Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln

 

1. Hugh was a Burgundian, born in 1140, who was first an Augustinian canon and then joined the stricter Carthusians. He proved an able administrator and was summoned to England to sort out the failing Charterhouse (Carthusian monastery) at Avalon in Somerset, which he did very well.
2. When subsequently appointed Bishop of Lincoln in 1186 by Henry II, when reform, again was needed, he insisted on a second, private election by the cathedral chapter, securely in their Chapterhouse at Lincoln rather than in the King’s chapel, and he managed to maintain the important balance between loyalty to the monarch and independence from him.
3. Wikipedia notes that as a bishop he was exemplary, constantly in residence or travelling within his diocese, generous with his charity, scrupulous in the appointments he made. He raised the quality of education at the cathedral school. Now there’s something to live up to …
4. He was also prominent in trying to protect the Jews, great numbers of whom lived in Lincoln.
5. Lincoln Cathedral had been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1185, and Bishop Hugh started its rebuilding as the first English structure in the new Gothic style.
6. St Giles’ Fair in Oxford was established after he dedicated St Giles’ Church there in 1200 (having previously extended St Mary Mag.’s.). (Oxford was then in the Diocese of Lincoln).
7. Hugh’s primary emblem is a white swan, because one used to follow him about constantly, and was his constant companion whilst he was at Lincoln.
8. He died in London on this day in the year 1200. He is the patron saint of sick children, sick people, and swans.

Collect

O God,
who endowed your servant Hugh
with a wise and cheerful boldness
and taught him to commend to earthly rulers
   the discipline of a holy life:
give us grace like him to be bold in the service of the gospel,
putting our confidence in Christ alone,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Margaret of Scotland

Few women held the throne in their own right in the middle ages, but as queens and abbesses they had huge influence. One who used hers for good was Margaret of Scotland. She was an Anglo-Saxon princess but was brought up in Hungary because her part of the royal family was living in exile there at the time because of Danish rule in England. (We easily forget how international the Middle Ages were.)

Anglo-Saxon royals were again an embarrassment in England after the Norman Conquest, so she eventually settled in Scotland and married the then king, Malcolm III in 1069 (for whom this was a potential political advantage – but also led to his death as he tried his hand at invasion and died outside Alnwick).

Margaret went on encourage church reform and found monasteries and churches, and grew in popular esteem as a woman of prayer and piety. She died on this day in the year 1093.

 

Collect

God, the ruler of all,
who called your servant Margaret to an earthly throne
and gave her zeal for your Church and love for your people
that she might advance your heavenly kingdom:
mercifully grant that we who commemorate her example
may be fruitful in good works
and attain to the glorious crown of your saints;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury

1. He was born at Abingdon in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire),  circa 1175.
2. ‘Rich’ was a sort of nickname given to his wealthy merchant father, but never a family surname, so Edmund isn’t really Rich after all.
3. For six years around 1200 he lectured on mathematics and dialectics at Oxford and Paris, and helped introduce the study of Aristotle.
4. He is the first known Oxford Master of Arts and the site where he lived and taught was formed into a mediaeval academic hall in his name and eventually incorporated as the current college St Edmund Hall.
5. Tired of secular subjects, he went over to theology, was ordained, became Doctor of Divinity and won further fame as a theologian and preacher.
6. Tired again of the academic approach he gave up his Oxford chair, became a country vicar and cathedral canon
7. And was then unexpectedly promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury in 1233.
8. He was an effective reforming Archbishop and peacemaker

9. But tried, like other Archbishops, to champion the rights of the national church against King and Pope alike, and eventually found the struggle too much and retired to a monastery in France where he died in 1240.

10. The first chapel dedicated to him, St Edmund’s Chapel, was consecrated in Dover by his friend Richard of Chichester (making it the only chapel dedicated to one English saint by another).
11. His incorruptible right arm is currently located at a church on Ender’s Island, CT, but has also been at St Michael’s College in Colchester, VT for a short period of time and Nativity Parish in Swanton, VT for over 50 years.
12. He wore sackcloth next his skin, pressed against his body by metal plates.
13. After snatching a few hours’ sleep without removing his clothing, he usually spent the rest of the night in prayer and meditation.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America

The emerging Anglican church in the United States was not at all universally enamoured of Bishops in its early years, who could easily be seen as antipathetic to the republican spirit, and Bishops in TEC still have an interestingly different role to those in the Church of England in terms of church governance especially. (Which is why some of the current controversy sometimes gets into procedural predicaments.)

For some, though, Bishops were essential, and indigenous Bishops especially so. So it was that Connecticut man Samuel Seabury was nominated for the office by a secret meeting of clergy in his home area. He was a clear (British) loyalist in the American War of Independence, but the British establishment still resisted such a consecration, and Seabury eventually turned to the Scottish Episcopal Church and was consecrated by its bishops on this day in 1784.

The name of The Episcopal Church and its liturgy still reflect these Scottish antecedents.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Charles Simeon, Evangelical Divine

Image via Wikipedia

Charles Simeon was born in Reading in 1759, but will always be associated with Cambridge where he spent most of his life as a student, fellow of King’s, and vicar of Holy Trinity Church.

Simeon had a powerful experience of the redeeming love of God while preparing for communion on entering the university, and he became a leader of the evangelical movement, building up Holy Trinity through both his pastoral care and his preaching. he famously had inscribed on the inside of his pulpit the words from John 12:21, "Sir, we would see Jesus." Simeon was also one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society, and set up the Simeon Trust  to hold parishes’ patronage and ensure the appointment of evangelical clergy to them. He died on this day in the year 1836.

Collect

Eternal God,
who raised up Charles Simeon
   to preach the good news of Jesus Christ
and inspire your people in service and mission:
grant that we with all your Church may worship the Saviour,
turn in sorrow from our sins and walk in the way of holiness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Martin, Bishop of Tours

I very nearly missed out on posting about Martin today – which would be a great shame. He was quite a saint – a fourth century Hungarian who joined the Roman army and ended up renouncing arms and starting a monastery in the diocese of Hilary of Poitiers (no mean man himself), and then being elected Bishop of Tours by popular acclaim, though he refused to give up his monastic lifestyle. He and his community were a magnet of the time, and my interest is partly that people like Ninian and Patrick may have been influenced by them, leaving us in these isles greatly in his debt. Martin died on this day in 397.

Collect

God all powerful,
who called Martin from the armies of this world
to be a faithful soldier of Christ:
give us grace to follow him
in his love and compassion for the needy,
and enable your Church to claim for all people
their inheritance as children of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Leo the Great

Pope Leo the Great was a Doctor of the Church. A Tuscan, he was elected Pope by the Roman people in 440, and was active in defending the city against barbarian invasion and reforming it and the church’s administration, deploying church resources towards community needs. Exciting Holiness says that, “Rather than further confuse Christians by entering into the controversy over the person of Christ, Leo spoke simply of the humility of Christ who was divine and human in his compassion, uniting biblical images in prayer rather than dividing in debate.” Wikipedia records him as “An uncompromising foe of heresy.” Perhaps a great Pope has to manage both.

A sign of his greatness was that in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, after his Tome on the vexed issue of the two natures of Christ was read out, the bishops participating in the Council cried out: "This is the faith of the fathers … Peter has spoken thus through Leo …”

This provided a foundation for the practical assertion of the universal jurisdiction of the Pope as Peter’s successor.

Leo died on this day in the year 461.

Collect

God our Father,
who made your servant Leo strong in the defence of the faith:
fill your Church with the spirit of truth
that, guided by humility and governed by love,
she may prevail against the powers of evil;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Margery Kempe, Mystic

Margery Brunham was a local girl,a merchant’s daughter, born in King’s Lynn. She married John Kempe, with whom she had 14 children.

She had a roller-coaster life with periods of seeming madness, visions, failed businesses and temptations, but eventually found spiritual peace, negotiating a chaste arrangement with her husband and going on pilgrimage round Europe and visiting members of the ecclesiastical and political hierarchy, writing up her experiences in her Book as well as recording her mystical conversations with Christ and composing prayers. The official church looked somewhat askance at her and suspected heresy, though none was found, and Julian of Norwich, whom she visited, pronounced her visions godly.

Her life is a reminder of what female experience and achievement could be in the Middle Ages if not airbrushed out (one later account of her left out most of the above and made her out to be an acnhoress like Julian …)

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

The Saints & Martyrs of England

My first experience of this feast was in the 1928 Prayer Book, where it is kept as of “The saints, martyrs and doctors of the Church of England”. I rather like the broadening out from “Church of England” to “England”, which suggests that the Catholic martyrs are to be remembered, for instance, as well as the Anglican; but whatever happened to the doctors?

The icon is one at the Orthodox Chapel at Walsingham: details here.

Collect

God, whom the glorious company of the redeemed adore,
assembled from all times and places of your dominion:
we praise you for the saints of our own land
and for the many lamps their holiness has lit;
and we pray that we also may be numbered at last
with those who have done your will
   and declared your righteousness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Willibrord of York, Apostle of Frisia

Willibrord was a Northumbrian, brought up in WIlfrid’s community at Ripon, but he became “The Apostle to the Frisians” (the north coast of Holland and Germany) and the patron saint of Holland, with a base at Utrecht in particular. Echternach Abbey was one of his foundations among many bishoprics and abbeys.

Two memorable moments:

1. He failed to convert the pagan Frisian king Radbod, because the king backed off when he was told that he would not be able to find any of his ancestors in Heaven after his death, preferring to spend eternity in Hell with his pagan ancestors than in Heaven with strangers.
2. When his relics were transported, “Five bishops in full pontificals assisted; engaged in the dance were 2 Swiss guards, 16 standard-bearers, 3045 singers, 136 priests, 426 musicians, 15,085 dancers, and 2032 players."

Collect

God, the saviour of all,
you sent your bishop Willibrord from this land
to proclaim the good news to many peoples
and confirm them in their faith:
help us also to witness to your steadfast love
   by word and deed
so that your Church may increase
   and grow strong in holiness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints