Today an obscure saint is remembered by the Church, one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends: George Fox.
Fox, born in England, left his home at eighteen to follow a religious quest, and reportedly had many visions and spiritual awakenings along the way.
He arrived, in time, to the idea that God speaks to the inner-soul, not through the forms and norms of the established church, which put him at odds with his Puritan surroundings. This inward insight became the plumb-line for guidance and faith, above clergy, doctrine, and even scripture itself.
Because of these stated beliefs, as well as his peculiar habits (he wore leather suits and never took his hat off), he was beaten, stoned, and jailed numerous times. Nonetheless, followers continued to flock to his message, including William Penn and Robert Barclay.
His followers became known as “Quakers,” an unpleasant term used to describe these people who refused to make pledges, pay tithes, or make oaths to authority.
Because of Fox and his message, the state passed the Toleration Act of 1689 which formally outlawed religious discrimination (though it continued informally), and left an impression on courts forcing them to struggle with what it means to be “equal before the law.”
-Summary from Pfatteicher’s “New Book of Festivals & Commemorations”-
Though today is Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, the church reserves his commemoration for April 4th, conforming with the practice they do with all martyrs by remembering him on the day of his death.
Nevertheless, it is certainly appropriate to honor him today.
To do that, I’ll share my favorite quote from King, one that doesn’t get a lot of circulation, though you may have heard it before. It’s from “The Drum Major’s Instinct.”
“If you want to be important–wonderful. If you want to be recognized–wonderful. If you want to be great–wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s your new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it…by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great.
Because everybody can serve.
You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve, you don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.
Today the church remembers a contemporary Norwegian saint who deserves to be remembered more than he is: St. Eivind Josef Berggrav, Bishop of Oslo and Gadfly of the Nazis.
St. Berggrav was born at the end of the 19th Century, the son of the Bishop of Hamar. He planned to be an engineer, but fell in love with Theology and decided that would be his life’s pursuit.
He didn’t enter the ministry immediately upon graduation, spending some time studying the psychology of religion as the editor of a prominent publication dedicated to the topic. It was clear he was wrestling with his own vocation. At the same time, he took up teaching.
Finally in 1919, he was ordained by the Church of Norway and appointed to the rural parish of Hurdal. In 1925 his ministry took a jaunt directly northward, as he was elected the Bishop of Tromso on the arctic plains of Norway, close to the land of the Lapps. These fur trappers, fishermen, and sea people taught him how to be a Bishop of the church
In 1937 he was appointed Bishop of Oslo, and soon after the President of the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the churches. The world was on the brink of war at the time.
In 1940, after the Nazi invasion of Norway, St. Berggrav was named one of the negotiators assigned to assess the intentions of the Nazi occupation.
He lasted two days in the post before resigning in protest, saying that he would never compromise with them. From this stance, he led a formal opposition to Nazi interference, focusing on the independence of the clergy and the sacred rights of the Jewish people.
This, obviously, upset the powers that be. They stripped him of his bishopric and his clerical credentials, and they put him on house arrest. In protest, 797 of the 861 priests of the Church of Norway resigned on Easter Sunday, showing what resurrection-in-action truly looks like.
Feeling Berggrav was the primary instigator of this rebellion, he was imprisoned in a solitary log cabin on the outskirts of Oslo under the edict of Hitler himself.
An underground church quickly formed in Norway, continuing the life of the faithful in exile. In something out of a spy novel, Berggrav donned a disguise and escaped from his log cabin, hiding out in Oslo until the liberation of Norway in 1945.
After the war, Berggrav lobbied for greater participation by the laity of the church in ecclesial affairs. He became a leader in the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, and served until he fell ill in 1950. He died on this day in 1959.
A prolific writer, Berggrav published half a dozen books in his distinguished career, the last entitled When the Fight Came about his disobedience to the Nazi regime.
St. Berggrav is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that there are some things you can’t compromise on.
-historical pieces inspired by Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
A 4th Century Saint is honored by the church on January 13th: St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers and Hymnwriter.
Hilary (think “happy” or “hilarious,” because his name is derived from the Latin for fun/cheerful) was born in Gaul to powerful pagan parents. He was not baptized until relatively later in life, at age 30, and in the year 350 he was made bishop of Poitiers by popular demand, though he was already married and had never been ordained!
Throughout history, good order has often been circumvented by the desires of the masses, for good and for ill.
St. Hilary bucked Emperor Constantinus in not going along with the Emperor’s demand that Western Bishops adhere to a compromised Nicene faith, and for this he was banished to Phrygia in Asia Minor.
There he continued his work as a theologian, writing On the Trinity while in exile, a foundational document for the early church.
In 360 he was allowed to return to his post at Poitiers to great acclaim, and he became the most respected Latin theologian of the time, and is lauded as one who brought Eastern wisdom into the Western church largely due to his time in exile and learning from those in Asia Minor.
He is also remembered as having written the first Latin hymns. Having been influenced by Greek hymns during his exile, he brought many back and created Latin versions of them while also writing new hymns altogether for the Western church. He was disappointed with the ability of the people in Gaul to carry a tune, however, and complained that they were “unteachable in sacred song.” I guess you can’t always have a win.
Hilary is remembered as being one intensely focused on Orthodoxy, but also as one who, due to his life experience, broadened and expanded the practices of the church.
Oh, and fun fact: I passed by the parish of St. Hilary weekly when I lived on the north side of Chicago.
St. Hilary is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes spending some time in exile, on the outs, at the margins, can be a blessed time of learning where the gems of the wilderness can be mined and brought back into the center of life.
-historical pieces gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today the church observes Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx and Good Friend.
Born in the 12th Century, Aelred was the son and grandson of Saxon priests. He was sent to work in the home of King David of Scotland at a young age, and when he entered adulthood experienced some deep inner struggle of an unknown nature.
All we know is that he was conflicted.
To help discern his angst, he entered a Cistercian Order at Rievaulx and soon gained a reputation as kind, wise, and a good friend to all.
His greatest mark left on the world was his capacity for profound sympathy, and he went on to write Spiritual Friendship, a reflection on the goodness of having and being a true friend in life.
The good Abbot was known to create deep, meaningful friendships, and hold these up as the pinnacle of godly relationship.
“A friend praying to Christ on behalf of his friend, and for his friend’s sake desiring to be heard by Christ, directs his attention with love and longing to Christ; then it sometimes happens that quickly and imperceptibly, the one love passes over into the other, and coming as it were, into close contact with the sweetness of Christ himself, the friend begins to taste his sweetness and to experience his charm.”-Spiritual Friendship
St. Aelred is a reminder to me, and should be for everyone, that sometimes the best thing you can be in this world is a good friend.
After all, if the only thing anyone remembered us for is our deep capacity for sympathy and friendship, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world…
Today the church remembers a simple, humble saint who dedicated his existence to prayer and presence: Brother Lawrence, Mystic and Monk.
Brother Lawrence was born in the early 17th Century in Lorraine, France. We do not know much about his childhood, other than to say that he received very little schooling. He served a stint in the army, but one day had a mystical vision that gave him a new direction.
While gazing at a stark tree in the middle of a French winter, Brother Lawrence received an overwhelming feeling of grace and a deep sense that God was present. He saw in that moment that he, like that tree, was waiting for God’s blooming in his life…which could happen at any moment.
Brother Lawrence took this experience and went off to Paris, joining the Carmelite monastery there as a lay brother.
He was given the base tasks of caring for the monastery, but in his repetitive work he found an avenue to integrate spirituality into every mop swing, every dish scrub, and every menial task given him. He began what he called the “practice of the presence of God.”
He devoted each small task to the Divine, turning every moment into an opportunity for prayer.
Brother Lawrence is a reminder for me, and can be for the whole church, that the small, simple things when done faithfully are a gift to the Divine and to the world.
In fact, I’d go further to say that small, simple communities of faith, parishes, churches, embody Brother Lawrence best when they do their small bit with great attention and devotion.
-historical bits gleaned from Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove’s A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
Today is a feast day that, while not honored throughout the church, is especially reverent in African communities throughout Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay: Saint Balthazar, King of Macedonia and one of the Magi who sought out the infant Christ.
Saint Matthew’s Gospel does not name the Magi, nor does the writer even number them. The names, and their numbering, are all part of lore. So, where did we get the names of the Magi?
I’m glad you asked!
The names of the Magi are derived from a 6th Century Greek manuscript that was translated into Latin and widely distributed. There we read that the Magi who visited the Christ after following astrological signs were named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Of the three, Balthazar developed a particularly powerful following, mostly because it was purported that he was the Magi who carried the myrrh, the most mysterious and tragic of the “gifts” given to the infant Jesus.
The Venerable St. Bede describes him as being a black man with a long beard which, while surely conjecture, struck a tone with many parts of the church that were under represented in depictions of the scriptures, especially as the whitewashing of the Bible had largely been completed by then.
In short: Saint Balthazar provided an opportunity for much of Christendom to see themselves in the story when they had largely been erased and replaced.
Today in many parts of South America, in non-Covid days, you’d find festivals and street parades honoring St. Balthazar and his elegantly morbid gift of myrrh. He is the patron saint of those who work with saws, thunder, those with epilepsy, and those who manufacture playing cards (I have no idea why), and of the three kings of lore, is the most popular.
Tradition has him being entombed at Cologne Cathedral in Germany, having been moved there from the original resting place of Constantinople (or is it Istanbul?). There the legend says his remains are kept with his other two companions at the Shrine of the Three Kings.
Now, all of this is legend and lore, from the top to the bottom. So why bother noting this feast day at all?
We must remember that while religion is Divinely inspired is is held in cracked clay jars of the human imagination. This feast day speaks to a wide swath of humanity and, in the Biblical narrative, plays an important part in Matthew’s Gospel. The gift of myrrh to the infant Jesus is a foreshadowing of his death, a little “flash forward” the Gospel writer provides for the ending of the story.
Indeed: the Jesus story is no story at all without the myrrh-y part.
So Saint Balthazar is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, of at least two things:
First: the whitewashing of the Bible (making all the characters European) is a disgrace and should absolutely be repudiated as a practice.
And secondly: the legends and lore of the faith still speak, and are still worth remembering and honoring as long as that remains true.
This poem by Maggie Smith keeps running through my head.
“Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”
Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Epiphany.
This is much more than just a story of Magi visiting the Christ child.
This day is all about awe and wonder. It is about recognizing the cosmic impact that the Divine incarnation has, as even the heavenly bodies testify to the greatness of God through the stars.
It is about the global impact that the embodiment of the Word of God would have, as people from the far corners of the Earth are embraced by God’s holy in-breaking, compelled to seek it out.
It is about Christ’s nature: precious as gold, fragrant as frankincense, and self-giving as the myrrh used to wrap the dead in that final act of love.
The journey of the Magi will be echoed by the journey of those women who walk with spices to the empty tomb on Easter morning.
The symmetry is striking. The whole arc fills you with awe.
In these days between Epiphany and Transfiguration the church will continually ask, “Who is this Jesus?” And with story after story we’ll hear a variety of answers to that question.
But today we just get this one answer: the embodied Word is worth searching for, worth giving things up for, and worth defying the powers of this world for.
The Magi, like Jesus himself, will practice civil disobedience in an effort to keep their conscience intact, by God.
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
Reluctant Xtian 