My bishop takes on the president

My bishop, Charles Jenkins, has written a powerful letter to President Bush. It's on his blog. Someone should go and nail it to the door of the White House (with CNN in tow).

Deacons of 1 September

Ammon, deacon and martyr in Thrace (now in southern Balkans), with forty young women he had converted, under the persecutions of Emperor Licinius, died 322. Ammon was singled out and slain by having a red hot poker placed on his head.

Laetus, deacon and martyr, with Vincent of Xaintes (first bishop of Dax in Gascony, France), date of death unknown, perhaps 5th c. Possibly born in Spain, they are venerated in Toledo.

Hilaria, deacon, daughter of bishop Remigius of Rheims in Frankish Gaul, died 6th c. In 530 Remigius left a bequest to “my blessed daughter, Hilaria the deacon.”

C of E report on deacons

From the Church Times:

New report: deacons should be seen as more distinctive
by Glyn Paflin

DEACONS, even those impatient to be priests, may be required by their bishop to spend longer than one year in the diaconate, “in order to live more fully into that calling”, if the General Synod welcomes a new report from the Church of England’s Faith and Order Advisory Group.

It could also lead to some Readers’ being encouraged to test their vocations as deacons. “A pro-active discernment of the vocation of some Readers, by bishops and diocesan staff, could lead to a significant harvest of ordinands, especially for the distinctive diaconate,” the group finds.

Some Readers are experiencing a crisis of morale, says the report, The Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church. They feel squeezed between the clergy and “the upsurge of expressions of lay ministry”. Although some Readers would see the ministry of distinctive deacons as too close to their own for comfort, the group would prefer to see suitable Readers prepared for the diaconate rather than enlarge the duties attached to the office of Reader.

“For some, diaconal ministry would be an ongoing commitment: their ministry would find its fulfilment in the distinctive diaconate. For others, the diaconate would lead, perhaps after a period of several years, to ordination to the presbyterate,” it says.

It is the second report since the Millennium to recommend that the diaconate be taken “much more seriously”. It says: “We need to locate the diaconate more centrally in the overall mission of the Church and thus to correct the prevailing assumption that the diaconate is merely a transitional year before priesting, an apprenticeship for the priesthood, and that it is the latter that really matters.”

The report, which reconstructs a theology of the diaconate on a reading of the New Testament, says that “some modern English translations of the New Testament have concealed, rather than revealed, the force of what Paul and Luke are saying about diakonia as a responsible stewardship, involving proclamation, of the mystery of God’s revelation in Christ, the heart of the apostolic commission.”

Diakonia, it says, is “a commissioned activity, role or task, in which the diakonos is the responsible agent of the one who sends or who gives the mandate. This insight informed the development of the diaconate in the early Church, where the deacon often carried out duties on behalf of the bishop, but it has been eclipsed in recent decades by a rhetorical appeal to ‘humble service’ on the part of deacons.

“It has not always been clear that, while deacons, like all Christians and all ministers, are indeed servants, they are servants first of the Lord who sends, then of the Church through whom he sends, but not servants in the sense of being at the disposal of all and sundry, simply a function of the needs of those around them.”

The report recommends that the distinctive diaconate should be encouraged, and that selection at diocesan and national levels, as well as training, should focus more than it generally does on the calling of a deacon and ordination to that order rather than taking for granted the diaconal period and focusing almost entirely on the priesthood.

The theological framework is already in place, but “it has gone largely unrecognised,” says the report.

The group also reflected on the ministry of churchwardens. “Perhaps, if churchwardens received greater appreciation and support, their office would become as sought-after as that of Reader,” the report suggests.

The Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church: Biblical, Theological and Contemporary Perspectives GS Misc 854 (General Synod, £12; available from Church House Bookshop, 31 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BN).

David Pendleton Oakerhater

31 August

David Pendleton Oakerhater, deacon, former war chief, and missionary to the Cheyenne in Oklahoma, died on 31 August 1931.

Oakerhater (Okuhhatuh, or Making Medicine) was born between 1844 and 1851 on a Cheyenne reservation in western Oklahoma. He grew up to become a war chief of the Southern Cheyenne. In April 1875 he and twenty-seven other warriors were taken prisoner by the U. S. Army. They were marched to a military post and, without trial, were eventually taken by train to Fort Marion in St Augustine, Florida (originally Castillo de San Marcos, now a national monument).

The commander of Fort Marion, Lieutenant Richard H. Pratt, taught the prisoners English and educated them. Seeing that Oakerhater was a natural leader, he placed him at the head of the Indian self-discipline force. He also encouraged the younger Indians to earn some money giving lessons in art and archery to visitors. Using pencils, watercolors, and military ledger books, and drawing in a style adapted from traditional symbol or pictographic drawings on tepees, rocks, hides, and wood, the Indians recorded life on the plains and recent events at the fort. These “ledger drawings” are found today in private collections and museums across the country. Oakerhater’s drawings bear the name “Making Medicine,” a translation of his Cheyenne name.

As a result of Pratt’s kindness, Oakerhater and some others converted to Christianity. In February 1877, at a gathering of the prisoners, Making Medicine spoke for the young men. In a letter sent to Washington, Pratt recorded the speech, as translated into English:

I have learned to sing the saviors hymns and have given myself to him. Heretofore I have led a bad life on the plains, wandering around living in a house made of skins. I have now learned something of the Great Spirits road and want to learn more. We have lived in this old place for two years. It is old and we are young. [W]e are tired to it. We want to go away from it, anywhere. We want Washington to give us our wives and children, our fathers and mothers and sent us somewhere, where we can settle down and live like white men. Washington has lots of good ground laying around loose, give us some of it and let us learn to make things grow. We want to farm the ground. We want a house and pigs and chickens and cows. We feel happy that we have learned so much, that we can teach our children. I speak for the young men. We want to work. We young men all belong to you. You have put a great deal into our hearts that was never there before. Our hearts are getting bigger every day. We are thankful for what we have learned. This is the feeling of all the young men that are here. We are willing to learn and want to work.

In 1878 four prisoners decided to study for the ordained ministry. Deaconess Mary D. Burnham, of the House of the Good Shepherd in Syracuse, New York, raised the needed funds. Mrs. Alice Key Pendleton of Cincinnati (daughter of Francis Scott Key and wife of U. S. Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio) paid Oakerhater’s tuition for three years. Sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, the four traveled north. They lived and studied in the home of the Rev. and Mrs. John B. Wicks of Paris Hill, New York. When Oakerhater was baptized in Grace Episcopal Church, Syracuse, on 6 October 1878, by Bishop Frederic Huntington, he took the name David Pendleton Oakerhater, in honor of the Bible warrior and the woman who paid his way. A few days later he was confirmed. His wife Nomee (Thunder Woman) joined him but died in childbirth in July 1880.

Oakerhater was ordained a deacon on 7 June 1881, and he and Wicks immediately set out for Cheyenne country. They established the Episcopal mission at the Darlington Indian Agency on 16 June 1881. On his first Sunday after returning to Oklahoma, Oakerhater gathered his people and told them:

Men, you all know me. You remember me when I led you out to war I went first and what I told you was true. Now I have been away to the East and I have learned about another captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is my leader. He goes first, and all he tells me is true. I come back to my people to tell you to go with me now in this new road, a war that makes all for peace, and where we have only victory.

A few days later he conducted the first Christian burial service ever known among the Cheyenne. Later that summer Cheyenne agent John Miles, writing about the returned Fort Marion prisoners, said that Oakerhater was preaching in his native tongue and no better example of Christian manhood was to be found. Wicks and Oakerhater taught and conducted services regularly in Indian camps, tents, or the agency school building.

On 4 January 1883, Oakerhater wrote to Pratt, now a captain:

MY DEAR CAPT. PRATT, Your good letter come to me when I was received your kind letter and made me great delighted to hear that great many Indian children go study very hard and learn the white man way and want to know how read God Bible and write a letters. I know that great many white people very kind to us and show us that he is the Son of God is way I have been sitting and thinking about that is very good for us Christian civil people come up everywhere Indian country and teach to us and pray for us great deal and tell us that only one god in heaven and pray to him that great Father up heaven I think afterward all Indian tribes understand God is way and love him and pray great deal I know that my poor heathen people making medicine dances that makes great trouble I want you to tell Washington Indian medicine dance cut. I think I know all good white people they want better way that he is way the Son of God and also you want the same way and so you best to help Indian children and show Bible read and thank you My Dear Capt. Pratt God knows you and grant help you in your work I know before that made me sergeant what you say to me I will try hard to right you know how it is I love you I hope sometime to see you and shake hand with you. Oh! how much I glad see you since my return all the time think very often my kind friend at the East also Mr. Wicks want poor heathen medicine cut and want new better way that is all from your loving friend.
DAVID PENDLETON.

Oakerhater’s second wife, Susie, died on 5 February 1890. When the Missionary District of Oklahoma and Indian Territory was created, and Francis Key Brooke was sent in 1893 as its first bishop, he noted that “Oakerhater remained the only ordained representative of the Episcopal Church in Indian Territory.” Wicks had returned to New York due to illness in 1884. The Rev. David Sanford, who spoke Cheyenne, joined Oakerhater in 1894 to serve the camps at Darlington and Bridgeport. With funds that Bishop Brooke solicited in the East, a chapel was erected at Bridgeport where Sanford had his home.

In 1897 a government day school with fifteen pupils opened on Chief Whirlwind’s allotment southeast of Fay. Oakerhater ministered to these children and to their families camped nearby. When Oakerhater and Minnie Buffalo Woman were married about 1898, their home was the church facility.

When the government day school closed in 1901, the building was given to Whirlwind’s widow, who gave it to The Episcopal Church in 1904. The agency allowed a mission day school to be established “for the care of those unhealthy children who are debarred from government schools.” The agency often accused Sanford of falsely certifying that a child was physically unable to attend boarding school and needed to be at Whirlwind. Sanford enrolled as many children as possible at Whirlwind regardless of physical condition in order to save their lives, as many children were dying in the boarding schools because of the excessive steam heated buildings.

In 1916 the government pressed The Episcopal Church to close Whirlwind School. The next year the mission was closed and sold, an irreparable loss to the religious life of the Cheyenne. Oakerhater was retired on a small pension after thirty-six years as a deacon. In retirement he continued to counsel, preach, bury, baptize, and prepare his people for confirmation. He was never ordained to the priesthood and therefore never celebrated Holy Communion with his flock.

Oakerhater worked hard to bring the peace of Christ to his people. He operated the Whirlwind Mission and school at Watonga, Oklahoma, at great personal cost, overcoming the apathy of churches and government opposition. Guided by his great captain, he never gave up. The Cheyenne respected Oakerhater’s faith and nicknamed him “God’s Warrior.”

Oakerhater died on 31 August 1931 and was buried in the small Indian cemetery at Watonga. In 1985 General Convention voted to add him to the calendar of saints of The Episcopal Church, with feast day of September 1. Biography, photos, and letters are available through the library of Oklahoma State University. Another site with letters and other documents is here.

The Jena Six (9)

This also appeared in The Times-Picayune a few days ago, raising some interesting questions, such as why prosecutors and judges can release information about juvenile convictions:

Prosecutor: "Jena Six" defendant had four juvenile convictions

8/25/2007, 6:36 p.m. CDT
The Associated Press

JENA, La. (AP) — The teenager convicted of beating a student at Jena High School in December 2006 had been convicted as a juvenile for attacking someone a year earlier, then committed three more crimes while on probation for that one, prosecutors say.

That makes Mychal Bell's aggravated second-degree battery conviction his fifth conviction for a violent crime, state District Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. said Friday.

Because of that record, the judge said, he will not reduce the $90,000 bond he set for Mychal Bell, one of six black students arrested in the attack which left a white student bleeding and unconscious.

"Past behavior is the best prediction of future behavior," Mauffray said.

The court hearing revealed no details about the earlier juvenile convictions, called adjudications. They were for battery on Christmas Day 2005 and Sept. 2, 2006, and for criminal damage to property on Sept. 3 and July 25 of 2006, said Cynthia Bradford, LaSalle Parish deputy clerk.

Bell and the other five were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy in the fight with Justin Barker.

The charges sparked outrage in the black community, drawing attention from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is now monitoring the case, and civil rights leaders who contend the youths have been treated unfairly by the justice system.

Bell, who was 16 at the time of the assault, was tried as an adult in June on reduced charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy. An all-white jury convicted him.

The other students — Theo Shaw, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and an unnamed juvenile — are awaiting trial on the original charges.

Bell faces up to 22 years in prison when sentenced on Sept. 20.

At a motion hearing Sept. 4, Bell's attorneys plan to argue that his adult conviction should be wiped out and the case sent to juvenile court, or that he should get a new trial because his original defense attorney did a poor job.

The Jena Six (8)

From The Times-Picayune this morning, page 2:

School bans 'Jena 6' T-shirts

By the Associated Press

JENA--T-shirts supporting six black students accused of knocking out a white student, then kicking and stomping him, are a "threat to the order of the campus" at Jena High school, the LaSalle Parish schools superintendent said.

The "Free the Jena 6" T-shirts worn Tuesday by eight or nine students caused disruption on campus, and that--not the shirts themselves--was why administrators announced that the shirts cannot be worn at school, Superintendent Roy Breithaupt said.

COMMENT: Teenage clothing frequently causes disruption and threatens the established order.

Anniversary

Two years ago today, Katrina passed by our city. Enough said.

Seventy years ago today, my brother David and I were baptized. He was a year old plus three months. I was almost four. Our mother had died on August 7, of typhoid fever (those were the days before antibiotics), while she was visiting her mother, our maternal grandmother, in Williamstown, Mass. Our parents, children of the Jazz Age, had not bothered to get us baptized, much less involved with church. In the space of a few generations, our paternal family had declined from Episcopal to Presbyterian to Christian Scientist, which didn't help. Once all the uproar over the death settled down, our maternal grandmother, a staunch Anglo-Catholic known to us as Bonne Maman, wisked everybody off to the local Episcopal church, St John's in Williamstown, where the priest baptized us.

Our safari

On this day two years ago, Kay and I and our mutt Curly joined the evacuation ahead of the approaching Katrina. Unlike almost everyone else, we headed east along the Gulf Coast. The going was occasionally slow but not bad. I had to stop for gas just on the other side of the bridge at Mobile. We kept going, through Pensacola and to the suburb of Gulf Breeze, where we had a room in a seedy motel, Beach something or other.

The next morning, Sunday, the motel manager announced that all guests had to leave. I don't know why. The hurricane was clearly headed far to the west. Maybe they were nervous because Ivan had wrecked the area a year earlier.

Where to go? We thought of driving further, but our daughter Liz and her husband Chuck offered to put us up in a small rental cottage they owned in Pensacola, just a couple of blocks from the bay. And there we stayed, through the storm, through darkness and heat, with only a battery radio to tell us what was going on.

In the great comic novel Confederacy of Dunces, Ignatius Reilly leaves New Orleans only once in his life, to ride the bus to Baton Rouge. As the bus penetrates deeper and deeper into the swamps, with their savage wildlife, their alligators and snakes, Ignatius becomes more and more desperate. He imagines the trip as a safari into the wastelands of America.

I know just how Ignatius feels, and so does everyone else who had to take that grim journey into hostile places and strange cultures. Some of them are still out there, in places like Baton Rouge and Houston. Que Dieu les aide.

Nemesius of Rome

25 August

Nemesius, deacon and martyr, with his daughter Lucilla, beheaded at Rome under Valerian, in 257.

Stephen, bishop of Rome in 253-257, suffered martyrdom during the reign of the emperor Valerian (253-259). Stephen zealously contended against the heresy of Novatus, which taught that it is not proper to receive back those returning from heresy.

While hiding during a persecution against Christians, Stephen baptized many pagans. These included the military tribune Nemesius, who converted to Christ and was ordained deacon after Stephen healed his daughter, Lucilla. Nemesius was beheaded along with Lucilla.

The tribune Olympius brought their steward Symphronius into the temple of Mars for torture. Stephen's prayer shattered the golden idol, after which the tribune with his wife Exuperia and his son Theodolus believed and were baptized. They were all burned alive, and their remains were buried by bishop Stephen. Then twelve of his clergy were beheaded: Bonus, Faustus, Maurus, Primitivus, Calumniosus, John, Exuperantus, Cyril, Theodore, Basil, Castelus, Honoratus and Tertullinus, all converted by Stephen. Finally, Stephen himself was led before Valerian, who condemned him to beheading with a sword in the temple of Mars. By the prayers of Stephen, a large part of the pagan temple was destroyed, and the soldiers fled. Stephen concealed himself in the catacombs, where he was later killed by soldiers while he was teaching Christians.

The Jena Six (7)

NBC News has done a piece on the Jena Six (pronounced JEEnah). See it here on You Tube.

The New Orleans and Baton Rouge press continues to steer clear of this story of racism in their back yard.

Archelaus of Ostia

23 August

Archelaus, deacon and martyr, with bishop Quiriacus of Ostia, presbyter Maximus, and others, martyred at Ostia (harbor city of ancient Rome) during the reign of Emperor Claudius II Gothicus (268-270).

The Acts of the Martyrs at Ostia on the Tiber tell the story of a girl of royal descent called Chryse in Greek and Aurea in Latin, or Goldie. Under the orders of Claudius, they were persecuted and martyred by the vicarius urbis (city governor) called Ulpius Romulus.

First the men were killed. The Acts record:

Then Romulus said: ‘These men should die.’ And he ordered that Quiriacus the bishop, the holy Maximus the presbyter, Archelaus the deacon, and all the soldiers be beheaded near the arch [of Caracalla] in front of the theatre. He ordered that their bodies be thrown into the sea. The blessed Eusebius collected the bodies, hiding them near the seashore, in the fields, and burying them near Rome in the necropolis of the Via Ostiensis. He secretly buried Taurinus and Herculanus in Portus Romae. He put the blessed Theodorus the tribune to rest in his own mausoleum, and collected all the others, and put them to rest near the bodies of the holy Quiriacus the bishop and Maximus the presbyter.

Five days later Chryse was tortured and thrown into the sea to drown. Her body was washed ashore, and on 24 August it was buried on her estate outside Ostia.

[From the Latin translation of an ancient Greek manuscript in the Vatican, published by Simone de Magistris in 1795. There is also an ancient Latin version of the same story, with slight differences (Acta Sanctorum, Augustus IV, 757 ff.).]

Hurstville Blues

Monday evening we had one of those violent events that have become all too common. New Orleans is famous for its neighborhoods. Each has its distinctive people, ethnic mixtures, dialects, bars, social clubs, and little restaurants. We love where we live, and many of us would live no where else.

Our neighborhood is called Hurstville, because in the 19th century a Mr. Hurst subdivided his sugar cane plantation, naming the long streets running away from the river after his children. We live on Arabella (a daughter), near the corner of Garfield (the president). The neighborhood is mainly white in our area, near St Charles Ave, with both blacks and whites as you get closer to the river. The center of Hurstville is an old Jewish cemetery, Congregation Gates of Prayer, and a nearby grocery named Langenstein’s, founded in 1922.

Early Monday evening three black teenagers were riding their bikes in the neighborhood and trying to open the doors of every car they passed. A man in a white SUV saw them and started following them. At the corner of Arabella and Garfield, by the cemetery, one of the kids pulled a gun and fired three shots at the SUV. One bullet nicked the windshield on the driver's side. A young woman was riding her bike in the same block and thought they were shooting at her. She ran off terrified and sought refuge in the house across from us. Meanwhile, the kids fled on their bikes.

The police soon arrived, with a detective. The kids have been robbing cars all over, and their stupidity will soon lead to their arrest. Turns out the young woman is a lawyer who works for Jim Letten, the U. S. attorney in New Orleans, so he's involved, with federal marshals.

At the sound of the shots, like loud firecrackers, my wife and I ran out. I wondered why the hound dogs next door didn't bark. There was chaos, people running around, everybody furious and worried. My wife swore she'd start packing a pistol (a scary thought), but next time I looked she was hugging the young woman lawyer. People started calming down and telling the story.

This may set race relations in Hurstville back to the 1960s, but it's good for anecdotes.

UPDATE: The police caught one of the three Tuesday morning. He's a juvenile (15) and thus will soon be out on the streets.

Geert Groote

20 August

Geert Groote (also Gerrit or Gerhard Groet, in Latin Gerardus Magnus), deacon, preacher, monastic founder, and victim of the plague, in 1384.

Geert Groote was born in 1340 in Deventer in the diocese of Utrecht, where his father held a good civic position. He studied at Aachen, then went to the University of Paris when only fifteen. Here he studied scholastic philosophy and theology at the Sorbonne under a pupil of William of Occam, from whom he imbibed the nominalist conception of philosophy; in addition he studied Canon law, medicine, astronomy, and even magic, and apparently some Hebrew. After a brilliant course he graduated in 1358. He pursued his studies still further in Cologne. In 1366 he visited the papal court at Avignon. About this time he was appointed to a canonry in Utrecht and to another in Aachen, and the life of the brilliant young scholar was rapidly becoming luxurious, secular, and selfish, when a great spiritual change passed over him which resulted in a final renunciation of every worldly enjoyment.

This conversion, in 1374, appears to have been due partly to the effects of a dangerous illness and partly to the influence of Henry de Calcar, the learned and pious prior of the Carthusian monastery at Munnikhuizen near Arnhem, who had remonstrated with him on the vanity of his life. About 1376 Gerhard retired to this monastery and there spent three years in meditation, prayer, and study, without, however, becoming a Carthusian. In 1379, having received ordination as a deacon, he became a missionary preacher throughout the diocese of Utrecht.

The success which followed his labors not only in the town of Utrecht, but also in Zwolle, Deventer, Kampen, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Gouda, Leiden, Delft, Zutphen, and elsewhere, was immense. According to Thomas à Kempis, the people left their business and their meals to hear his sermons, so that the churches could not hold the crowds that flocked together wherever he came. The bishop of Utrecht supported him warmly, and got him to preach against concubinage in the presence of the clergy assembled in synod.

His impartial censures, which he directed not only against the prevailing sins of the laity, but also against heresy, simony, avarice, and impurity among the secular and regular clergy, provoked the hostility of the clergy, and accusations of heterodoxy were brought against him. It was in vain that Groote emitted a Publica Protestatio, in which he declared that Jesus was the great subject of his discourses, that in all of them he believed himself to be in harmony with Catholic doctrine, and that he willingly subjected them to the candid judgment of the Roman Church. The bishop was induced to issue an edict which prohibited from preaching all who were not in priest’s orders, and an appeal to Urban VI was without effect. There is a difficulty as to the date of this prohibition; either it was only a few months before Groote’s death, or else it must have been removed by the bishop, for Groote seems to have preached in public in the last year of his life.

At some period (perhaps 1381, perhaps earlier) he paid a visit of some days’ duration to the famous mystic John Ruysbroeck, prior of the Augustinian canons at Groenendaal near Brussels. At this visit was formed Groote’s attraction for the rule and life of the Augustinian canons which was destined to bear such notable fruit. At the close of his life he was asked by some of the clerics who attached themselves to him to form them into a religious order and Groote resolved that they should be canons regular of St Augustine. No time was lost in the effort to carry out the project, but Groote died before a foundation could be made. In 1387 however, a site was secured at Windesheim, some 20 miles north of Deventer, and here was established the monastery that became the cradle of the Windesheim congregation of canons regular embracing in course of time nearly one hundred houses, and leading the way in the series of reforms undertaken during the 15th century by all the religious orders in Germany. The initiation of this movement was the great achievement of Groote’s life; he lived to preside over the birth and first days of his other creation, the society of Brethren of the Common Life. He died of the plague at Deventer in 1384, at the age of 44.

Elvis of Graceland

So what if it's a day late?

James the Deacon

17 August

James the Deacon, Italian monk who accompanied Paulinus on his mission to Northumbria, died late 7th c.

James accompanied Paulinus of York on his mission to the court of King Edwin of Deira in 625 with Edwin’s bride Æthelburh, sister of King Eadbald of Kent. After the death of Edwin in battle at Hatfield against Penda of Mercia and Caedwalla in 632, Paulinus fled to Kent, leaving James, “the one heroic figure in the Roman mission,” in Northumbria.

Bede writes that James lived in a village near Catterick, which “bears his name to this day.” He reports that James undertook missionary work in the area and lived to a great age. James was present at the Synod of Whitby in Bede’s account of events there. Bede tells us that after this, and the return of Roman customs, James, as a trained singing master in the Roman and Kentish style, taught many people plainsong or Gregorian chant in the Roman manner. It has been suggested that James was Bede’s informant for the life of Edwin, the works of Paulinus, and perhaps for the Synod of Whitby, which would place his death some years after the birth of Bede in about 672.

Boniface

17 August

Boniface, deacon and martyr, with companion monks in North Africa, killed by Arians, in 483.

The other martyrs were: abbot Liberatus, subdeacons Servus and Rusticus, monks Rogatus and Septimus, and Maximus, a child educated in the monastery. All were martyred under the Arian King Hunneric.

Titus of Rome

16 August
Titus, deacon and martyr, put to death by a soldier during the sack of Rome by the Visigoths, while distributing alms to the poor, in 410.

St Mary the Virgin

Troparion (Tone 1)
You became a mother yet remained a virgin,
you went up to heaven yet sheltered the world, Bearer of God.
You passed to life, Bearer of life.
By your prayers you save our souls from death.

Kontakion (Tone 2)
Neither death nor the tomb could hold the Bearer of God,
who prays for us and always gives us hope.
For Christ who dwelt in the womb of a virgin
has lifted to life the Bearer of life.

Radegund of Poitiers

13 August

Radegund of Poitiers, deacon, queen, minister to the sick and poor, founder of Holy Cross convent at Poitiers, died on 13 August 587.

Radegund (also spelled Radegunde, Radegunda, and Radegundis, and in modern French Radegonde) was born in Thuringia (an area of Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe) about 520. Her father was Berthar, one of three kings of Thuringia.

As a child she was surrounded by brutality and turbulence. When she was still small, her uncle, Hermanfrid, killed Berthar in battle over control of Thuringia. She then lived in the household of Hermanfrid. When Clothaire (also spelled Clothar, Clotaire, or Lothar), king of the Franks, conquered Thuringia in 531 (and killed most members of the royal house), he, then in his 40s, took the child Radegund and her only surviving brother as his share of the booty. Radegund was to be raised as his future wife (one of four), legitimizing his claim to Thuringia.

Radegund was reluctant to marry Clothaire, partly because of his brutal and dissolute character, but also because she didn’t care for marriage. She eventually consented to the wedding (c 540), but continued to lead an austere and devout existence, apparently without intimacy, goading Clothaire to fury. She bore him no children.

Her chaplain and first biographer, Venantius Fortunatus, reports: “Because of this [her austere devotion], people said that the king had yoked himself to a nun rather than a queen. Her goodness provoked him to harsh irritation, but she either soothed him to the best of her ability or bore her husband’s brawling modestly.” She used the revenues of the lands she was granted at her wedding to found hospices and do other charitable work on behalf of the poor. One such hospice, dedicated to Saint Radegund, still exists at Athies.

After she had lived for ten years at Clothaire’s court, Radegund’s brother was murdered by Clothaire since, as the last surviving male member of the Thuringian royal family, he was a threat to Clothaire’s rule over Thuringia. When she learned of her brother’s murder, Radegund fled from Clothaire’s court (c 550) and took sanctuary in the church at Noyon, where she persuaded Medard, bishop of Noyon, to overcome his initial reluctance and ordain her a deacon. She then managed to escape from her husband’s territory, fleeing first to her estate at Saix and then to Poitiers. Clothaire made several attempts to reclaim his wife, but she now had the power of the church behind her. In 560, fearing another attempt to recapture her, she sent a letter to Germanus, bishop of Paris, asking him to exert his influence with her husband. Eventually Clothaire capitulated, sending Germanus to Poitiers to ask the queen’s pardon, which she readily granted. Clothaire died in 561, releasing Radegund from any further claims.

During these years of exile Radegund founded the Convent of Our Lady of Poitiers, a mile or so from the city (c 552). This convent was completed by 560, with the help of Clothaire and the revenues of the lands granted to her at her wedding. When she had established the new convent, Radegund sent a letter of foundation to the bishops of the Poitiers area.

In this document, which was later transcribed by Gregory of Tours in his History of the Franks, Radegund laid down the organization of the convent: It was to abide by the Rule of Caesaria of Arles; Agnes (a close friend of Radegund since her childhood at Athies) was to be the mother superior; and it had been founded with the complete approval of the prelates in the area of Poitiers, as well as of the heirs of Clothaire. The most notable aspect of the Caesarian Rule was its rigid requirement that, once cloistered, a nun was never, under any circumstances, to leave the convent. It further required that the cloistered sisters be able to read and write, and that they devote several hours of the day to reading the scriptures and copying manuscripts, as well as to such traditionally female tasks as weaving and needlework.

The community of nuns numbered about two hundred, many of them being, like the founder, of high social rank. A community of monks, abiding by a similar rule, was also instituted at the same time.

The courtier and poet Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) was an early visitor to the Poitiers monastery, and he became a close friend of Radegund and of her abbess, Agnes. The two poems that are attributed to Radegund are published with Fortunatus’ works; although some scholars believe that he had written the poems in her voice and others believe that they are Radegund's alone, the consensus is that they are collaborations between the two writers. Both poems, De excidio Thoringiae and Ad Artachis, are presented as letters to Radegund’s surviving relatives, describing the loss of her family and homeland and the isolation she had known all of her life.

Radegund soon began to petition the Byzantine emperor for relics from the Holy Land to sanctify her convent. The first petition she sent was for a relic of the Cappadocian martyr, St Mamas of Caesarea. The Patriarch of Jerusalem eventually authorized the transfer of the little finger of the saint’s right hand from Jerusalem to Poitiers. The second petition was for a fragment of the cross on which Christ was crucified. In response, the emperor sent not only a large piece of wood from the cross, but also some gospel books studded with gold and gems.

Euphronius, bishop of Tours, deposited these relics in the convent in the year 569. (Radegund and Euphronius are depicted in icons receiving the cross and a gospel book.) Venantius Fortunatus wrote two poems in honor of the cross, the hymns Vexilla Regis prodeunt and Pange lingua gloriosa. Following the acquisition of these relics, Radegund had the convent renamed the Abbey of the Holy Cross, and it became the destination of pilgrimages.

In her last years, Radegund shut herself off from the daily life of the convent and lived in a walled-up cell, where she devoted her hours to prayer and meditation. She died on 13 August 587. Her funeral three days later was conducted by her friend Gregory of Tours, with Venantius Fortunatus present. Since the nuns were forbidden, by the Caesarian Rule, ever to set foot outside the convent, they stood on its walls, wailing, as Radegund’s body passed beneath them.

According to Gregory, bishop of Tours, Radegund, worried about what might happen to her monastery after her death, wrote (perhaps in the mid-560s) a letter to the bishops of her area asking (or demanding) that they and their successors prevent anyone from disturbing the nuns, changing the rule, or alienating the monastery's property. One may question whether the two verse epistles are in fact Radegund’s; with the prose letter, there seems little question—the voice is definitely that of a strong queen.

After Radegund’s death, the convent fell into decay, due partly to the refusal of Maroveus, bishop of Poitiers, to perform his ecclesiastical duty to supervise it. Eventually a revolt by some of the nuns led to the convening of a council of bishops to investigate the allegations made by the nuns. Many of these were found to be without merit, but Maroveus was ordered to attend to the spiritual needs of the convent.

Sometime after Radegund's death (perhaps after he became bishop of Poitiers in 590), Fortunatus wrote a courtier-like vita. Later, the nuns chose one of their own, Baudonivia, to complement his work. Baudonivia’s memoir of Radegund, written between 600 and 602, has the full hagiographic set of miracles, but it also shows the founder as only her fellow nuns could have seen her—dealing with her husband’s quarreling sons and with recalcitrant bishops, acting as a spiritual guide to the women around her, and living the kind of religious life that Baudonivia could only hope would be continued in the future. In the ninth century, both Radegund and her mother superior, Agnes, were canonized as saints.

Euplus, archdeacon and martyr

11 August

Euplus, archdeacon of Catania in Sicily and martyr, racked and killed for having a copy of the gospels, during the persecution of Diocletian, beheaded in 304.

Always carrying the gospels with him, Euplus preached constantly to the pagans about Christ. Once, while he read and explained the gospel to the gathered crowd, the authorities arrested him and took him to the governor of Catania, Calvisianus. Euplus confessed himself a Christian and denounced the impiety of idol-worship. For this, the authorities sentenced him to torture. They threw the injured saint into prison, where he remained in prayer for seven days. The Lord made a spring of water flow into the prison for the martyr to quench his thirst.

Brought to trial a second time, strengthened, and rejoicing, he again confessed his faith in Christ and denounced the torturer for spilling the blood of innocent Christians. The judge commanded that his ears be torn off, and that he be beheaded. When they led Euclus to execution, they hung the gospels around his neck. Having asked time for prayer, the archdeacon began to read and explain the gospel to the people, and many of the pagans believed in Christ. The soldiers beheaded him with a sword. His holy relics are in the village of Vico della Batonia, near Naples.

Theodor of the Caves

11 August

Theodor, deacon and martyr, monk of the Monastery of the Caves near Kiev in the Ukraine, killed with monk Basil in 1088.

Theodor distributed his riches to the poor, went to the monastery, and settled into the Varangian Cave, adjoining the Caves of St Theodosius. He lives here many years in strict temperance. When the devil aroused sorrow in him for giving away his possessions, Basil comforted him: “I implore you, brother Theodor, do not forget the reward. If you want to have possessions, take everything that is mine.” Theodor repented and dearly loved Basil, with whom he lived in the cell.

Once, Basil was on an errand outside the monastery for three months. The devil, having assumed his form, appeared to Theodor and indicated that there was a treasure hidden somewhere in the cave by robbers. The monk still wanted to leave the monastery to buy possessions to live in the world. When Basil returned, the demonic illusion disappeared.

From that time, Theodor started to be more attentive to himself. In order not to be distracted by idle thoughts during moments of inactivity, he set up a millstone, and by night he ground grain. Thus, by long and zealous ascetic action he freed himself from the passion of avarice.

A report reached Prince Mstislav Svyatopolkovich that Theodor had found much treasure in the cave. He summoned the monk to him and commanded him to show him the spot where the valuables were hidden. Theodor told the prince that indeed he had once seen gold and precious vessels in the cave, but fearing temptation, he and Basil had buried the treasure, and God took from him the memory of where it was hidden. Not believing Theodor, the prince gave orders to torture him to death. The guards beat Theodor so much that his hair-shirt was wet with blood, and then they suspended him head-downwards, lighting a fire beneath him. In a drunken condition the prince commanded them to torture Basil also, and then to kill him with an arrow. Dying, Basil threw the arrow at the feet of Prince Mstislav and predicted that he himself would soon be mortally wounded by it.

The prophecy was fulfilled on 15 July 1099 during an internecine war with David Igorevich. On the wall of the Vladimir fortress, Prince Mstislav was suddenly struck in the chest by an arrow through an opening in the timbers, and on the following night he died. Recognizing his own arrow, the prince said: “I die because of the monastic martyrs Basil and Theodor.”

Laurence of Rome

10 August

Laurence of Rome (Latin Laurentius, “laurelled”), archdeacon and martyr at Rome, supposedly roasted on a gridiron but probably beheaded, on 10 August 258.

Laurence or Lawrence (c. 225-258) was one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome who were martyred under the persecution of Emperor Valerian I in the year 258. The Acts of Laurence were lost by the time of Augustine, one of whose sermons on St Laurence (Sermo 302, de Sancto Laurent.) admits that his narration was gained from tradition instead of reciting the Acts as was his preferred custom. Such early legends made Laurence a native of Huesca (Roman Osca) in Hispania Tarraconensis who had received religious instruction from Archdeacon Sixtus in Rome. After Sixtus was elected bishop on 31 August 257, he ordained Laurence a deacon and placed him in charge of the administration of church goods and care for the poor. For this duty, he is regarded as one of the first archivists and treasurers of the church and is the patron of librarians.

In the persecutions under Valerian, numerous presbyters and bishops were put to death, while Christians belonging to the nobility or the senate were deprived of their goods and exiled. Sixtus II was one of the first victims, beheaded on 6 August 258. A legend cited by Ambrose of Milan says that Laurence met Sixtus on his way to execution, and is reported to have said: “Father, where are you going without your son? Holy priest, where are you hurrying to without your deacon? You have never offered sacrifice without an attendant. Are you displeased with me, my father? Have you found me unworthy? Prove, then, whether you have chosen a fitting servant. To him to whom you have trusted the distribution of the Savior's blood, to him whom you have granted fellowship in the partaking of the sacraments, why do you refuse this person a part in your death?” [Laurence may have said simply: “Holy priest, don’t leave me! We shared the blood of Christ. Let us share each other’s blood.”] Sixtus answered: “I am not leaving you or forsaking you. Greater struggles yet await you. We old men have to undergo an easier fight; a more glorious triumph over the Tyrant awaits you, young man. Don't cry; after three days you will follow me.” Modern scholars tend to read this moving encounter as a literary invention. Augustine connects Laurence with the cup of the mass: “For in that church, you see, as you have regularly been told, he performed the office of deacon; it was there that he administered the sacred cup of Christ’s blood.”

After the death of Sixtus, the prefect of Rome demanded that Laurence turn over the riches of the church. Ambrose is the earliest source for the tale that Laurence asked for three days to gather together the wealth. Laurence worked swiftly to distribute as much church property to the poor as possible, so as to prevent its being seized by the prefect. [According to legend, among the treasures entrusted to Laurence for safe-keeping was the cup from which Jesus and the apostles drank at the Last Supper. Laurence was able to spirit this away to Huesca in Spain, to his parents, with a letter and a supposed inventory. He entrusted the cup to a friend he knew would travel back to Spain, his home country. While the cup’s exact journey through the centuries is disputed, it is generally accepted that it was sent by his family to a monastery for preservation and veneration. Historical records indicate that this cup has been venerated and preserved by a number of monks and monasteries through the ages. Today the cup is in a special chapel in the cathedral of Valencia, in the region of Laurence’s birth and early life.]

On the third day, at the head of a small delegation, he presented himself to the prefect. When ordered to give up the treasures of the church, he presented the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the suffering, and said that these were the true treasures of the church. One account records him declaring to the prefect, “The church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor.” This act of defiance led to his martyrdom. It is said that Laurence was burned on a gridiron or “grilled” to death. According to legend, at the point of death he exclaimed, “I am done on this side! Turn me over and eat.” (More likely, he was beheaded like his bishop and fellow deacons.)

By tradition, Laurence was sentenced at San Lorenzo in Miranda, martyred at San Lorenzo in Panisperna, and buried in the Via Tiburtina in the Catacomb of Cyriaca by Hippolytus and Justinus, a presbyter. Constantine I is said to have built a small oratory in honor of the martyr, which was a station on the itineraries of the graves of the Roman martyrs by the seventh century. Pope Damasus I rebuilt or repaired the church, now known as San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, while the minor basilica of San Lorenzo in Panisperna was built over the place of his martyrdom. The gridiron of the martyrdom was placed by Pope Paschal II in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina. One of the early sources for the martyrdom of Saint Laurence was the description by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens in his Peristephanon, Hymn II.

In western art Laurence is usually depicted holding a gridiron and wearing a dalmatic; in icons he is vested as an Orthodox deacon, holding a church building in his left hand and a censer in his right.

The Jena Six (6)

The Town Talk, daily newspaper in Alexandria, Louisiana, has been running an online poll on the Jena Six. Results to date:

What do you think about the charges filed against the "Jena Six"?

The charges should be dropped. 7.3%

The charges are appropriate. 69.6%

The charges should be reduced to misdemeanors. 23.1%

Total Votes: 1295

COMMENT: And that's the literati with computers! Alexandria is north of what a cynical friend calls the Pine Curtain, separating Catholic South from Evangelical North in Louisiana. It's also in the center of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana, where, as another friend (a contact behind diocesan lines) reports, nobody gives a hoot what happens in Jena, and those boys deserve what they get.

So let's all get out and vote. Go to Town Talk and click on the poll (a scroll or two down the page, in the middle).

Benny's new book

I was not prepared to like the Pope's new book, Jesus of Nazareth. His writings and pronouncements on liturgy have been irritating, his heart's not into ecumenism, and I suspect he really wants to roll back the clock to some time before John XXIII.

I was not prepared to like the book at all. And so it was a surprise when I found it delightful, an affirmation of the faith in Jesus we all hope to find in the scriptures.

Anyway, here's what Benjamin Myers has to say today, with more scholarly understanding than I can hope to bring to the subject. I agree that we should hold both the historical-critical and the canonical-theological methods as complementary ways of understanding scripture. But I wonder how our seminaries handle the problem of exegesis? I'll bet faith comes in second. (Myers is referring to Gerd Lüdemann's Das Jesusbild des Papstes, a critical work in German.)

In spite of the historical flaws in Benedict’s presentation, therefore, his central claim is of great importance – namely, the claim that Jesus must be understood in light of his unique relationship to God. The mystery of Jesus’ relation to the Father, Benedict writes, “is ever present and determines everything” in the Synoptic portraits of Jesus (p. 218); in the life and acts of this man, “God’s will is wholly done” (p. 150), so that the entire existence of Jesus must be understood as a “filial existence” vis-à-vis God (p. 7).

Since his own interpretation of Jesus can find no place for the question of God, Gerd Lüdemann must finally throw up his hands and protest that the Pope’s book “is steeped in a mystery that only faith can understand” (p. 149). In my view, however, this sense of “mystery” is the best – not the worst – aspect of Benedict’s book. After all, the gospel sources are themselves also “steeped in mystery.” They are steeped in the mystery of Jesus’ transparency to the will of God – the mystery that this same Jewish man who was put to death has now become the risen one whom the community proclaims as Lord and Christ.

Read it all here.

Cyriacus of Rome

8 August
Cyriacus, deacon and martyr, with companions, killed at Rome, 303. Born of a noble family, Cyriacus became a Christian and gave his wealth to the poor. He was ordained a deacon at Rome by bishop Marcellinus. Diocletian was emperor, assisted by Maximian, his favorite. The latter decided to build a beautiful palace for the emperor, with magnificent baths, and to make the Christians work at the construction. Among the new slaves were elderly gentlemen and presbyters. The labor was hard and the food scanty. A Roman nobleman desired to relieve the sufferings of these laborers and sent four Christians with alms and encouragements, Cyriacus, Sisinius, Largus, and Smaragdus. They pursued their charities at the risk of their lives, and they worked vigorously alongside those who were growing very weak. When Maximian heard of it, he had Sisinius and an old gentleman whom he had helped, decapitated. Cyriacus was well known to Diocletian, who was fond of him. Suddenly Diocletian’s daughter became possessed by a furious demon, and she announced that only Cyriacus could deliver her. Diocletian sent for him, and he cured her. She became a Christian like her mother, Serena. A short time later the daughter of the king of Persia also became possessed, and cried out like Diocletian’s daughter that she could be delivered only by Cyriacus, who was in Rome. A message was sent to Diocletian, who asked his wife to persuade the deacon to go to Persia for this purpose. He did so with his two remaining Christian companions, and again cast out the demon, thus bringing about the conversion of the king, his family, and four hundred persons, whom he baptized. The three confessors returned to Rome, having refused all compensation for their services, saying that they had received the gifts of God freely and wished to share them freely. Maximian, hearing of their return in 303, had them seized, imprisoned, tortured, and finally decapitated with twenty other Christians. Their bodies were buried near the place of their execution on the Salarian Way but later were removed to the city. An abbey in France, at Altorf in Alsace, possesses relics of Cyriacus and bears his name.

Transfiguration

Icon by Theophanes the Greek, c 1340-c 1410

The Jena Six (5)

The Times-Picayune in New Orleans finally printed a story covering the Jena Six in depth, this morning on the front page no less. The story actually appeared Saturday in the Washington Post, and previous bits and pieces have come from the Associated Press.

The T-P has yet to send a reporter to Jena, which is 230 miles northwest and outside the T-P's circulation base in the toe of Louisiana. Last week the deacon candidates in the diocese sent a letter to the editor about Jena, wondering about the lack of coverage, but the T-P declined to print it.

Read the Post article here. The T-P has not posted the story on its web site.

Januarius, Vincentius, Magnus, Stephanus, Felicissimus, and Agapitus

6 August
Januarius, Vincentius, Magnus, Stephanus, Felicissimus, and Agapitus, deacons and martyrs, with their bishop Sixtus II, seized and beheaded at Rome during the persecution of Emperor Valerian, on 6 August 258. Shortly before the election of Sixtus II (on 31 August 257), the emperor Valerian issued his first edict of persecution, which made it binding on all Christians to participate in the Roman cult of pagan gods and forbade them to assemble in cemeteries, threatening with exile or death those who disobeyed the order. For almost a year Sixtus managed to perform his duties as bishop without being molested. In the first days of August 258, Valerian ordered all bishops, presbyters, and deacons put to death. On 6 August bishop Sixtus gathered his people in one of the lesser-known cemeteries, of Prætextatus, on the left side of the Appian Way, nearly opposite the cemetery of St Callistus. While seated on his chair addressing them, he was suddenly seized by a band of soldiers. He was brought before a tribunal to receive his sentence and then led back to the cemetery for execution by beheading. Four deacons, Januarius, Vincentius, Magnus, and Stephanus, were apprehended with Sixtus and beheaded with him at the same cemetery. Two other deacons, Felicissimus and Agapitus, also suffered martyrdom on the same day. Archdeacon Laurence was martyred four days later [10 August].

COMMENT: Ordination in those days often resulted in death, and Christians rarely sought election, much less campaigned for it. Too bad we've lost that tradition.

Nonna of Nazianzus

5 August

Nonna of Nazianzus, deacon (then called deaconess), evangelist, and educator within her family and the church, died 374. Nonna was born around 290 in Cappadocia (now a part of Turkey). Her prominent Christian parents raised her in the faith. She married and converted her husband, Gregory of Nazianzus the Elder, who had been a member of the Hypsistarii, a heretical sect. She was the mother of three saints, Gregory of Nazianzus, Caesarius, and Gorgonia. She outlived her husband and two of her children. One story of her life occurs in 351, when she fell sick with a severe illness and appeared at the point of death. Gregory was on his way to pay a visit to a friend, but he hurried to his mother, who meanwhile had begun to recover, having a vision in which Gregory had given her cakes marked with the sign of the cross and blessed by him. Gregory praised Nonna as a model of Christian motherhood. He wrote of her: “My mother was a worthy companion for such a man [as my father] and her qualities were as great as his. She came from a pious family, but was even more pious than they. Though in her body she was but a woman, in her spirit she was above all men. . . . Her mouth knew nothing but the truth, but in her modesty she was silent about those deeds which brought her glory. She was guided by the fear of God.”

Reconciliation

All people are worth more than the worst thing they ever did in their lives.
Sister Helen Prejean

Felix

1 August
Felix (Catalan Feliu, Spanish Félix), deacon and martyr, with bishop Cucuphas, killed at Girona in Spanish Catalonia, 304. Felix is a Spanish saint, said to have been born at Scillium. He was martyred at Girona after traveling with Cucuphas from Carthage to Spain as a missionary.