Christian mission to Sweden to help establish a regular trading route, and Ansgar was chosen.

Ansgar and his small party set out and were attacked by Vikings who took all of their possessions and money. Arriving at their destination penniless, King Bjorn (the local prelate) gave them food, shelter, and allowed them to preach their Gospel. Though they had few converts, King Bjorn’s bailiff took the faith to heart and, with his own capital, erected the first church in Sweden.

In 831 St. Ansgar was appointed Archbishop of Hamburg, seeing that as a good place from which to continue sending missions to the north. St. Ansgar was blessed with an organizational mind (probably an Enneagram One) and was able to create community systems to preach and gather small pockets of apocalyptic people together to practice the faith.

In 845 Vikings saw Hamburg as a growing site of wealth and organization and decided they wanted in on the action, so they pillaged it and burned it to the ground. Undeterred, St. Ansgar continued to rebuild after the destruction of the city, patiently working and restoring those missional pathways throughout Denmark and Sweden. He worked at this until his death in 865 AD.

St. Ansgar is now roundly regarded as a Patron Saint of Scandinavia having tilled the soil and planted seeds that, true to the agrarian reality of the frigid north, took a while to take root. He is usually depicted in a fur collar and holding a mini-church, a nod to his life’s work.

St. Ansgar is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes you don’t see the fruits of your labor, but you stick at it, by God.

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

Today the church honors The Presentation of Jesus, a minor feast day that mentions two major saints of the faith: St. Simeon and St. Anna, Elders and Prophets.

Yes, we don’t know much about these saints (noted at the end of Luke 2) except to say that their patience and wisdom is instructive for a humanity that too easily leans toward immediacy and easy answers.

They hold up the Christ child in all his potential, declaring Jesus a special one. Imagine what could happen if we lifted up all children this way, not just those born in privilege.

It could change the world. It has before.

Christians bless candles today, making the metaphorical shift that the Christ is also the light of the world.

The Celts, more practical, would haul out new candles today because it is the midpoint between the solstice and the equinox, and the early winter candles are now spent as we are in the belly of the snow season.

But light daily grows, Beloved.

Anna and Simeon knew this.

St. Simeon and St. Anna are a reminder for me, and should be for all of the church, that all who are fortunate become old, but not all become elders.

Becoming an elder takes time, intention, patience, and a wisdom that comes from trusting promises in the face of scoffers and opposition.