All Hallows eve

From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legegd beasties, and things that go bump in the night, 
               good Lord deliver us. 

The 23rd Sunday (of 26!) after Pentecost

The Lord will give strength to his people, the Lord will give his people the 

blessing of peace. 

Psalm 29:11

Saturday

Where  your treasure is, 

there your heart will be also. Luke 12:34

Friday

Happy are they who trust in the Lord!  

Psalm 40:4

Second Vespers of Simon and Jude

Turn again to your rest, oh my soul, for the Lord has treated you well.  
      Psalm 116:6

St Simon and St jude, Apostles

Come and listen all you who fear God, and I will  tell you what he has done for me. Psalm 66:14

Wednesday

Arise, shine,

for your light

has come

and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you

Canticle 11

Tuesday evening

We have waited in silence on your loving-kindness, O God, in the midst of your temple. 

Psalm 48:8

Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons during the Viking invasions d. 899

God, to know you is eternal life

Collect for Peace at Morning Prayer

Misty Monday, a new week

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from age to age. Amen Amen. Psalm 41:13

The 22nd Sunday (of 26!) of Pentecost

O God,

you are my God,

eagerly

I seek you

Psalm 63:1a

Saturday evening

One day tells its tale to another and one night imparts knowledge to another. Although they have no words or language, and their voices are not heard, Their sound has gone out into all lands and their message to the ends of the world. Psalm 19:2-4

St James of Jerusalem

I am sending you out as sheep into the

midst of wolves... Matthew 10:16

Friday

Be strong and  let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. 

 Psalm 31:24

Thursday

Commit  your way to the Lord and put your trust in him. Antiphon: Psalm 37

Wednesday

Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will...

AA’s 

Third Step Prayer

The first step of AA (Or AlAnan for that matter) is powerlessness. It is the step without which you stay stuck. the second, coming to believe that a Power Greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. In the third step you make a decision to turn your will and live over to God as you understand Him.  4, 5 6 and 7 an examination of conscience and confession, and the making of amends. 10 is continuing to examine yourself to stay current. 11 is prayer and meditation, deepening your connection with God and 12 is carrying the message to other alcoholics “and practicing these principles in all our affairs.”  It’s actually a prefect blueprint for life. There’s a great book which is a history of AA by a guy names Ernest Kurtz called Not-God. He is not  alcoholic but his premise I think is right on -  that AA is founded on the proposition that the alcoholic is not God. And here we  are back at Step One.... 

The Feast of Henry Martyn, Priest and Missionary to India and Persia (Iran) d. 1831

Lord,  I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides. 
        Psalm 26:8
The Blue Mosque in Istambul

Henry Martyn translated both the New Testament and The Book of Common Prayer into Hindi and the New Testament into Persian. He also revised an Arabic translation of the New Testament.  He died in on his way to Constantinople  (Istanbul) at the age of 31. 

Photograph by Melinda Murdock - the mosque not Henry !

The Feast of St Luke the Evangelist

          

    

                                               

                            

The 

Lord 

is 

glorious 

in 

his 

saints 

Antiphon on the Venite for Major Saints' Days

The 21st Sunday (of 26) after Pentecost

You are God: 
we praise you;

You are the Lord:

 we acclaim you;

You are the 

eternal Father: 

all creation 

worships you 

Te Deum laudamus 

The Te Deum is one of two canticles found in the Prayer Book that is not taken directly from the Scriptures. The oldest manuscript we have of the Te Deum is from the 7th century but scholars think it dates form the 4th century, like The Gloria in excelsis, the other one non-scriptural canticle, which was written in the 4th century.  According to medieval legend the Te Deum was composed extemporaneously by Ambrose and Augustine for Augustine’s baptism. More prosaically but more probably, it was written by Niceta, Bishop of Remesianan (c. 392-414)  All this is according to the incomparable Marion Hatachett. 

Saturday evening

I will lift up the cup of salvation

and call upon the Name of the Lord. 

Psalm 116:11

"The Feast of Hugh Latimer and Nichols Ridley, bishops and martyrs 1555"

May the Lord answer you  in the day of trouble, ; the Name of the God of Jacob defend you. 

Psalm 20:1

This used to be feast of Latimer, Ridley and Thomas Cranmer. But in the new book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts (now called Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints)  Cranmer has a day of his own, on March 21, which surely seems appropriate.  Maybe Ridley and Latimer are together becasue they were burned at the stake together in Oxford. The Roman Catholics had taken control again in England and the rest, as they say, is history. (Cranmer was burned at the stake a year later.)  It's all very confusing. It takes one with more learning and intelligence than I have to say whether it’s salubrious to celebrate these two poor men who were barbecued for their faith - or was it more a political deal? I was not going to even mention that it was their day at all, but the church celebrates them so I have too as a faithful daughter of the church. 

"Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, that we, like your servants Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, may live in our fear, die in your favor and rest in your peace... Amen"

Teresa #2: first things first

..what God cares about is not exactly our actions. What He cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind or quality - the kind of quality He intended for us to be - creatures related to Him in a certain way. I do not add  

“and related to one another in a certain way” because that is included; if you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are rightly fitted into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right position to one another. 

CS Lewis, Mere Christiaity

.

St Teresa of Avila, d.1582 Carmelite reformer, writer, mystic, nun, above all friend of God

Almighty God, ... keep us in eternal life... 

                                 (Absolution at the Daily Office) 

The Feat of Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, d. 1906 Resigned his see when he became paralyzed but completed his translation of the Bible into Wenli, typing 2000 pages with the middle finger of his partially crippled hand.

I love you, O Lord, my strength, O Lord, my stronghold, my crag and my haven, My God, my rock in whom I put my trust  

Psalm 18: 1,2a

October 13 as the Chilean miners, trapped 1/2 mile underground for 69 days, are being rescued

I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried and you heard my voice. Jonah 2:1

Tuesday morning

               In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; 

Early in the morning I make my appeal 

  and watch for you.  Psalm 5:3

As I sat with this I was surprised by the “watch for you”, rather than listen... But I guess the Presence is manifested in action as well as Word.   And surely the Word results in action.      I was struck by the contrast between  Jonah (1:1-17) running away from the presence of God and the lady with the hemorrhage who  needed to get close enough to just touch the fringe of his garment. (Luke 8:40-56)  I get it, since Jonah was running away from what he saw as an impossible task  and the woman was desperate for help, but it seemed quite a contrast! And I had never noticed before that when Jonah ‘fessed up to the sailors, they didn’t immediately throw him overboard but tried to row to shore. When that didn’t work, they did throw him overboard and the rest, as they say, is history.  I’m a little like a kid with this story in that I anticipate the end - I love it when, the second time God says “get up and go to Nineveh” it says Jonah got up and went. Well, I GUESS!!! 

St Philip, Deacon and Evangelist

He 

Surely it is God who saves me, I will trust in him and not be afraid 

Ecce, Deus

This is the biblical Philip who baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in charge of the treasury of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia. (Acts 8:26-40)  A “wilderness road” may not have been Philip’s obvious choice, but he listened to “the little voice”  and went that way and so he had the encounter which resulted in the  Ethiopian’s instruction in the faith and his baptism. Then, instead of being able to enjoy the man’s hospitality and the comfort of his chariot, and to further instruct him. Philip was “snatched away” by the Spirit” and the Ethiopian “saw him no more.” Bill Mahedy once said in a sermon that all we get in this life is a taste and a sip.  Our ideas of what we need are not always  (read: seldom!) God’s ideas. The man had had a life changing experience and we have to assume that he was one of those thousands of men and women who, touched and changed by the Good News, went out “and turned the whole world upside down” as the hymn says.  

One of the innumerable host of heaven, I long to hear his story: “what happened then?!”  We don’t even know man’s name - only his ethnicity and his disability. He is forever ”the Ethiopian eunuch”  The same is true in the Gospel story for today (Luke 8:26-39) of the “Gerasene demoniac,” the man who tells Jesus that his name is “Legion.” Jesus sends the demons away and heals him and the people find him ”sitting at Jesus feet, clothed and in his right mind.”  This has got to be one of my all time favorite quotes from Scripture - one that I have often used of myself and others to describe in a phrase what would otherwise take forever to explain.  The “demoniac,” who we should note is no longer a demoniac, but it's his story: "what we were like, what  happened, and what we are like now." He begs Jesus to let him go with him, but Jesus’ reply is unequivocal, even harsh, I have always felt, “ “Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.” 

There is much work to do, and we seem to be sent out only half formed.  But the work is done by those who , like us, know they are broken and only redeemed by a love which has rescued them and will not let them go - dry sticks and erstwhile demoniacs, prostitutes, tax collectors.  People often say to members of AA, “you shouldn't still call yourself an alcoholic. It’s so negative! “ when in fact it is the most precious identity that we have! We know who we are, we know who has saved us, and here we are, unaccountably clothed and in our right minds.  And there is work to do. 

“Holy God, no one is excluded from your love, and your truth transforms the minds of all who seek you (or are sought by you!) ... give us all the grace to be heralds of the Gospel” wherever we may find ourselves, “proclaiming your love...  now and for ever. Amen. (Collect for Philip) 

Here's my monk after all!

may your grace always precede and follow us


Collect for today 

The 20th Sunday after Pentecost (I don't know where the year has gone but there are only 6 more! )

God has told you, O mortal, what is good: 

and what does the Lord require 
of you but to do justice 
and to love kindness 
and to walk humbly with your God?          
Micah 6:8

I’m always a little  nervous when I get through all the psalms for the morning and don’t get a verse....  Have I not been paying attention? Maybe I won’t get one and I’ll have to make it up, to choose for myself? But I read on and todays verse appeared in the Old Testament reading.  I began to sit with it without getting an image, which is rare, and then this one came to me - this lovely, serene picture that I have on the side of my refrigerator. I  fought against it a little - how could it be this grand place!? How does this go with walking humbly and doing kindness and loving justice?  Then I thought of a lovely picture that is also part of my current refrigerator collage, of a monk walking in a cloister. Surely that was the one to use! But what I clearly got was “No, this one.”  In the course of my meditation I began to see why. I had looked on the back of the post card and found that it is the interior of the National Cathedral. What better place to remember the words of Micah than where the powerful come together, where the nation gathers in times of tragedy?  When we are walking in the cloister it is easy to remember the words of Micah and to do them.  But what about when we are involved in our day to day lives - when we are ticked off or bone tired or frightened or bereaved: to love kindness when we are treated with contempt, to love justice and when we are maligned to walk humbly with our God? It’s the perfect picture. Did the individual who finagled money out of the state budget fiasco for a new Charger stadium while education and in-home health services are  slashed do justice?  Is allowing the building of Jewish settlements that threatens the peace  process in the Middle East between the Jews and the Palestinians walking humbly with their God?  This is not a Christian mandate but words spoken by the Jewish prophet Micah to the Jewish nation. People, you know what God requires of you, you know what is good. It’s always been  harder, whether in our personal lives or in our lives as a nation. to do than to quote. (You may see this as a Saints and Seasons one day! ) 

Happy 10-10-10! Today may we truly do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with our God.

We're trying out the Feast of Wilfred Thomeson Grenfell, Medical Missionary d. 19949

         Glorify  the Lord, O nights  and days  O shining light and enfolding dark, praise him and highly exalt him for ever. 

Benedicite, omnia opera Domini

Friday evening

Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice 

Psalm 141:2

Friday

The sea is his for he made it and his hands have molded the dry land                      The Venite

Thursday

In you we live and move and have our being

The Feast of William Tyndale and Miles Cloverfield, 16th c translators of the Bible into English

In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us

The Benedictus 

I had noticed that there were saints mentioned in the Forward that were not in my Lesser Feats and Fasts so I set out to get a new edition. Turns out they have greatly expanded it and changed its name to Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints.  I miss the old name though it was misleading since it Did contain the propers for major saints as well as minor ones... Today used to be just the feast of William Tyndale  but they've added Miles Coverfield as well. I was inwardly scoffing a bit at the new name - seemed somewhat PC until I remembered an incident at mass last year I think it was. The bio of the saint we were celebrating  said he had 17 children and yet the name of his wife was entirely missing!  And it was a person within historical memory, not like someone whose history was lost in the mists of time! It was a Thursday morning, so looser than most celebrations and so I was able to remark upon the glaring omission. Wish I remembered who that guy was - we'll come across him eventually. And my great hope is that someone may have noticed the oversight and corrected it! Sheesh! 

Tuesday

             

 My help comes 

from the Lord, 

the maker of heaven and earth. 

Psalm 121:2

St Francis of Assisi, d. 1226

     

Surely it is God who saves me, I will trust in him and not be afraid 

                                             

                            Ecce, Deus (Canticle 9) 

The 19th Sunday after Pentecost

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever. 

Psalm 118:1

Saturday

Glorify the Lord all your works of the Lord,

Praise him and highly exalt him for ever. 

The Benedicte 

October Saints and Seasons

Saints and Seasons 

The basic truths of our faith just keep going deeper and deeper. I remember coming out of the old church into the hallway after my meditation one morning. Fr Lief and Pat Backman (Moore) were standing talking and I said in amazement “When Jesus died, he was deader than a doornail!” “Yes..........?” they said. It seemed self-evident to them.  Every Sunday for decades I had said “he died  and was buried,” but somehow that particular day the knowing crashed through from my head to my heart.  That day it struck me that when he died he was well and truly dead!

And now, decades later, and with much more experience of the stark finality and mystery of death and loss, it has just occurred to me in a flash of insight (don’t laugh) that before Jesus, there was no resurrection - everybody was deader than a doornail!  I should have known that - did “know” that.  “He descended to the dead” we proclaim in our Baptismal creed. It should not have been astonishing, but it was. And so, when Jesus says  “I AM resurrection, I AM  life” he was not (IS not)  talking metaphorically. He meant in Him is life, in his resurrection there is resurrection and without it there just isn’t. Or wasn’t.  I hadn’t really gotten it even though I love the marvelous ancient sermon for Holy Saturday where Jesus is in hell addressing Adam and Eve, and thus all the dead. Taking them by the hand, he says ”Rise up, work of my hands, let us leave this place. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell, Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise, up, work of my hands, let us leave this place....”  

Pain and suffering and loss - sometimes senseless loss- is woven into the very fabric of our life, into the very universe.  Somehow it is necessary to bring us - and all things - to completion. It’s nothing that I understand, or hope to in this life, but sometimes I get a glimpse of illumination as if from a lighthouse to my little vessel adrift on this tempestuous sea.  It doesn’t stay, the beam sweeps over me and passes on to illuminate others, but it is enough for me to steer toward.  As much as I rail against disease and diminishment and loss, I do believe that God gives us “the treasures of darkness” as Isaiah said so long ago. 

            Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; 

            the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide:

            When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 

            In life, in death O Lord, abide with me. 

            (Hymn 662 1,4)  

Louise Buck 

October 2010

@ Saints and Seasons is a monthly (except for August) column written by Louise Buck for "The Gospel at Saint David's," the monthly magazine of St David's Episcopal Church, 5050 Milton St, San Diego CA.

St Remegius, Bishop of Rheims c. 530

    

Drop thy still dews of quietness til 

                     all our strivings cease,

      take from our souls the strain and stress 

          and let our ordered lives confess the  

 beauty of thy peace, the beauty of thy peace.