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"Christians
of the Month" - part 2
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Last updated 11 June 2006
St.
Alban
by Canon Desmond V Treanor
 |
Alban, who is remembered in the Anglican
calendar on 22nd June, was the first Christian martyr in
Britain
.
According
to the Venerable Bede, his execution took place “when
the cruel Emperors published their edicts against the Christians”.
This means sometime between the Edict of the Roman Emperor
Diocletian in AD 303, and before the proclamation of the Edict of
Toleration by the Emperor Constantine 1 in AD 313.
Historians today believe that Alban was killed in the previous
century in an earlier persecution c.254.
Bede
says Alban was a pagan living in Verulanium who converted to Christianity
and, because he would not renounce his faith, was decapitated on a hill
outside the Roman settlement in which he lived.
The great abbey which bears his name, and in which his splendid
thirteenth century shrine is situated, was later founded near this site.
It is probable that he was a Roman citizen, for those who did not
have that privilege generally suffered even more cruel executions.
|
Apparently
Alban sheltered a Christian priest by whom he was baptised after his
conversion. When soldiers came to his home looking for the priest he bravely
donned the man’s long cloak and enabled him to escape while he took his
place.
Bede
relates several legends associated with Alban’s martyrdom.
On his way to be executed he had to cross a river.
But the bridge was blocked by a crowd.
Nothing daunted, he made the waters part, and he and his guards and the
many people who followed them, were able to cross on dry land.
The soldier who had been given the task of executing him was so
impressed that he converted to Christianity there and then, and refused to do
the duty that had been assigned to him. As a result he became the second
British martyr and is commemorated as ‘St. Amphibalus’ in a shrine in St.
Alban’s Abbey.
Another
man was ordered to carry out the execution, and he did; but his eyes promptly
dropped out of his head! This
legend is preserved in a thirteenth century manuscript in the Library of
Trinity College,
Dublin
. In art, Alban is represented as
carrying his head in his hands. Gildas,
a sixth century monk, seems to be referring to a written account of Alban’s
execution when he relates the story, and it appears that Bede
(two centuries later) is also dependent upon this now-unknown source
for his own account in his Ecclesiastical
History.
Josephine
Butler
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Jose
phine
Grey was born in Northumberland in April 1828, and baptised on 30th
May that year. Her father whose cousin was Earl Grey (Prime Minister from
1830-34) was a wealthy landowner, but had
a strong dislike of inequality and injustice which Josephine shared.
In
1852 she married the Rev. George Butler, son of the headmaster of Harrow, who
was an examiner of schools in
Oxford
, and had four children in the first five years of her marriage.
Her only daughter died at the age of six, and naturally Josephine was
devastated by the tragedy from which she never really recovered.
During
the American Civil War when they made known their anti-slavery views, she and
her husband encountered a great deal of hostility both in Cheltenham, their
first move, and in
Liverpool
, when he was appointed Principal of Liverpool College. By 1863, with his
enthusiastic support, she had become a tireless charity campaigner, especially
in the cause of the thousands of women who existed in utter misery in the
cellars of the workhouses, to which they had been driven by hunger,
destitution or vice. She visited them regularly, and she rescued many young
prostitutes from the streets, offering them food and shelter in her own home.
In
1867 Josephine Butler also joined Anne Clough in establishing courses of
advanced study for women. She was appointed President of the North of England
Council for the Higher Education of Women, and became involved in the campaign
to persuade
Cambridge
University
to provide more opportunities for women students, which led to the
establishment of
Newnham
College.
In
1869 she began her campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act
which had been introduced to reduce venereal disease in the armed forces.
But she protested that the laws only applied to women, and that under
the terms of these acts the police could arrest women whom they believed to be
prostitutes, and insist that they were given a medical examination.
Low earnings and unemployment in the slums and docks had driven many
women into prostitution, and Josephine had considerable sympathy for them and
for their children, whom were involved in what became known as the white slave
traffic.
As
a result of her work, with the aid of Florence Booth of the Salvation Army,
the Criminal Law Amendment Act, raising the age of consent from 13 to 16, was
passed, and in 1886 the Contagious Diseases Act was repealed. By this time her
husband had become a residentiary canon of
Winchester
, and they had eight happy years there, in the close, until he died.
Thereafter, she travelled widely in Europe, had an audience with Pope
Leo X111, who issued an encyclical against legalized brothels, and campaigned
for the closure of Army brothels in
India
.
Josephine
Butler was a privileged woman who had strong religious convictions and used
her life in the service of those who had none of her advantages. She wrote a
number of pamphlets and books, including a life of Catherine of Siena, for
whom she had a special devotion and is the only British post-Reformation woman
to be remembered officially in the Calendar of the Church of England.
F.D.
Maurice - 1st April
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Although
he is commemorated in the Anglican Calendar on April 1, in 1872, the day
on which he died after a life-time of overwork, Frederick Denison Maurice was
certainly no fool!
Born
in Normanstone, near Lowestoft in
Suffolk
, in 1805, the son of a Unitarian minister, Maurice was buried in Highgate.
A quiet, meditative boy who cared nothing for games, amusements or the
open air, he read civil law at
Cambridge
(obtaining a First), came to
London
and began what was to be a huge literary output with a novel, Eustace
Conway. He also edited both the London
Literary Chronicle and the Athenaeum
for a spell.
However,
he was undecided about his vocation and he resolved to return to university
life before seeking Anglican orders. This time he went up to
Oxford
and having taken a Second in classics he was ordained in 1834.
A curacy at Bubbenhall, near
Leamington
in Warwickshire was followed by the chaplaincy of Guy’s Hospital where he
was said to be a tender and devoted ministrant to the sick and dying. In his
‘free’ time he lectured in moral philosophy, continued to write and in
1839 began to edit the Educational
Magazine. The following year he was elected Professor of English History
and Literature at King’s College,
London
, and in 1846 the Chair of Divinity, which he also held for over a decade, was
added to this post. He also served as Chaplain of Lincoln’s
Inn
.
Before
1850 there were no public libraries and Maurice was one of the founders of the
Christian Socialist Movement and of the Working Men’s College. He also
helped his sister and others to found Queen’s College for Women, which
opened in 1854.
As
a theologian, his views on Anglican comprehensiveness have remained
influential and the best-remembered of his numerous writings, The
Kingdom of Christ, demonstrated his philosophical approach to theology.
His radicalism was revealed in his attack on traditional concepts of
hell which (as he foresaw it would) cost him his Professorship at King’s in
1853. However, in l866 he was
appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at
Cambridge
, a Chair which he held until his death.
“Eternity
has nothing to do with time or duration” he wrote.
“It is not an endless extension of Time but, on the contrary, a
condition of timelessness. Eternal
Life means participation in the Eternal Life of God, and Eternal Death is
refusal to participate in the Life”.
Most
of his contemporaries called Maurice a ‘Broad Churchman’, some in
approval, some in condemnation. But in truth they were wrong. To him
Christianity was not so much a set of intellectual propositions as a response
to the living God, and he attacked extremists of both the Evangelical and
Anglo-Catholic parties. It has been said that some of his writing was “as
obscure as a painting by Turner, and as full of splendid gleams.” Not
surprisingly his views were often misunderstood.
St. George -
23rd April
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
St. George may be the patron saint of England but almost nothing is known about him. It
is believed that he was born in the third century (but almost certainly not in Cappadocia
as the historian Gibbon argued) and that he suffered for the Faith during the Diocletian
persecutions, being tortured and beheaded in Nicomedia. The Greeks call him 'the great
martyr' and, as I have observed, still make much more of his feast day (23rd April) than
we do in the West.
Veneration for St. George as a soldier saint was widespread from early times,
especially in the Holy Land at Lydda. Some scholars think he should be identified with the
unnamed Christian who, as Eusebius records in his Ecclesiastical History, tore down the
edict of persecution published at Nicomedia by order of the emperor in AD 303. In truth,
no historical facts of his life have survived; so we are entirely dependant upon legends,
the most widely known of which is, of course, the one in which he is represented as a
knight in shining armour coming to the aid of a damsel in deep distress somewhere in
Libya.
Crossing a terrain of marshy wastes, so tradition tells us, George came to a city whose
inhabitants were in terrible trouble. Their neighbourhood was being devastated by a fierce
beast which, having eaten all their sheep, could only be kept at bay by regular human
sacrifice; and the lot had now fallen on the king's daughter. The ruler was at his wit's
end, especially as the princess insisted on 'doing her duty'; but just in the nick of time
George rode up and defeated the dragon.
This brave action, and various miracles that followed, led directly to the baptism of
many thousands of individuals at a time when it was illegal to be a Christian. This story
was popularised by the 'Golden Legend' in the later middle ages; but George was well known
in England long before the Norman conquest and is actually mentioned in Bede's Calendar.
It is probable that his sweeping popularity dates from the end of the eleventh century and
may be attributed to the returning crusaders who had successfully invoked the saint's aid
at the siege of Antioch and in subsequent battles.
In 1222 St. George's Day was made a 'lesser' holy day at the Synod of Oxford but was
changed to one of the chief holy days of the year in 1415 by Chichele, the Archbishop of
Canterbury.
In the meanwhile, in 1348, Edward III founded the Order of the Garter under the
patronage of St. George who typified the chivalrous aims of the Order. It seems certain
that the use of his standard - a red cross on a white background - as the official flag of
England and his adoption as Patron saint (in place of Edward the Confessor) stems from
that time.
Today the Red Cross in universally respected by myriads of people who neither know nor
care anything about its origins.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer - 9th April
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Born in 1906 in Breslau, then in Germany but now in
Poland, Dietrich’s father was a professor of psychiatry and, like the rest
of the family, an agnostic. But Dietrich was different and having chosen to
study at
Tubingen
and
Berlin
he was ordained as a
Lutheran pastor and himself became a lecturer. First he taught in Barcelona
and then, for a year, at the Union Seminary in New York before taking up a
similar appointment in Berlin. For a few months he served as pastor of a
Lutheran congregation in London but returned to Germany in 1935 to run a small
seminary for the Confessing Church which was opposed to the philosophy of
Nazism and had broken away from the rest of the Lutheran Church which
supported Hitler.
Banned from teaching and harassed by the Nazis he
undertook an extensive lecture tour in the USA but bravely returned to Germany
at the outbreak of the war in 1939. He joined the resistance and helped Jews
to escape to safety for which he was arrested. After two years the Gestapo
discovered that he had also been involved in a plot to kill the Fuhrer whom he
said was like a mad man ‘driving a car into a group of innocent
bystanders’. Thereupon he was given a summary trial and together with
Admiral Canaris, who had also plotted against Hitler, he was hanged in
Flossenburg concentration camp on 9th April 1945, just five days
before the place was liberated by the Americans!
His last recorded words, when taken out to his trial,
were ‘This is the end — for me the beginning of life’.
The prison doctor wrote later, ‘I was most deeply
moved by the way this lovable man prayed ... In almost fifty years that I
worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive
to the will of God’.
The best-known of Bonhoeffer’s pre-war books is
probably his provocative commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, entitled ‘The
Cost of Discipleship’ in which he distinguishes between ‘cheap’ and
‘costly’ grace. He castigated the Lutheran Church for preaching the
former, an easy, uninvolved Christianity. He might well have been writing of
England rather than pre-war Germany when he said that the whole nation has
been baptised with little sense of the meaning of being disciples of Jesus
Christ.
His ‘Letters from Prison’ had an even deeper impact
upon post-war theological thinking introducing, as they did, many phrases with
which we are now familiar such as ‘religionless Christianity’, ‘secular
holiness’ and ‘man come of age’. He was deeply critical of
‘religion’ as a replacement for the living God and decried the so-called
‘god of the gaps’ i.e. a god
who was only used to explain what science could not yet understand.
Bonhoeffer is remembered as a Martyr for the Faith and
the only Lutheran to be given an honoured place in the Calendar of the Church
of England (other than the Founder of the German Reformation himself).
St. Monnica
- 4th May
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Born in AD 331 Monnica was a devout Christian who was married to a pagan resident of
Tagaste, North Africa. Her husband, Patricus, seems to have been a dissolute character
possessed of violent temper; but Monnica was a faithful wife and the couple had three
children, two unruly boys and a girl.
At the age of forty she was widowed. Her eldest son, Augustine, was now seventeen and
she sent the brilliant boy to the University of Carthage so that he might study to become
a lawyer. But philosophy interested him more and as he read widely he moved further and
further away from the orthodox (albeit nominal) Christianity in which he had been brought
up and became a very enthusiastic follower of the heretical teachings of Manichaeus. He
also began a long-lasting relationship with a woman whom he did not marry. At the age of
twenty-three Augustine moved to Rome where he taught rhetoric for a few years before
accepting a professorship in Milan.
When her son left Africa for the capital of the empire Monnica packed her own
belongings and went with him and in Milan both of them became keen disciples of the
Bishop, St. Ambrose, to whom she introduced Augustine. Day by day she went to church and
by her ardent devotions and loving life style continued to work and pray for his
conversion which, to her great joy, was gradually accomplished as he began to accompany
her to church and to listen carefully to the bishop's sermons. At Easter AD 387 he was
baptised and she - mission accomplished - resolved to return to her hometown in Africa.
But within a few days, as she waited for a ship at the port of Ostia, she died having had
a series of deeply satisfying spiritual conversations with her son.
Augustine tells us the whole story in his 'Confessions' (of which a new translation by
Maria Boulding OSB has just been published by Hodder & Stoughton). It is because of
the nature of this work by the future Bishop of Hippo, whose influence on the theological
thinkings of the Church (especially in the West) in the next thousand years was so immense
that so much is known of this good woman. Unlike so many of her fellow Christians in the
early centuries of the Church's history, the facts about her were recorded by a most
reliable contemporary witness.
Before she died, with Augustine at her side, she said that she no longer had any desire
to return to Tagaste to be with other members of her family. After all, as she observed,
"nothing is far from God. Let no care for my body disturb you. This only I ask of
you, that you should remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be."
Her saintly son was but one of the first to recognise her as a model wife and mother.
Down the centuries various associations of Christian mothers have chosen her as their
patron saint and her feast day (4th May) appeared in the 1928 Calendar. Regrettably, it
has now been dropped. Many a modern housewife could learn a lot from her.
Thomas
Ken - 8th June
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Born
into an ancient
Somerset
family, in 1637. Thomas Ken’s mother died when he was still very
young; so he was brought up by his half-sister Anne, who was the wife of Isaac
Walton author of The Compleat Angler. He
was educated at Winchester and Hart Hall, Oxford and at the age of twenty became
a Fellow of New College, Oxford where he was especially well-known for his
‘excellent genius in music.
In
1679 he was ordained and served as incumbent of a number of parishes before he
returned to Winchester to teach at the college. It was there that he wrote a
manual of prayers for the boys and two of the hymns by which he is he is
particularly remembered today, namely. ‘Awake my soul, and with the sun’
and ‘Glory to Thee, my God, this night’.
In 1679 he spent a year as chaplain to Princess Mary at
the Hague
and actually
rebuked William of Orange for the way in which he treated his wife. When he
returned to England Charles II appointed him as a chaplain and, clearly, he
was equally firm with him for when the court came to Winchester Ken refused to
permit Nell Gwyn to use his house. Nevertheless,
the King admired him and after he had served for a year as chaplain to the
fleet which had been sent to sack Tangier he was appointed as Bishop of Bath
and Wells. He was consecrated on
26th January, 1685 and a week later attended the King, who was
dying, ‘without any intermission for three whole days and nights’. It
was Ken who gave him absolution at the end.
Charles
was succeeded by James II but, when he escaped to France in December 1688 and
William was proclaimed King, Ken was one of the nine bishops who were
unwilling to take the Oath of Allegiance. So
they were deprived of their dioceses (along with 400 Nonjuror priests who lost
their livings). He retired quietly
to Longleat, the seat of his friend Lord Weymouth, but took a prominent part
in appealing for funds for distressed Nonjurors.
When
in 1703 his successor, Richard Kidder, was killed in a great storm at Wells
Queen Anne wished to restore him as Bishop. But he declined her offer and was
happy to see an old friend, George Hooper, Bishop of Asaph, take his place at
the Palace in Wells. The Queen granted him a very generous pension and he
continued to live ‘in a large upper room’ at Longleat, surrounded by his
books. He never married and for the last twenty years of his life lived a
quiet, ascetic life. He ‘wrote hymns, sang them to his viol and prayed’.
After
some years of illness, Thomas Ken died on 19th March, 1711 and was buried, as he directed, ‘in
the churchyard of the nearest parish within the diocese (Frome Selwood) under
the east window of the chancel, just as the sun is rising’. Today he is
remembered especially in the Anglican Calendar on 8th June.
St. Columba
- 9th June
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
|
On
7th December 521, at Lough Gartan in Donegal, Columba, who was to become the great Apostle
of Scotland, was born into a noble Irish family, the clan O'Donnell. He was a privileged
child and received an excellent education in various monasteries where he was taught by,
amongst others, St. Finnian. In due course he himself became a monk, was ordained and
spent some fifteen years preaching and teaching in Ireland. He founded several monasteries
(including those of Derry and of Kells, whose monks produced the incomparably beautiful
copy of the Gospels which is now the great treasure of Trinity College, Dublin). At the
age of forty-two (according to his biographer Adamnan, Abbot of Iona in 679) he turned his
back on his native country and, with a dozen companions, set out to evangelise Scotland. |
 |
|
|
The monks made their home on Iona, a
tiny windswept island off the south west corner of Mull. A mere two by three miles, it was
frequently battered by Atlantic storms; but they found it eminently suitable and soon
built a cluster of mud and wattle huts (topped by turf) around a wooden church. Here they
worshipped, cultivated the stony ground, fished, read their books and made careful copies.
Columba was especially skilled in this work, being both a gifted artist and a scholar, and
is said to have made no less than three hundred copies of the Gospels as well as a number
of Psalters.For the next thirty-four years he and his companions made regular preaching
tours on the mainland. They established a large number of churches and several small
monasteries and year by year the Church grew as the Lord honoured their prayers and
labours. A strong leader, Columba also had the power of second-sight and is credited with
many miracles (including the driving away of a water "monster" by use of the
sign of the cross).In 597, on Sunday 9th June (now
observed as his Feast day) Columba died. It was precisely one week to the day after
Augustine of Canterbury had baptised King Ethelbert of Kent, and he himself is said to
have had a hand in converting Brude, the pagan King of the Picts. In 574 Aidan, King of
the Scots of Argyll had also come to the beehive-shaped buildings that formed the first
abbey of Iona in order to be consecrated by the saintly monk.
On the day before he died Columba worked as usual, copying the Scriptures and having
reached the end of verse 10 of Psalm 34 he stopped. The words were a fitting conclusion to
a life completely dedicated to God - "those who seek the Lord lack no good thing".
When the bell summoned the monks to their midnight office he went straight into the
church even before the candles were lit. When the other monks arrived they found their
Abbot lying before the altar "his face flushed and joyful". They wrote, "he
was like one who had seen a vision of angels." In all his works, wrote Adamnan, he
was "loving to everyone, happy-faced, rejoicing in his inmost heart with the joy
of the Holy Spirit." |
St. Anselm
- 21st April
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
The son of a Lombard nobleman, Anselm
was born in Aosta, Northern Italy in 1033. After a restless youth, his travels brought him
to the famous monastery of Bec in Normandy where he was persuaded by Lanfranc (who was
then prior) to settle down and become a monk. The life suited him perfectly and, at the
age of thirty, he was himself elected Prior.
Thereafter his life falls into three
periods of about fifteen years, as Prior, as Abbot of Bec and as Archbishop of Canterbury
(following Lanfranc who held each of these offices before him).
He had a powerful and original mind
and during his long years at Bec he taught many monks and wrote a number of devotional
books as well as many letters and works of philosophy and theology.
Anselm was the first truly great
theologian of the medieval Western church and is thought of as the founder of
Scholasticism. Amongst other 'classics' he was the author of 'Cur Deus Homo' which is one
of the best-known of all works on the Atonement. It is not easy reading! "I
want", he wrote, "to understand something of the truth which my heart believes
and loves. I do not seek thus to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order
that I may understand."
This was the age of chivalry in which
knightly tales were told of how honour which had been injured was vindicated; and it was
against this background that Anselm offered an interpretation of the work of Jesus Christ
in terms of satisfaction. It spoke eloquently to his contemporaries. Beginning with a
definition of sin as failure to render to God what is owed to God – i.e. perfect
submission to His law and will – he explains that in his life and death Jesus gave
the complete submission to God which alone can satisfy and honour Him. Because he was both
Son of God and Son of Man what Jesus did and does in and for every man saves us from the
penalty and punishment which our sin necessitates. As Anselm argues, Jesus did for man, in
his perfect life and death as man, what man could never have achieved for himself. When
Lanfranc died in 1093 William II nominated Anselm as Archbishop, but he was not a success
as a statesman. He was an ascetic not a courtier or a diplomat and, a generation before
the murder of Thomas Becket, he too clashed with kings over the relative authority of
Church and State. He was exiled twice, spending three years in Rome and several in other
parts of the continent.
Despite his stubbornness,
intellectual rigour and personal austerity he was an attractive character who was admired
by the Norman nobility as well as being loved by his monks. As a pastor, he encouraged the
ordination of native Englishmen amongst his clergy and opposed slavery which was still
rife.
In art Anselm's emblem is a ship. He
died in 1109 having left as a lasting legacy his teaching that it is our duty, so far as
we can, to exercise our minds on the apprehension of revealed truth. His feast day is 21st
April.
St. Julian of Norwich
- 8th May
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
The most popular of English mystics,
even the real name of the remarkable woman who is now called by the name of a church in
Norwich is unknown. She was born in 1342. That is a fact, and on 8th May 1373, at a time
when she and those around her thought she was about to die, she received fifteen visions
centred on the Trinity and the Passion of Jesus. Her state of ecstasy lasted five hours,
and she received one final vision the following night. Immediately she recorded her
visions and for the next twenty years she meditated upon their meaning.
In 1393 she completed a book entitled
'The Revelations of Divine Love' which is steeped in biblical thought, and
especially in the writings of John and Paul. The work is marked by the depth of its
theology, the breadth of its compassion and the great beauty of its language. It was, in
fact, the first book written in English by any woman.
This lady lived as an anchorite in a
cell beside the ancient church of St. Julian, about half a mile from the cathedral. The
original building, destroyed by bombing in 1942, has been restored as a place of prayer
and today 'Julian Groups' from many different Christian traditions use her reflections as
a springboard for their own silent prayer.
Despite her modest disclaimer, 'I
am a woman, unlettered, feeble and frail' she had obviously been well-instructed in
biblical theology (perhaps by the Benedictine nuns of the nearby Carrow Abbey with whom
she seems to have had some connection). It is unlikely that she herself was a nun but it
is widely believed that, having embraced a solitary life at St. Julian's, she lived
according to the Rule for Anchoresses for a great many years. Precisely when she died is
not recorded, but she seems to have reached the late seventies at least.
Her lively images – of a hazel
nut, of clothes blown in the wind, of the sea bed, etc. – suggest that as she
reflected on life beyond the walls of her cell she saw the Creator very much at work in
the world. 'Love' was the meaning of all the Lord revealed to her and she thought of God
both as her father and her Mother. The Divine attributes, she affirmed, are Light, Life
and Love.
It has been said of the Lady Julian
that "she is in many ways more like a painter than a writer"; she sees
pictures and communicates them by means of language. For example, she described the drops
of blood from Christ's head as 'round like a herring's scales'.
She lived in the terrible times of
the Black Death and she herself suffered grievously; so there is nothing shallow about her
optimism. Yet she concluded, "all shall be well and all shall be well, and all
manner of thing shall be well."
Across the centuries comes the
message with which her Revelations close: "And I saw for certain, both here and
elsewhere, that before ever He made us, God loved us; and that His love has never
slackened, nor ever shall. In His love all His works have been done, and in this love our
life is everlasting. Our beginning was when we were made, but the love in which he made us
never had a beginning. In it we have our beginning. All this we shall see in God forever.
May Jesus grant this. Amen.".
St. Helen
- 21st May
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
St.
Helen was the mother of the first Byzantine Emperor, Constantine the Great. She
was born at Drepanum in Bythinia, the daughter of an innkeeper, and was
married in due course to an army officer Constantius Chlorus who became
emperor. Their son Constantine was born in AD 274 at a military base on the
Danube but, for political reasons, Helen was abandoned by her husband and only
achieved power in the Roman Empire when her son was proclaimed emperor by the
army at York in AD 306.
Immediately
Helen, who was a Christian, was raised to a position of great honour. She was
now able to help those who shared her
faith (at a time when it was officially illegal to be a member of the Church)
and we know that in AD 312 Constantine actually raised the Chi Rho sign on his
standard before the battle of Milvian Bridge even though he was not yet a
committed Christian. Helen was his constant adviser and guide in the many
actions he took to promote Christianity in Rome and elsewhere.
In
AD 326, when she had reached the age of seventy one, she made a lengthy
pilgrimage to the Holy Land where she expended large sums of money in the
relief of the poor and provided funds to build basilicas on the Mount of
Olives and on the site of the Nativity in Bethlehem. According to a tradition
widely circulated at the time she also discovered the Cross upon which Christ
was crucified, buried close to Calvary.
Helen
is said to have taken three nails from the Cross and sent them to Constantine
who put one on his helmet and the other two on his horse’s bit and bridle.
When
Helen returned from the Holy Land she founded several churches in Rome and in
Constantinople, where she died in AD 330.
Today
she is commemorated in the East (along with her son Constantine, whom the
Greeks call ‘the thirteenth apostle’) on 21st May.
On that day she herself
appears in the Anglican Calendar as ‘Helena, Protector of Holy Places’.
St. Irenaeus
- 28th June
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Born in Smyrna, Asia Minor in AD 130,
the saint, who is still remembered in the Calendar of the Church on 28th June, was a
Greek. He was probably born into a Christian family for as a boy he heard Polycarp, a
disciple of the Apostle John, preach. So Irenaeus is one of the important connections
between the apostolic Church and the second century.
Having studied in Rome, he was
ordained as a priest in Lyons, Gaul, and when his Bishop, Pothonius, was martyred in AD
177 he succeeded him and served the Church in that office until his own martyrdom in c. AD
200.
During his life time the Church was
greatly troubled by a variety of sects which subscribed to teachings which were held to be
completely erroneous, and Irenaeus made a series of detailed refutations of the
mythological and unhistorical views of these 'Gnostics', his chief work being entitled 'Against
Heresies'.
Gnosis is the Greek word for
'knowledge' and these people claimed to possess and to be able to impart a special
knowledge of God, of his relation to the world and to human beings, of redemption and
salvation. Only the initiated could be 'saved'. But against the authors of the so-called
'Gospel of the Four Points of the Compass', 'the Gospel of Eve', 'the Gospel of the Twelve
Apostles' and many similar writings Irenaeus argued that only the four we now know are
authentic Gospels. (The Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in 1947, revealed many
hitherto unknown Gnostic writings and show how important for the Church was the work of
those who maintained and defended the orthodox Faith).
Irenaeus saw that, if they prevailed,
the ideas of the Gnostics would turn the Christian Gospel into nothing more than another
exercise in Greek philosophy. But far from God being totally remote from the world, as
they taught, he asserted that in Jesus He had become incarnate and had revealed Himself
uniquely and finally. Salvation is not to be found through knowledge of any secret
traditions, passwords or signs but in and through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God.
Irenaeus helped to define the
contents of the New testament which he called 'Scripture', a word which had previously
been reserved for the old testament, and today he is honoured as the first great
theologian of the Christian Church and an important link between the emerging traditions
of the East and West.
St.
Catherine
of Siena - 30th April
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Born on 25th
March 1347, Caterina Benicasa was a twin, the youngest and twenty-fifth child of a
prosperous dyer Jacopo, and his wife Lapa. They were deeply religious and from early
childhood Catherine dedicated herself to Christ. At six she believed she had had a vision
of Jesus, and the following year she vowed she would never marry. She was a lively,
good-looking girl and when she was twelve her parents expressed their desire that she
should marry. But, to their initial annoyance, she refused, saying that she had promised
to be the bride of Christ. Reluctantly, they accepted her decision and allowed her a room
to herself from which she seldom emerged for the next three years. Living in solitary
meditation and with great austerity. At fifteen she took the vows of a Dominican tertiary,
the ‘mantellatae’ as they were known, an order of Sisters bound by vows but
living in their own homes.
She continued to
devote herself entirely to prayer. However, when the Black Death reached Siena she went
out to serve the sick (and prisoners who had been condemned to death) and, many cures
being attributed to her, she quickly gained a reputation as one having remarkable gifts of
healing. It is related, for example, that having heard that the director of the hospital
was himself seriously ill, she went to see him and cheerfully said, ‘Get up, Father
Matthew, this is no time to be lying idle in bed’. So he did get up, had a meal and
went back to work.
Catherine was the
most practical of mystics with a deep interest in people and in the politics of her day. A
group of people, young and old, noble and of humble birth, laity and priests, were
attracted to her and many of them accompanied her on her later travels. Meanwhile, they
were very willing to help in her work and, since she had never learnt to write, she often
dictated her innumerable letters to several secretaries at the same time. Some 400 of
these letters to people in every walk of life, offering spiritual counsel, are extant
together with a book known as the ‘Dialogue’ which is an Italian classic.
Young as she was she
felt called to heal chronic feuds among prominent families in Siena and far beyond. She
even urged Pope Gregory XI, then at Avignon, to make peace with the Tuscan states and to
return to Rome. Asked by the citizens of Florence to intercede on their behalf, in 1375
she travelled to Avignon and eventually persuaded the Pope to return to Rome. With his
death and the election of Urban VI as his successor, she had the joy of seeing peace made
in Italy. But the French Cardinals had elected their own candidate for the Papacy. Thus
began the ‘great schism’ and Catherine, who had moved to Rome, ‘went in to
bat’ for Urban and sent off a series of blistering letters to Avignon.
However, worn out by
almost continuous fasting, her strenuous exertions and lack of sleep, she suffered the
last of a number of strokes, which had paralysed her, and, at the age of thirty-three, she
died on 29th April 1380.
Like that of our
Lord Himself, her life had been very brief but extraordinarily influential. She was
certainly the most important woman of the fourteenth century. As a fellow nun observed,
she “served God with a passionate abandon that can almost seem obsessive”.
In due course, she
was named a joint Patron Saint of Rome and of All Italy. Her head was taken back to Siena
in 1384 and may still be seen in the marble shrine created for her by Giovanni di Stephano
in the basilica of San Domenico. Named a Doctor of the Church in 1970, her Feast day is 30th
April.
St.
Athanasius
- 2nd May
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Born into a Christian family in
Alexandria in 295, Athanasius became a Deacon and Secretary to Alexander the Bishop. When
the Emperor Constantine convened a Council of Bishops at Nicaea (in north-west Turkey) in
June 325 he was privileged to attend. Well over two hundred bishops arrived from east and
west and were charged by the emperor to ‘discard the causes of disunion which exist
among you’.
They listened
carefully to the views of Arius, who was himself a priest from Alexandria. But a majority
condemned his belief that Jesus Christ the Son of God was a created being - essentially
less than God - and might have sinned. That was heretical. Though very junior, and without
a vote in the council, Athanasius proved to be the most significant contributor to the
discussions which led to the formulation of the Nicene creed.
When Bishop
Alexander died in 328 Athanasius was elected to succeed him as Patriarch (i.e. Archbishop)
of Alexandria. Arianism was still rampant and the chief preoccupation of his forty-five
year episcopacy was its defeat.
Athanasius
refused to compromise with the truth for he knew that our salvation depends upon the deity
of Jesus Christ. Because of opposition (even from the Emperor) he was forced to go into
exile several times. But these years in Gaul, in Rome and with the desert monks in Egypt
were by no means wasted for he wrote a great deal and many of his works were very
influential. One such was his ‘Incarnation of the Word’ in which
he says that Christ ‘became human that we might become divine. He revealed Himself in
a body that we might understand the unseen Father. He endured man’s insults that we
might inherit immortality.’
His ‘Life
of Anthony’, whom he knew and regarded as ‘the first monk’, did
much to promote monasticism and it is in one of his Easter letters (of 367) that we have
the earliest witness to the Canon of the New Testament as we now know it.
An ecclesiastical statesman, distinguished theologian and one
of the four great Doctors of the eastern Church, Athanasius (who died in Alexandria in
373) is chiefly celebrated today for his staunch defence of the orthodox doctrine of the
Trinity, which is now enshrined in what came to be called the Athanasian creed. His Feast day is 2nd May.
The
Venerable Bede - 25th May
by Canon Desmond V
Treanor
Baeda
was the most shining example of the learning of the Northumbrian monasteries in
the days of the kingdom’s greatness. Born
in Wearmouth in 673, Bede (as his name is usually spelt today) was given by his
parents to the monastery of St. Peter there when he was only seven, knowing that
he would receive a good education. He
certainly did, first under Benedict Biscop and then under his successor,
Coelfrid. When Biscop founded
another monastery nearby at Jarrow, Bede went with him and there he remained (at
St. Paul’s) for the rest of his life, never travelling further afield than
York and Lindisfarne.
In
685 plague swept through his monastery and all the monks died except Bede and
the Abbot to whom fell the task of maintaining the daily round of worship until
they were joined eventually by new recruits.
In
his nineteenth year (well before the customary age) he was admitted to the
diaconate by the Bishop of Hexham, who ordained him priest eleven years later.
He
is widely regarded as the Father of English historians.
He was very careful to check all his facts and to write accurately, but
he always aimed to edify as well as to instruct.
Today we should call him a polymath for he seems to have been well-versed
in all the subjects that were then known.
He
was fortunate in having access to the vast library that Biscop had collected
and, in due course, he added some forty of his own works to it including volumes
on scientific subjects, a treatise on the calendar, some poetry, numerous
historical essays, hagiography, and a history of the abbots of his own
monasteries. He even introduced into England the method of dating events
B.C. and A.D. which we still employ.
Latin,
Greek and Hebrew all formed part of his studies and he produced many theological
treatises and biblical commentaries. But,
above all, he is remembered for his very readable “Ecclesiastical History
of the English Nation” which has stood the test of time. He became famous in his own life-time and was greatly revered
as a scholar and teacher.
His
whole life was spent in the faithful recitation of the canonical hours 9the
daily offices), in study and teaching and though he was never canonised, the
title ‘venerable’ was added to his name less than a century after his death,
not because of his age but because of his sanctity.
The fact is, as Boniface said, he was ‘a candle of the Church, lit by
the Holy Spirit’. He died
peacefully on the eve of Ascension Day 735 and is still remembered on 25th
May. A tabletop tomb in the
Galilee Chapel of Durham Cathedral marks the place to which his relics were
translated in the eleventh century, and at the end of the nineteenth century
Pope Leo XIII pronounced him a Doctor of the Church.
St.
Boniface
- 5th June
by
Canon Desmond V Treanor
Wynfrith,
as he was known originally, was born c.675 in Crediton, Devon and educated at a monastery
near Exeter. He became director of studies at Nursling Abbey (nr. Winchester) and it was
there that he compiled what is believed to have been the first Latin grammar to be
produced in England.
Ordained
to the priesthood when he was thirty, Boniface is always described as the ‘Apostle of
Germany’ for he refused preferment in this country and went to Friesland (now in the
Netherlands) as a missionary. In due course he obtained a general commission from Pope
Gregory II to work in Germany, and it was to missionary work there that he devoted the
rest of his life.
He
wrote to various English monasteries asking for their prayers and practical help for
‘those who are of one blood and bone with you’ and many monks and nuns from this
country joined him, bringing money, books and vestments with them.
His
reputation was enhanced considerably when he felled the sacred oak of Thor at Geisman.
Crowds came to watch him, fully expecting the Norse gods to strike him down. But when his
first few blows brought the mighty tree crashing to the ground, it was accounted a miracle
and many conversions followed.
He
received the protection of the Frankish ruler Charles Martel (grandfather of Charlmagne)
and was given authority to carry through a reform of the whole Frankish Church, a task
which he accomplished in a series of five synods (between 741 and 747) over which he
presided. As a result many abuses were remedied and the monasteries were brought back to
the Benedictine Rule.
By
now Boniface had been appointed as Archbishop (of Mainz), but after only a few years he
resigned (aged 80) and returned to his old mission in Frisia.
He
was a courageous, learned and holy man, an outstanding administrator but, above all, an
evangelist.
One
day, in 754, when he was quietly reading in his tent, in preparation for a confirmation,
his party was attacked by pagan tribesmen and he was killed. His body was carried to the
monastery at Fulda, where it still lies. When the news reached him Archbishop Cuthbert of
Canterbury wrote, “we in England lovingly count him as one of the best and greatest
teachers of the true faith”. His feast day is 5th June.
Christina
Rossetti - 27th April
by
Canon Desmond V Treanor
 |
Born
in London in 1830 and baptised in the Church of England as Christina
Georgina, she was the fourth child of Gabriele, an Italian poet and
political refugee from Naples and his half—English wife. A life—long
Anglican, she is commemorated in the Common Worship Calendar on 27th
April because of her outstanding religious poetry.
|
Her
father became professor of Italian at Kings College, London and she spent
the whole of her life in the capital. One of her elder brothers, Dante
Gabriel was a poet and painter who, together with Holman Hunt, Millais and a
handful of others, was a founder-member of the pre-Raphaelite School of
painting. Many times she modelled for him and his friends and one of his
pictures (in the Tate) portrays her as the Virgin Mary. Her other brother,
William, was an art critic and man of letters.
Their
sister Maria, who was herself an author, became an Anglican nun for although
their Father was a free-thinker, the children were brought up as members of
the Church of England. The girls were attracted to the Oxford Movement and
regularly accompanied their mother to Christ Church, Albany Street, which
was one of the first parish churches to offer the ritual and colourful
ceremonial of Anglo-Catholic practice.
Many
writers, politicians, poets and artists were entertained in the home of this
highly cultured family and Christina, whose poor health had ended her
attempts to work as a governess, was very much ‘at home’ with the
latter. She became engaged to the painter James Collinson, an original
member of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, but ended the affair when he
decided to become a Roman Catholic. From
religious scruples she declined at least one other proposal of marriage and
for many years contented herself with a rather confined life which gave her
much time for reflection and writing. When he became partially blind towards
the end of his life, she devoted herself to nursing Dante Gabriel who, under
the influence of drugs, see-sawed from mania to suicidal depression. But all
the time she poured out her poetry, the
passionate nature of which has intrigued many commentators, considering her
spinster life.
‘Sing
Song’, a nursery rhyme book was the first of many publications which
appeared in her own name and included prose devotional works, a commentary
on the Apocalypse and many volumes of poetry. But her very first published
work - seven lyrical poems - appeared in ‘The Germ’ under a pseudonym,
Ellen Alleyne, when she was just twenty. Her poetic work, much of which
appeared in periodicals and anthologies, ranges from verses for children to
love lyrics, sonnets and religious poetry much of which is pervaded by a
sense of melancholy. It was noted for its technical virtuosity and short,
irregularly rhymed lines.
‘Before
the Beginning’ is one of the shortest but, I believe, a good
illustration of all:
Before
the beginning Thou hast foreknown the end,
Before
the birthday the death-bed was seen of Thee:
Cleanse
what I cannot cleanse; mend what I cannot mend,
O Lord All-Merciful, be merciful to me.
While
the end is drawing near I know not mine end;
Birth
I recall not, my death I cannot foresee:
O
God, arise to defend, arise to befriend,
O Lord All-Merciful, be merciful to me.
Christina was always a devout
High Anglican, worshipping at Christ Church, Woburn Square in her last
years. She died on 29th
December 1894.
‘Up
hill’ ... ‘Does the road wind uphill all the way...?’ and the
Christmas carol ‘In the bleak midwinter’ are among her best-known
religious poems.
Evelyn Underhill
- 15th June
by
Canon Desmond V Treanor
The first woman to be a
lecturer in religion at Oxford and probably the first to conduct spiritual
retreats, Evelyn was born in Wolverhampton in 1875. Her father was a distinguished barrister and in 1907 she
married Hubert Moore who was also a barrister, but she retained her family
name and was always known as Evelyn Underhill.
She loved cats and was an enthusiastic sailor and amateur bookbinder.
After she graduated from
Kings College, London, where she read History, Philosophy and Social Science
she devoted herself to religious study and in 1911 published her first major
book on mysticism, which has subsequently become a classic.
This work brought her into contact with Baron Friedrich von Hugel, a
Roman Catholic theologian who lived in London and who became her spiritual
director. Though brought up and confirmed as an Anglican it was some years
before she really accepted the importance of institutional religion and
committed herself to worship in the Church of England.
Having been strongly attracted to Roman Catholicism, and greatly
influenced by the Baron, it seemed natural to her to move from a purely
intellectual faith to a practical one.
She taught that the spiritual life and the practical life go together
“like bread and butter” and that “all worship must start with
adoration, which reveals to us the significance of the ‘luggage’ of life
over which we make a fuss”.
At a time when such
things were unheard of, she became a conductor of retreats at Pleshey and
elsewhere, and a spiritual director. At
the same time her writing took on a different style and became more
accessible to non-specialist readers. Her
‘Mystics of the Church’, published in 1925 was written from a
very different perspective to her more famous ‘Mysticism’ of 1911
and showed the background of the mystics, their variety and their relation
to the Church, which had been completely missing from the earlier work.
Each year she travelled on the Continent and made scholarly studies
of the works of many of the great mediaeval mystics. She produced innumerable translations, letters, articles,
addresses and books, including “The Life of the Spirit in the Life of
Today’ and always insisted that Christianity means practical
engagement with the world. But
she criticised the tendency in the Church to identify the Gospel simply with
action, saying e.g. that “we are drifting towards a religion which
consciously or unconsciously keeps its eye on humanity rather than on Deity,
which lays all the stress on service, and hardly any stress on awe …”
In
the light of these convictions, it is not surprising that she was very
interested in the Eastern Orthodox Church and regularly attended Orthodox
services.
In 1935 she gave up all her speaking engagements in order to write a
major book, ‘Worship’ which was published a year later. This
concentrated on communities of faith rather than individuals and makes it
clear that she had a deep appreciation of the different traditions of
Christian worship, as also of Judaism.
‘The
House of the Soul’, a development of the teaching of St.
Teresa of Avila, is one of her best known and most frequently re-printed
books.
She
became a staunch pacifist towards the end of her life and died on 15th
June 1941. Reflecting on her work, Archbishop Michael Ramsay declared that
“she was crucial in maintaining focus on the spiritual life in the
Anglican Church between the world wars.”
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