This mortal flesh

About a year and a half ago, after a routine checkup, I was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Last fall it started to turn aggressive.

On Feb. 12 I will start chemotherapy at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans. Each treatment will take three days (one for each chemical), and there will be one treatment a month for six months. The first time is grim, so I’m told, but subsequent visits to the chemo spa are less traumatic. The doctor says there is 80-85% chance of remission.

In the early church people with physical ailments drank the oil of the sick. I may try it.

COMMENT: CLL is a common disease among old white men. It is incurable but not necessarily fatal (although Ed Bradley, an African American, died from it).

Case Management

My bishop, Charles Jenkins of Louisiana, posted this blog yesterday. It speaks for itself:

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Prayers and Support on Several Pending Issues

Prayers Needed

Please pray with me. I seek your prayer and support on several pending issues.

Some may know that Case Management across the Gulf Coast will cease in March unless a bill pending in Congress allows FEMA to fund our efforts. Case Management has been heretofore carried on by a coalition of national relief organizations under the stewardship and leadership of the United Methodist Council on Relief (UMCOR). Our coalition is called Katrina Aid Today. Other church groups have included Lutheran World Services, Catholic Social Services and Episcopal Relief and Development. The original funding for Case Management came not from tax dollars but from a gift to the United States from the government of Qatar. We who have been involved in Case Management more than matched this gift. A bill in Congress (S2335) would enable FEMA to continue to fund Case Management. No new taxes are needed because the funding is in the FEMA budget.

Case Management is teaching one to fish. You know the old story of giving a person a fish today and they will be hungry tomorrow. Teach them to fish . . . Case Management is a professional means to enable people to construct a recovery plan, to provide some resources to make the plan feasible, and then for people to stand on their own. The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana alone graduated 325 families in December of last year. So please, pray for a miracle here. I do not want to see this important ministry stop nor do I want to see it sputter to a temporary halt and then try to start up again. We have proven our capacity to do Case Management.

I ask also that you pray about my capacity to continue funding a relationship with a law firm in Washington, Krivit and Krivit. This is a complicated issue (Church and State). The fact is that we would not be so far along in seeking funding for the continuation of Case Management were it not for the hard work and professional knowledge of the good people in this firm. I am out of money to pay them. They are working on faith now. I have many requests “out” for funding but so far, no action. There is more, much more, for us to do with Krivit and Krivit.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

Bishop Jenkins

Caesarius of Angoulême

29 January

Caesarius of Angoulême, deacon under Ausonius, the first bishop of Angoulême (originally Iculisma) in southwestern France, died of natural causes, 1st c.

Yona Kanamuzeyi

23 January

Yona Kanamuzeyi, deacon and martyr, killed in Rwanda on 23 January 1964.

Yona Kanamuzeyi was a deacon in the town of Nyamata, south of the capital, Kigali, in Rwanda. He had been asked to aid refugees fleeing ethnic violence. As a child of a Hutu-Tutsi marriage, his work of providing sanctuary earned him the label “Tutsi sympathizer.” As Meg Guillebaud, a missionary, recounts: Five soldiers in a Jeep came and took Yona away for questioning in the middle of the night on 23 January 1964. Two others were also in custody. Yona grabbed his diary and the keys to their church. The jeep stopped suddenly alongside a river. Yona scribbled in his diary: “We are going to heaven.” Yona questioned his fellow prisoners about their own salvation. Then they all sang, “There is a happy land, far, far away.”* Soldiers took Yona into the bush, and gunfire was heard. The soldiers returned “amazed” that Yona sang as he walked along to his death. Minutes later, they released the other two prisoners. Years later, the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London inscribed his name in the cathedral’s book of modern martyrs.

*The 1838 hymn “There Is a Happy Land,” sung by Yona and his companions:

There is a happy land, far, far away,
Where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day.
Oh, how they sweetly sing, worthy is our Savior King,
Loud let His praises ring, praise, praise for aye.

Come to that happy land, come, come away;
Why will ye doubting stand, why still delay?
Oh, we shall happy be, when from sin and sorrow free,
Lord, we shall live with Thee, blest, blest for aye.

Bright, in that happy land, beams every eye;
Kept by a Father’s hand, love cannot die.
Oh, then to glory run; be a crown and kingdom won;
And, bright, above the sun, we reign for aye.

Parmenus

23 January

Parmenus, one of the seven ordained by the apostles (Acts 6:5), according to tradition martyred at Philippi in Macedonia, c. 98 [also July 28].

Vincent of Saragossa

A raven guards the body of Vincent.

22 January

Vincent of Saragossa, martyred at Valencia, Spain, on 22 January 304.

Vincent was born at Huesca but lived in Zaragoza (Saragossa in English; also in the Aragon region of Spain). He served as the deacon of Valerius, bishop of Saragossa. Imprisoned in Valencia for his faith, and tortured on a gridiron—a story perhaps adapted from the martyrdom of Laurence—Vincent, like many early martyrs in the early hagiographic literature, succeeded in converting his jailer. Though he was finally offered release if he would consign scripture to the fire, Vincent refused.

The earliest account of Vincent’s martyrdom is in a carmen (lyric poem) written by Prudentius, (348-aft. 405), who wrote a series of lyric poems, Peristephanon (Crowns of Martyrdom), on Hispanic and Roman martyrs, including Laurence and Vincent. Prudentius describes how Vincent was brought to trial along with his bishop Valerius. Since Valerius had a speech impediment, Vincent spoke for both, but his outspoken manner so angered the governor that Vincent was tortured and martyred, though his aged bishop was only exiled.

As Prudentius describes the martyrdom:

During the persecution, Vincent was arrested and brought before the prefect Dacian. Initially, using “soft, cajoling words,” the judge attempted to get Vincent to renounce his faith and worship the pagan gods as the laws of Rome demanded.

In answer Vincent then cries out,
A levite of the sacred tribe,
Who at God’s altar stands and serves,
One of the seven pillars white:
‘Let these dark fiends rule over you,
Bow down before your wood and stone;
Be you the lifeless pontifex
Of gods as dead as you, yourself.
But we, O Dacian, will confess
The Father, Author of all light,
And Jesus Christ, his only Son,
As one true God, and him adore.’

The prefect replied that Vincent must submit to the civil power that ruled the world or die.

‘Give ear to this fiat of mine:
You must now at this altar pray
And offer up incense and turf,
Or bloody death will be your lot.’

Vincent invited the judge to use whatever power he could muster. Even then, Vincent insisted, he would still defy the laws. He then rejected the judge’s threat in a less than tactful manner.

‘How senseless are your false beliefs,
How stupid Caesar’s stern decree!
You order us to worship gods
That match your own intelligence.’

Vincent ridiculed the idols made by human hands and the foolishness of housing them in costly temples. He declared that any spirits dwelling there were infernal powers living in terror of Christ and his kingdom.

No longer could the wicked judge
Endure the martyr’s ringing words,
‘Silence the wretch,’ he madly cries;
‘Stop his contemptuous blasphemies! . . .
Come tie his hands behind his back
And on the rack his body turn,
Until you break his tortured limbs
And tear asunder every joint.
When this is done, flay him alive
With piercing blows that bare the ribs,
So that through deep and gaping wounds
The throbbing entrails may be seen.’

Vincent was tortured but did not yield. The deacon laughed at his torments and rebuked the two executioners for not wounding him more grievously. They were rapidly becoming exhausted with their efforts.

The martyr now in ecstasy,
No shadow of his bitter pain
Upon his shining countenance,
In vision, saw thee near, O Christ.
‘O shame! What face the man puts on!’
Cried Dacian in an angry voice.
‘More ardent than his torturers
He beams with joy and courts their blows!’

The prefect recognized that the punishments being meted out to Vincent were having no effect. He did not criticize the torturers for they knew their work well and had never been outdone. Instead, he ordered them to rest their hands awhile so that their muscles might revive.

‘Then when his wounds are dry,
And clotted blood has formed hard scabs,
Your hands may plow them up again
And rend anew his tortured frame.’
To him the levite makes reply:
‘If now you see that all the strength
Of your vile dogs is giving way,
Come, mighty slaughterer, yourself,
Come, show them how to cleave my flesh
And my inmost recesses bare;
Put in your hands and deeply drink
The warm and ruddy streams of blood.
You err, unfeeling brute, if you
Imagine that you punish me
When you dismember me and kill
A body that is doomed to die.
There is within my being’s depths
Another none can violate,
Unfettered, tranquil and unmarred,Immune from pain and suffering.’

Vincent explained that it is the spirit within him that Dacian must subdue. He added that that spirit is free, invincible, and subservient to God alone. Then the tortures resumed. The prefect saw he was unable to break Vincent and tried another tactic. He asked Vincent to show him his scriptures so that he might consign them to the flames. The martyr quickly replied that anyone who threatened to burn the holy books would suffer an even worse fate and end up “in the depths of hell.”

The tyrant, maddened at these words
Turns pale, then red with burning rage;
He rolls his frenzied blood-shot eyes,
Foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth.
Then after some delay, he roars:
‘Let trial by torture now be made,
The crown of all our punishments,
The gridiron, flames, and red-hot plates.’

The martyr hurried to receive these new torments. With “no trace of fear upon his brow,” he mounted the pyre “as though ascending upon high to take possession of his crown.” The fire sent sparks that implanted themselves “with sizzling punctures in his flesh.” Fat oozed from the burning wounds and slowly covered his body with smoking oil.

Unmoved amid these sufferings,
As though unconscious of his pain,
The saint to heaven lifts his eyes,
For heavy fetters stay his hands.

Then the prefect had Vincent raised “from his fiery bed of pain” and “cast into a dungeon foul . . . a stifling subterranean pit.”

The angry foe now hurls the saint
Into this pit of deepest woe
And thrust his feet in wooden stocks
With tortured limbs set far apart.
The monster skilled in penal art
Then adds a torment new and strange,
To no oppressor known before,
Recorded in no previous age.
He orders broken earthenware,
Sharp-cornered, jagged, piercing keen,
Spread out upon the dungeon floor
To make for him a painful bed.

However, the plans of the prefect were once again frustrated. The darkness of the prison cell was soon replaced with a radiant light. The stocks on the martyr’s feet flew open.

And then does Vincent recognize
That Christ, the Source of light, has come
To bring the promised recompense
For all the pangs he has endured.
He sees the broken earthenware
Now clothe itself with tender flowers
That fill the narrow prison vault
With fragrance like to nectar sweet.
And then around the martyr throngs
A host of angels greeting him,
Of whom one of majestic mien
Accosts the hero in these words:
‘Arise, O glorious martyr saint,
Arise, set free from all your chains,
Arise, now member of our band,
And join our noble company.
You have already run your course
Of frightful pain and suffering;
Your passion’s goal is now attained,
And death now gives you kind release.’

Vincent’s sufferings ended. The light within the cell penetrated the bolted door through narrow crevices. The guardian of the cell who had been stationed there noticed the light. He heard the prisoner singing and “a voice chanting in response.”

Then, trembling, he draws near the door
And plants his eyes against the jamb
That he may through the narrow slit
Explore the room as best he can.
He sees the bed of potsherds bloom
With fragrant flowers of many hues,
And, singing as he walks about,
The saint himself with fetters loosed.

The jailer sent word to the prefect who wept at his defeat. He ordered Vincent to be removed from the dungeon and asked that his wounds be bathed with healing balms. His intention was that when the prisoner was restored, he would again be put to torture. Upon his release, the faithful from all the city thronged to their deacon. They made him an easeful bed, cared for his wounds, and carried away blood-soaked cloths as relics. The warden of his prison cell accepted Christ with sudden faith. Soon afterwards, in this peaceful setting, Vincent died. The prefect was furious that Vincent had eluded him yet again and was determined to feed the anger that “burned within his vengeful heart.”

As serpent of its fangs bereft
The madman raged in frenzy wild.
‘The rebel has evaded me
And carried off the palm,’ he cries.
‘Though he be dead, I still can wreck
One last outrage upon this wretch:
I’ll throw his body to the beasts,
Or give it to the dogs to rend.’

Dacian wanted to destroy Vincent’s body lest it be honored in a tomb inscribed with the martyr’s name. Accordingly, “the sacred body he exposed, all naked in a sedgy marsh.” And then a strange thing occurred. A raven guarded the body, driving away a bird of prey and a wolf. The prefect decided to throw the body into the sea where it would be food for fish or tossed by storms and torn on the rocks.

‘Is there some man among you here
Who, skilled in piloting a boat
With oar and rope and hoisted sail,
Can briskly plow the open sea?
Go, take the body that now lies
Unharmed among the marshy reeds
And, in a wherry light and swift,
Bear it away through surging tides.
Wrap up the corpse and then enclose
It in a sack of rushes made,
To which a heavy stone is tied,
That it may sink into the deep.’

A soldier volunteered for the job. He wove a net of ropes into which he sewed Vincent’s body. Then he sailed out to sea and hurled it into the waves. Although a heavy stone had been attached to it, the body did not sink but moved with the tide toward the shore.

The heavy millstone swims along
As lightly as the snow-white foam;
The bag that holds the sacred pledge
Is borne on top of swelling waves.
Aghast, the baffled mariners
Behold it floating calmly back
Across the level shining sea,
Sped on by favoring tide and wind.
With rapid oars they cleave the main,
As wroth they urge their vessel on,
But far ahead the body flies
Into a quiet, secluded bay.

The body came to rest on the beach before the skiff could reach the shore. There it was buried until the Christians could build a tomb. Later, when the persecution was over, a church was built and the bones of Vincent were buried at the foot of the altar.

“The Poems of Prudentius,” trans. Sr. M. Clement Eagan, CCVI, in The Fathers of the Church, vol. 43, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC, 1962.

Augurius and Eulogius of Tarragoña

21 January

Augurius and Eulogius, deacons and martyrs, with bishop Fructuosus of Tarragoña, martyred by burning in Spain, on 21 January 259.

According to the Acta: The bishop and his two deacons were arrested on Sunday, 16 January, just as they were going to bed. The bishop asked for permission to put on his shoes, after which he cheerfully followed the arresting guards. In prison they spent their time in fervent prayer, full of joy at the prospect of the crown prepared for them. Fructuosus blessed those who visited him and on Monday baptized a catechumen named Rogatianus. On Wednesday they kept the usual fast of the stations until 3 p.m.

A few days later, on Friday, 21 January, the three were brought before the governor. Their examination was short and to the point: the prisoners affirmed their worship of one God, and were sentenced to be burned to death. Officers were posted to prevent any demonstration because even the pagans loved Fructuosus for his virtues. The Christians accompanied them with sorrow tempered with joy. The faithful offered Fructuosus a cup of wine, which he refused because, since it was only 10 in the morning, it was too early to break the fast. Even with the guards at the gate of the amphitheater, some of the Christians were able to get close. The bishop’s reader, Augustalis, with tears asked permission to remove his bishop’s shoes. Felix, a Christian soldier, stepped in and asked the bishop for his prayers.

Fructuosus replied so that all could hear, “I am bound to bear in mind the whole universal church from East to West. Remain always in the bosom of the catholic church, and you will have a share in my prayers.” He added words of comfort to his flock. As the flames enveloped them and burned through their bonds, “they stretched forth their arms in token of the Lord’s victory, praying to him till they gave up their souls.”

The account of their examination still exists and is authentic. Tradition adds that Babylas and Mygdone, two Christian servants of the governor, saw the heavens open and the saints carried up with crowns on their heads. By night the faithful came and each took some part of the martyrs’ bodies to their own home, but heaven admonished them and they each returned the relics to a single grave. In art the three martyrs are portrayed as a bishop and two deacons singing on their funeral pyre. They are venerated at Tarragoña and in Africa.

A couple of deacons

From a letter from Bishop Jack Iker to the clergy of the Diocese of Fort Worth, 16 Jan. 2008:

BISHOP SAM HULSEY, the retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwest Texas, hosted an organizational meeting yesterday afternoon at his home here in Fort Worth for all clergy of this Diocese who are opposed to the decisions made by our Diocesan Convention in November and who are committed to keeping this Diocese in The Episcopal Church, no matter what. Though I was not given a list of those invited, I understand that only two or three rectors attended and that the rest were a handful of retired priests and a couple of deacons.

Since the diocese has only 12 deacons, I wonder who the two were?

Hugo Gorovoka

18 January

Hugo Gorovoka, deacon and native missionary at Miravovo, Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, died in 1918.

Marianus of Rome

17 January

Marianus, deacon and martyr, with presbyter Diodorus and others, killed at Rome in 284. In Rome under Numerian, a group of Christians including Diodorus and Marianus were found praying in the catacombs on the anniversary of an earlier martyrdom. The Roman authorities sealed them in the crypt alive. Diodorus and Marianus were canonized, and a church was later built above the sandpit. The two martyrs were particularly popular in 4th century Rome, and their names appear in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.

Hermylus of Singidunum

13 January

Hermylus, deacon and martyr of Singidunum, with his servant Stratonicus, killed in the Balkans, in 315. They were martyred by drowning in the Danube at Singidunum (present Belgrade, capital of Serbia).

Tatiana of Rome

12 January

Tatiana, deacon and martyr, beheaded at Rome, on 12 January c. 225.

Tatiana came from an eminent Roman family and was educated in the Christian faith. When she reached adulthood, she became indifferent to riches and earthly blessings and came to love the spiritual way of life. She renounced wedded life and because of her virtue was made a deacon of the Roman Church. In this role she diligently tended the sick, visited jails, helped the needy, and constantly tried to please God with prayers and good deeds.

During the reign of Alexander Severus (222-235), under the Roman city mayor Ulypian, around the year 225, she took on a martyr’s suffering for professing her love of Jesus Christ. The emperor’s mother Mammaea was a Christian, but the emperor was wavering and indecisive in the faith. He kept statues of Christ, Apollo, Abraham, and Orpheus in his palace, and his chief assistants persecuted Christians without his orders.

According to an ancient narrative, when they brought out Tatiana for torture, she prayed to God for her torturers. Their eyes were opened, and they saw four angels around the martyr. Seeing this, eight of them believed in Christ, for which they also were tortured and slain. After much torture Tatiana was thrown into the arena at the Coliseum, to be torn apart by a lion for the amusement of the spectators. Instead she caressed the lion. The tormentors continued to torture Tatiana. They whipped her, cut off parts of her body, and scraped her with irons. Disfigured and bloody, Tatiana was thrown into the dungeon that evening so that the next day they could resume with different tortures.

God sent angels to the dungeon to encourage her and heal her wounds so that each morning Tatiana appeared before the torturers completely healed. They cut off her hair, thinking that sorcery or magical power was concealed in her hair. Finally, Tatiana and her father were both beheaded. According to the witness of Deacon Zocim in 1420, Tatiana’s head was at Perivlepto in Constantinople.

Troparion (Tone 4)
Strengthened by the power of faith,
you contended for Christ our God, O glorious Tatiana.
You endured every affliction
and by your courage put Belial to shame.
We beseech you to deliver us from the power of the evil one.

Kontakion (Tone 4)
You were radiant in suffering, Tatiana,
and in the royal purple of your blood you flew like a dove to heaven.
Wherefore pray unceasingly for those who honor you.

Comment on a southern primate

Venables is a small village in Normandy, overlooking the Seine. In the middle ages some of the inhabitants, especially country gentry, became known as “de Venables.” When they came over to England in 1066, they kept this name, but eventually family members dropped the “de.” Today there are many Venables in England. (This history is true of other English names of Norman origin.)

There may be an etymological connection between Venables (village and family name) and venal, from the Latin venalis, for sale, but I would not put much weight on the similarity.

Theosebia of Nyssa

Theosebia and Gregory of Nyssa.

10 January

Theosebia, deacon (then called deaconess), wife or sister of Gregory of Nyssa, died c. 387.

Theosebia’s life and identification are ambiguous; her dates of birth and death are uncertain (she died probably after 381). She is thought to have played an important role in the church in Nyssa, where she was called diakonissa. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote a letter of condolence on her death to Gregory of Nyssa in which Cyril mentioned “your sister Theosebia” and “true consort of a priest.” There lies the ambiguity of her identification. Some historians suppose Theosebia was the wife of Gregory of Nyssa, others suppose she was one of his sisters like Macrina the Younger; if so, then Theosebia was the sister of Basil the Great as well. Others imagined that she was the wife of Gregory Nazianzen, although there is no evidence that he was ever married.

Nicanor

10 January

Nicanor, deacon and martyr, one of the seven ordained by the apostles (Acts 6:5), according to tradition killed in Cyprus, c. 76 [also July 28].

The Quorum

My daughter shared this video with me. Look at it in combination with my previous post on race in south Louisiana. As lagniappe you get to see several beautiful Creole women.

Our gumbo of race

There was a story in the New York Times on November 7 about the writer Bliss Broyard, whose father, Anatole Broyard, a book reviewer and essayist for the Times, was passablanc—a Creole term for those who pass for white. The family came from New Orleans, where many Broyards today have African, European, and Native American ancestors. Bliss discovered the secret at her father’s deathbed, wrote a book about it called One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life—A Story of Race and Family Secrets, and recently visited the city for a cheerful family reunion.

Her discovery is a common story in our otherwise depressed and unreconstructed metropolis and region. About a year ago the Times published an article about Creole cooking. The accompanying photo showed two people preparing a meal, a woman identified as a Creole of color and a man as a white Creole. And they were cousins!

Race in New Orleans—indeed, in all of south Louisiana—is a complicated matter, and you have to be careful about making assumptions about people’s background. The famous fiddler Dennis McGee had an Irish name, native facial structure, and African coloring, and he spoke Cajun French. The cultural mixture is what we call gumbo, everything thrown in the pot and stirred until it comes out just right. In cooking gumbo, first you make a roux, a dark sauce from flour and cooking grease—the French contribution. Then you sauté some vegetables, including okra—from West Africa, where gombo means okra. And you add seasoning called filé, made from dried sassafras leaves—from the natives.

In colonial New Orleans in the 18th century, French settlers, African slaves, and native peoples lived side by side, shared languages, stories, and cooking, and made babies together. The babies were called Creole, from the Portuguese word criollo, meaning native born. We have Creole tomatoes, Creole cream cheese, and Creole people. All those whose ancestors lived in colonial Louisiana are Creoles, and usually they are a mixture of ancestries.

But race also has a dark side, an irrational side. Under the former system, if you were at least 1/32 black (and 31/32 white), you were black. If you were 1/32 white, you were still black. I have a son-in-law who is one-eighth Choctaw. Does that make him a Native American? Probably not, since his blond hair and blue eyes make it hard for him to pass in tribal gatherings. (There’s a legend in my family that one branch, the Gays, is descended from Pocahontas. Unfortunately, a genealogist has used DNA to disprove the connection. But I still have Choctaw in-laws.)

This absurd system of racial classification was invented mainly by les américains who flooded into Louisiana after 1803. Creoles of color found themselves increasingly marginalized and treated as inferior, both in legal statutes and in society. The Civil War brought a spell of enlightenment. After Reconstruction, however, white politicians passed oppressive Jim Crow statutes. In 1891 Homer A. Plessy, a Creole of color (one-eighth black), tested the laws by attempting to sit in a whites-only railway car. In the infamous decision of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy and opened the way for legal segregation throughout the United States. (Plessy later moved to Maryland and registered to vote as a white man.)

Throughout our history, the system of race has resulted in a search for skin pale enough to pass for white. To get that way, people of swarthy color had to breed with people of light color, dark face with pale face. Getting whiter and eventually passing for white was the way to social and economic advancement, the pursuit of happiness. (The tones were relative. Those who were totally black or totally white were too scary, unsuitable for any kind of social mixture.)

Dividing people by race, or by any other false classification, has caused great evil, and we ought to stop doing it.

[From a column I wrote for the recent issue of Diakoneo.]

Transactional?

From my bishop's blog, a recent sermon with this headline:

A Sermon for the Second Commemoration of Bl. Frances Joseph Gaudet And The Ordination of Transactional Deacons St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, New Orleans December 29, 2007

Harriet Bedell

Harriet Bedell in her garden in Florida.

8 January

Harriet Mary Bedell, deaconess and missionary among the Seminoles and Miccosukee in southern Florida, died on 8 January 1969.

Born in 1875 in Buffalo, New York, Harriet Bedell became a teacher with many young Indian students. In the winter of 1905-06, she attended a meeting at her church to hear a missionary speak of the need for more workers in China to spread the word of the Lord. Determined to become a missionary, she gave up her job to train as an Episcopal deaconess in New York City. At the end of her year of training, she elected to study nursing for a year in her home town of Buffalo. At the end of her schooling, she was appointed an apprentice deaconess and sent to the Whirlwind Mission in Oklahoma to minister among the Cheyenne (assisting Oakerhater, see Aug. 31).

She threw herself into her work and gradually gained the love and trust of her people. She was adopted into the tribe and given the name of Vicsehia, which means Bird Woman, because she sang, hummed, and whistled constantly while she worked. Harriet devoted herself to the Cheyenne until she contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Colorado to recover. There she attended a healing service and became free of symptoms, which she called a miracle. Instead of returning to Oklahoma, she was sent to Alaska where she worked for many years among the native peoples. In 1922 she journeyed to Portland, Oregon, to be ordained a deaconess in The Episcopal Church, returning to her mission in Alaska.

In 1932 while she was enjoying her first sabbatical with her family in Buffalo, the Bishop of New York asked her to visit the chain of missions in Florida to recruit church workers. On this trip she first encountered the Miccosukee tribe. She decided to remain in Florida to help the Miccosukee. With the backing of Bishop Wing in Miami and the Collier Corporation in Everglades (now Everglades City), Bedell set up a mission to minister to local people and the native Americans. She taught Sunday school, sewing, literature, hygiene, music, and a variety of other skills to the Miccosukee and the young children of Marco Island and Collier County.

The tribe adopted her and gave her the name Inkoshopie, woman who prays. Bedell borrowed on her salary and made an arrangement with the Collier Corporation to finance sales of Indian craft, including beadwork, clothing, pottery, carving, and leatherwork. With the proceeds, she repaid the loans and gave the Indians company script which they could spend at the store in Everglades. Bedell was tireless in persistent efforts for her people, traveling as far as Washington to prevent Japanese imitations of the craft work from entering the country, and to New York to sell Indian items to large department stores. She continued to do this work after her retirement, augmenting her meager income with loans from the Colliers, who eventually deeded over to her the small dwelling she occupied in Everglades. Every Christmas she arranged an enormous party with feasting and entertainment and gifts for all the Indians and children from Everglades.

In September 1960, Harriet was forced to evacuate her home when hurricane Donna struck. The storm leveled her property, destroying her typewriter, sewing machine, children’s books and gifts set aside for the upcoming holiday celebration. The bishop insisted that Harriet finally give up her active life at 85, and she moved to the Bishop Gray Inn in Davenport, Florida, a home for retired Episcopalians. Refusing to be idle, she planned and taught Sunday school, worked in the infirmary, and gave speeches to recruit mission workers. A huge birthday party was thrown for her when she turned 90, and Coronet magazine featured an article about her. Her story also appeared in many newspapers and magazines and two books were written about her: A Woman Set Apart by William and Ellen Hartley (New York, 1953) and Deaconess of the Everglades, by Elizabeth Scott Ames (Cortland, NY, 1995). Bedell died on 8 Jan 1969, just short of her 94th birthday.

Dominika of Carthage

8 January

Dominika of Carthage, deacon and abbess in Alexandria and Constantinople, died late 4th c. She lived in the year 374, in the reign of Theodosius the Great.

Theophilus of Lybia

8 January

Theophilus, deacon and martyr in Libya, with the layman Helladius, date of death unknown. For preaching the gospel, they were tortured and thrown into a furnace.

Clerus of Antioch

7 January

Clerus of Antioch, deacon and martyr, killed at Antioch in Syria, in 300. For having professed faith in Christ, he was tortured seven times, kept in prison a long while, and finally beheaded.

Deacons of San Joaquin, where are you?

Despite several requests for news about the 30 deacons in the Diocese of San Joaquin, there has been complete silence in all quarters. Not one of them has spoken up, and not one person who knows them, or of them, has spoken of them. Back when the bishop fired the priest of St. Nicholas, Atwater, on Christmas Day, there was information that the bishop had ordered the deacon of the mission to change the locks on the church doors. This he did. That deacon has since disappeared from the mission web site, and the doors remain locked. For the sake of his reputation, if nothing else, I would like to hear some clarification about his role in this sorry mess.

And what of the other deacons? During the diocesan convention of Dec. 4, there was a photo of Bishop Schofield presiding at mass with two deacons flanking him at the altar. Good liturgy, but I wonder whether it’s good ecclesiology, considering the rupture that was taking place.

So have the 30 deacons stayed with Bishop Schofield in his translation to the Southern Cone, or with the diocese in exile? Someone please give us the details.

CLARIFICATION: For those of a certain age, the title of this message alludes to a 1960s TV series called "Car 54, where are you?" about a couple of bumbling cops in their frequently misguided patrol car.

COMMENT: Further information (from Scott Elliott, a deacon in Chicago) has identified the deacon at St. Nicholas as Buck Jones. At the convention eucharist, the deacon of the mass was also Buck Jones, and the deacon of the word was Madeline Burton. Deacon Laurel Greene helped with communion. See here and here. That alone doesn't mean they have gone south with the bishop.

Blessing of the Beer

The Episcopal Café, throuigh its news column called The Lead, has reproduced the following prayer from the Rituale Romanum, perhaps as part of a New Year's resolution, or in preparation for blessing the waters at Epiphany:

Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, that Thou hast been pleased to bring forth from the sweetness of the grain: that it might be a salutary remedy for the human race: and grant by the invocation of Thy holy name, that, whosoever drinks of it may obtain health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Akhila of the Caves

4 January

Akhila, deacon and monk of Pechersk, in Kiev in the Ukraine, in the Farther Caves, died in 14th c.

Daniel of Padua

3 January

Daniel of Padua, deacon and martyr, killed in northeastern Italy in 168. Said to be of Jewish descent, Daniel aided Prosdocimus, the first bishop of Padua, in the evangelization of northeastern Italy. His body was discovered centuries later and solemnly enshrined 3 Jan 1064 in the church of Santa Sofia in Padua.

The church at Eucharist

A deacon sings a litany (= prayers of the people) in a Slavonic church.