St. James, William R. Huntington, William Wilberforce and Ignatius of Loyola

This week, there is a feast day almost every day.  This blog will survey a few of them.  What do St. James the Greater, William Reed Huntington, Ignatius of Loyola, and William Wilberforce all have in common? Besides the obvious fact that each is venerated with a feast day in the Anglican liturgical calendar during this blog-week (July 25 through July 31), each man is directly responsible for some aspect of Christian education as a vocation imparted through a vision from God.

St. James the Greater

St. James the Apostle, July 25—One of the “Sons of Thunder” apostles, so named by Jesus for his fiery temper and evangelical zeal, James the Greater was one of Jesus favored disciples.  St. James is the patron saint of Spain, for it is said that he brought Christianity to the Iberian Peninsula.  Legend has it that the apostles divided the known world into mission territories and James was given the Iberian Peninsula with the task of converting the Moors.  (Often, St. James is depicted on horseback, trampling a Moor underfoot—one presumes the Moor refused the generous offer of baptism and conversion.) Another part of the legend of James in Spain tells of a vision he had on a particularly discouraging day.  He was contemplating the futility of his task and deciding whether to pack it all in and go home when the image of the Virgin Mary, who still lived in Jerusalem at the time, appeared before him atop a pillar, instructing him to construct a sanctuary for the poor and destitute who will come to learn about Jesus, “that they may learn and grow in deeper knowledge of Christ’s love”—thus the first Christian Church honoring Mary, complete with a ministry for Christian education for the poor and ignorant, was built. Today, that church is better known as the Basilica-Cathedral of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragosa, Spain.   Mary further went on to inform James that once he was finished constructing this sanctuary, he was to return to Jerusalem to be martyred.  So of course he did! His remains were allegedly transferred to a site in western Galicia in Spain and forgotten for 900 years.  A hermit named Pelagria was said to have seen a vision of stars in a field that led him to the relics of St. James.  That place is now arguably the most famous pilgrimage site in the world--Camino de Santiago de Compostela (the road to St. James in “the Field of Stars”).

Rev. William Reed Huntington

William Reed Huntington, July 27—While Huntington referred to his vision metaphorically, he nevertheless purported that God spoke to him and through him in his essays and works.  Huntington was an Episcopal priest who was very active in the church and participated in every General Convention during his career, and in fact was consider a leader in the House of Deputies.  His book, The Church Idea, laid the foundation for the “Chicago-Lambeth quadrilateral” which is the basis of the reformed prayer book of 1890.  Huntington’s vision and mission was for Christian unity.  But like the others venerated this week, he was an advocate for the education of those seeking God.  His parish of Grace Church, NYC, founded the Huntington House for the training of deaconesses in 1871. (Here’s a fun little trivial aside: our own Fr. Christopher David served as a priest at Grace Church, and was able to salvage a few marble slabs from the lavatories of Huntington House before it was razed to make way for a gymnasium.  Those marble pieces are now countertops in the kitchen of his former home.)

William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce, July 30—Most people who have any familiarity at all with William Wilberforce recognize his name as the leading force behind the abolition of slavery in England.  But Wilberforce had a broader vision.  He lived his life with the deep conviction that God spoke to him clearly about the paths of social reform he was to take.  One such reform was the need to provide spiritual education and leadership to the impoverished classes of rural England.  He co-founded with Hannah More the Association for the Better Observance of Sunday. The Association ensured the establishment of an Anglican school in every parish to educate the children of the poorer classes.  Not satisfied with that, Wilberforce worked diligently (and apparently eloquently) in Parliament to have the school’s curates paid for by the government through a bill he proposed.

Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola, July 31—This founder of the Society of Jesus (more profanely known as the Jesuits) did not have an easy life or calling.  He was born in 1491 to a noble family in Spain and grew into a rather dissolute young man, entangled in court intrigue and politics.  He joined the army when his father died, and in 1521, on Whit-Tuesday, Ignatius Loyola survived being struck by a cannon ball at the fall of the citadel during the siege of Pamplona.  His legs were drastically damaged and during his recovery, Ignatius was feverish and prone to visions.  One of these visions led to his own personal reformation and eventually (after years of self-imposed suffering) to his life’s mission of Christian education.  Ignatius developed a following of like-minded thinkers.  In spite of great initial opposition from the Church, Ignatius and his band of followers took a vow to serve the Pope at his discretion.  This band was the beginning foundation for the Society of Jesus.  At the Pope’s incentive, Ignatius formed the group into a religious order that would allow for the training of postulants.   Today, the Society for Jesus is known throughout the world as an order whose constitutional doctrine includes the education of the young and impoverished.  In the interest of coming “full circle” to our topic, there is an interesting historical note that Ignatius Loyola was one of the more famous people in Spanish history who’ve paid their devotions before the pillar of Mary in the afore-mentioned Basilica founded by St. James.

So as you meander through your week, give a tip of the hat to all those saints, past and present, who are educators with vision and who have been inspired through the grace of God to lead young minds!

Mary Magdalene - Apostle to the Apostles

(Mary Magdalene by He Qi, China)

The 22 of July is a major feast day in the church calendar celebrating St. Mary Magdalene.  This feast day is observed in the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, and in the Lutheran Church.  But this wasn’t always the case, especially in the Catholic and Anglican traditions.  The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene was included in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, but when the book was revised three years later, her day was removed from both the greater feasts and lesser feasts.  There wasn’t even a collect in her honor included until the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  It wasn’t until our current 1979 Book of Common Prayer that the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene once again was included amongst the Major Feasts.  In fact, Mary Magdalene is the only woman in the Bible afforded a major Feast Day.  (Mary, the mother of Jesus, is represented by feast day events—i.e. the annunciation and the visitation.  But she does not have a feast day for herself.) 

From the perspective of proclaiming the good news of the resurrection of our Lord, Mary Magdalene is the most important woman named in the New Testament.  She was the first to see the resurrected Christ as concurred in all four gospels.  She was the first apostle (apostle derives from the Greek word apostello meaning  “to send”) sent to tell the others of Jesus’ resurrection.  Mary is a prominent figure in the passion story and resurrection, yet is not referred to anywhere else in the four canonical gospels, with the exception of Luke 8:2, where she was named as being cured of “seven demons”.  A hint is given as to her importance to Jesus and his followers in the next verse that admits that she and a few others of the women followers were the ones who provided financial support for Jesus and his entourage out of their own means.  Yet someone with apparently so little consequence is given such an important role as to be the first apostle.  

History indicates that the early years of Christianity included a powerful and widespread following of Mary Magdalene to rival those of the Johannites (followers of John, the Baptist) and Petrarchs (followers of Peter, which eventually became the Christian Church with which we are most familiar).  Mary’s gospel, the teachings that Jesus gave to her alone, shows similarities enough to indicate they are Jesus’s words (like use of the phrase “those with ears, hear me”), but is otherwise quite different.  Her gospel, of which only a few pages remain, can be viewed as two parts.  The first part includes direct questions put to Jesus that he answers more directly than he ever does in the four canonicals.  The second part seems to refer to a private conversation between Jesus and Mary about his three days spent between his death and resurrection. The radical implication is made with Mary’s gospel that salvation comes through the understanding and assimilation in one’s life of Jesus’ teachings rather than through his death and resurrection. (You can find her gospel included in the Nag Hammadi Library or here.) This was exceedingly controversial and the faction was a clear threat to a church founded on the teachings of St. Peter.  So it was systematically repressed and eradicated until not even her feast day remained in the church calendar. 

By discounting other gospels and witness to Christ’s life and teachings, all unwanted, threatening traces of Mary and her strange perspective could be ignored.  Thus, very little is known about Mary Magdalene.  Speculation of Mary’s relationship with Jesus was rejected, to the point that the Church (specifically, Pope Gregory the Great) referred to her as and adulteress and a prostitute.  In 1969, the Vatican recanted this, but the damage had been done.  Evidence of her life has been lost through denial and ignorance or obscured in the proliferations of Mary’s throughout the New Testament.  Regardless, Mary Magdalene was important enough as Christ’s first apostle that she warrants the honor of a feast day.

St. Swithin's Day - July 15th

July 15^th is the feast day attributed to St. Swithin, the bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862.  Swithin is most known for legendary miracles attributed to him—one even posthumously.  Swithin was an extremely devout and holy man, humble in his demeanor and a model for Christ’s teachings.  His renown as a holy man reached the attention of the Anglo-Saxon King, Egbert, who appointed him as tutor to his son Aethelwulf, the future father of King Alfred the Great.  

St. Swithin lived during the very tumultuous times of the established Danelaw in England.  For the previous several hundred years, Viking invaders from Scandinavia, particularly Denmark, had infiltrated the British Isles, slowly usurping the rule of the Anglo-Saxons (even earlier invaders).  It wasn’t until Alfred the Great united the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under one realm that the Danelaw was finally able to be controlled.  Swithin himself lived through the reigns of Egbert, Aethulwulf, and three of his four sons.  Each reign was marked with bloody battles and skirmishes and political upheaval.  Yet Swithin remained untouched by all this.  His life was led in building the authority of the church.  As bishop, he would hold banquet feasts for the poor.  He walked everywhere he went, eschewing the perceived luxury of a horse provided by his office.  He was responsible for convincing Aethelwulf to contributed ten percent of all his property to the church.  Throughout his reign, Aethelwulf considered Bishop Swithin to be his only spiritual guide.

Perhaps St. Swithin is most famous for the legends of miracles attributed to him.  There is one sweet story about his journey over a stone bridge on his way out of town when he came across a very rude fellow hassling a woman with an apron full of eggs to sell at market.  This malicious fellow broke every one of her eggs, soiling her apron and dress in the process. Swithin bade her let him see her eggs, and she showed him the shattered, gooey mess.  He raised his hand and blessed the eggs and before her eyes and those of the rude and malicious fellow, the eggs were made whole again.  The real miracle is that the rude man did not simply break them all again!

Another miracle attributed to St. Swithin, this one posthumously, is the miracle of Queen Emma (c. 985-1052).  Emma was the wife of first King Aethelred the Unready, then as the wife of King Canute.  When Canute died, her son Edward the Confessor—of Aethelred’s issue—worried about her loyalty because she had favored Canute’s son to assume the throne.  Edward’s Archbishop implicated Emma in a scandal wherein she was intimately involved with another bishop.  (He was poorly informed and made foolish by this claim, for the bishop in question had been dead for three years!)  Emma was outraged and indignant more on behalf of the bishop in question than her own reputation.  She vowed to submit to an ordeal of burning iron on his behalf.  The Archbishop convinced the King to subject her to not only the proof of her own innocence, but that of the bishop as well.  Emma prayed to St. Swithin to intercede for her, and he answered her prayers saying she would walk safely over the molten iron with no pain or burns.  When she did, Edward was said to have fallen at her feet, begging her forgiveness.  Queen Emma went on to rule as regent and the accusing Archbishop was banished and his property confiscated.

When Bishop Swithin died c. 862, he asked to be buried humbly in a place where rain would fall and feet would trod upon his grave.  This gave rise to the British weather proverb that says:

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain

St Swithun's day if thou be fair

For forty days 'twill rain nae mare.

The Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

On July 7, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates a special feast day—one which our church celebrates on June 24.  It is one of only three nativities with a feast day attributed to it: the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.  Jesus and his mother, Mary are the other two.  As John was born six months before Jesus (Luke 1:36 states Elizabeth was six months into her pregnancy when Mary paid her visit), the church designated six months prior to be John’s nativity feast day.  John’s birthday celebration effectively coincided with pagan celebrations of Midsummer, so as was typical with early Christian authorities, those celebrations were incorporated into Christian ritual.  The Roman summer solstice, based on their calendar, was celebrated on June 24^th.  St. John’s day was designated for the 24^th rather than the 25^th due to the following Roman calendar formula: Christ’s nativity is calculated at eight days prior to the calend of January (“calend” is the Latin word for the first of the month).  Thus, John’s nativity is calculated as eight days prior to the calend of July—in June, being one day shorter than December, this is the 24^th.  The Russian Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar (rather than the Gregorian calendar that we use) to calculate Holy Days, thereby missing out on all the pagan solstice fun!

In pre-Christian Europe, Midsummer’s Eve (which to us is the summer solstice), along with the Winter Solstice, was one of the most celebrated holidays.  Midsummer rituals included collecting of old bones, rubbish and rags that were piled and burned in bonfires that were designed to ward against dragons who, left to their own devices, would poison water sources and burn crops and villages.  The fires would keep the dragons at bay, but in the event one was sneaky enough to get through, women would gather the golden blooms of the day—calendula, St. John’s Wort, vervain, etc.—and spread them over the water for their healing properties.  A third tradition was a great wheel that would be rolled up the highest local hill, paused at the top during the peak of the sun’s passage through the astronomical solstice and rolled down the hill again.  The wheel symbolized the turning of the seasons and the passage of the sun from long days to shorter ones.

Today, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist is one of the most celebrated religious holidays in Europe--especially in northern European countries.  The pagan traditions of bonfires in the night now reflect the Christian symbolism of John as “the burning and shining light” that Christ described him.  Instead of bones and rubbish, the Church takes this opportunity to burn old and worn out sacramentals to ensure the sacredness of the fire.  St. John’s Wort, which blooms on or around the nativity of John the Baptist, is often collected to create wreaths to adorn churches and homes on June 24^th.  Incidentally, St. John’s Wort is an effective herb used in a tisane or tincture for treating mild depression or anxiety and is also commonly called “demonsbane.”

Since the 24^th of June fell on a Sunday this year, the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist rolled over to June 25^th.  But since the publication of this blog missed even that date, you have one more chance this year to celebrate—thanks to the Russian Orthodox Church!