Calendar of Saints: Oscar Romero

Periodically I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. I connect it with a picture that I have taken as a kind of poster. These are meant to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Oscar Romero (1917 - 1980)

Archbishop of San Salvador and
the Martyrs of El Salvador
March 24

As an archbishop, Oscar Romero witnessed numerous violations of human rights and began a ministry speaking out on behalf of the poor and victims of the country's civil war. His brand of political activism was denounced by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and the government of El Salvador. In 1980, he was assassinated by gunshot while consecrating the Eucharist during mass. His death finally provoked international outcry for human rights reform in El Salvador.

In 1997, a cause for beatification and canonization into sainthood was opened for Romero and Pope John Paul II bestowed upon him the title of Servant of God. The process continues. He is considered the unofficial patron saint of the Americas and El Salvador and is often referred to as "San Romero" in El Salvador. Outside of Catholicism Romero is honored by other religious denominations of Christendom, like the Church of England through its Common Worship. He is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London.

Also commemorated on this day are three Maryknoll nuns and a woman lay missionary killed by a Salvadoran army death squad on 2 Dec, 1980, and additionally six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter, who were also murdered by the Salvadoran army on 16 Nov. 1989.

-Link

Calendar of Saints: Thomas Becket

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Thomas Becket (1118 - 1170)
Archbishop and Martyr
December 29

On December 29, we remember Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, slain in his own cathedral in 1170, for his defiance of King Henry II.

The issue here, or one of the issues, was one of court jurisdiction. King Henry claimed that a cleric accused of an ordinary crime ought to be tried in the King's Courts like any layman. Thomas, who was Henry's Chancellor and his close friend, vigorously upheld the king's position. However, when he was made Archbishop of Canterbury with the king's support, he reversed himself completely and upheld the right of clergy to be tried only in Church courts, which could not inflict capital punishment. (This reversal does not imply fickleness or treachery. As Chancellor, Thomas was bound to serve the king. Now, as Archbishop, he was bound to defend the Church.)

Henry, being angered at opposition from someone whom he had counted on for support, was heard to exclaim in anger, "This fellow who has eaten my bread has lifted up his heel against me [see Psalm 41:9]. Have I no friend who will rid me of this upstart priest?" Four of his knights promptly rode to Canterbury, where they confronted the Archbishop and demanded that he back down. When he did not, they killed him.

T. S. Eliot wrote a play, Murder in the Cathedral, about Becket. In 1959 Jean Anouilh wrote the play Becket, which was later made into a 1964 film starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole.

-Link

Calendar of Saints: Jonathan Daniels (2)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels (1939-1965)
Seminarian and Martyr
August 14

He and others left on Thursday for Selma, intending to stay only that weekend; but he and a friend missed the bus back, and began to reflect on how an in-and-out visit like theirs looked to those living in Selma, and decided that they must stay longer. They went home to request permission to spend the rest of the term in Selma, studying on their own and returning to take their examinations. In Selma, many proposed marches were blocked by rows of policemen.

Jon devoted many of his Sundays in Selma to bringing small groups of Negroes, mostly high school students, to church with him in an effort to integrate the local Episcopal church. They were seated but scowled at...

In May, Jon went back to ETS to take examinations and complete other requirements, and in July he returned to Alabama... On Friday 13 August Jon and others went to the town of Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they were bailed out. (They had agreed that none would accept bail until there was bail money for all.) After their release on Friday 20 August, four of them undertook to enter a local shop, and were met at the door by a man with a shotgun who told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a young girl in the party, and Jon pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. He was killed instantly.

-Link

Calendar of Saints: Jonathan Daniels (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels (1939-1965)
Seminarian and Martyr
August 14

Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1939, one of two offspring of a Congregationalist physician. When in high school, he had a bad fall which put him in the hospital for about a month. It was a time of reflection. Soon after, he joined the Episcopal Church and also began to take his studies seriously, and to consider the possibility of entering the priesthood. After high school, he enrolled at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia , where at first he seemed a misfit, but managed to stick it out, and was elected Valedictorian of his graduating class. During his sophomore year at VMI, however, he began to experience uncertainties about his religious faith and his vocation to the priesthood that continued for several years, and were probably influenced by the death of his father and the prolonged illness of his younger sister Emily. In the fall of 1961 he entered Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, to study English literature, and in the spring of 1962, while attending Easter services at the Church of the Advent in Boston, he underwent a conversion experience and renewal of grace. Soon after, he made a definite decision to study for the priesthood, and after a year of work to repair the family finances, he enrolled at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1963, expecting to graduate in the spring of 1966.

In March 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, asked students and others to join him in Selma, Alabama, for a march to the state capital in Montgomery demonstrating support for his civil rights program. News of the request reached the campus of ETS and during Evening Prayer at the chapel, Jon Daniels decided that he ought to go.

-Link

Calendar of Saints: Jan Hus (2)

Twice a week I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.


Jan Hus
Priest, Prophetic Witness and Martyr
July 6
600th Anniversary

In 1414 he was summoned to the Council of Constance, with the Emperor guaranteeing his personal safety even if found guilty. He was tried, and ordered to recant certain heretical doctrines. He replied that he had never held or taught the doctrines in question, and was willing to declare the doctrines false, but not willing to declare on oath that he had once taught them. The one point on which Hus could be said to have a doctrinal difference with the Council was that he taught that the office of the pope did not exist by Divine command, but was established by the Church that things might be done in an orderly fashion (a view that he shared with Thomas More). The Council, having just narrowly succeeded in uniting Western Christendom under a single pope after years of chaos, was not about to have its work undone. It accordingly found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake on 6 July 1415.

After his death, his followers continued to insist on the importance of administering the Holy Communion in both kinds, and defeated several armies sent against them. In 1436 a pact was signed, by which the Church in Bohemia was authorized to administer Chalice as well as Host to all communicants. The followers of John Huss and his fellow martyr Jerome of Prague became known as the Czech Brethren and later as the Moravians. The Moravian Church survives to this day, and has had a considerable influence on the Lutheran movement. When Luther suddenly became famous after the publication of his 95 Theses, cartoons and graffiti began to appear implying that Luther was the spiritual heir of John Huss. When Luther encountered the Pope's representative Johannes Eck, in a crucial debate, Eck sidestepped the questions of indulgences and of justification by faith, and instead asked Luther whether the Church had been right to condemn Hus. When Luther, after thinking it over, said that Hus had been unjustly condemned, the whole question of the authority of Popes and Councils was raised.

-Link

Calendar of Saints: Jan Hus (1)

Twice a week I post a quote from a saint from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Jan Hus
Priest, Prophetic Witness and Martyr
July 6
600th Anniversary

John Huss (Jan Hus) was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in about 1371. He received a master's degree from Charles University in Prague in 1396, became a professor of theology in 1398, was ordained to the priesthood in 1400, was made rector of the University in 1402, and in 1404 received a bachelor's degree in theology (presumably a more advanced degree than the term suggests today).

Meanwhile, Hus had begun to denounce various church abuses in his sermons. His disputes with authority did not concern basic theological issues, but rather matters of church discipline and practice. The custom had arisen, at celebrations of the Lord's Supper, of distributing the consecrated bread to all Christians in good standing who desired to receive it, but restricting the chalice to the celebrant alone. Hus denounced this restriction as contrary to Holy Scripture and to the ancient tradition of the Church. He also held that Church officials ought to exercise spiritual powers only, and not be earthly governors. In 1412 his archbishop excommunicated him, not for heresy, but for insubordination. (The real problem was that Hus supported one papal claimant and the archbishop another. Hus's candidate was ultimately declared to be the true pope.) Matters came to a head when one claimant (later declared unfit) proclaimed a sale of indulgences to raise money for a war against his rivals. Hus was horrified at the idea of selling spiritual benefits to finance a war between two claimants to the title "Servant of the Servants of God," and said so.

-Link

Jan Hus- Apostle, Prophet, Martyr

I preached yesterday and since today is the Saints' Day for Jan Hus I brought some of my Moravian history and legacy to the Episcopal Church where we are now members. Here's the basic manuscript I went from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday's Gospel

Mark 6:1-13
He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

The Sermon

On Being a Prophet

This morning’s Gospel is one of those eminently quotable passages: A prophet is not without honor, Jesus says, except in his home country. Mark made sure we saw the contrast as he moves from Jesus NOT being able to do many miracles in Nazareth to what the disciples did as they were sent out.

But this isn’t a story about having to leave your hometown behind in order to preach or minister. It’s about "call"- and the prophetic side of responding to the call. Which of course raises the question: What does it mean to be a prophet?

First we have to set aside the idea of telling the future - which is not what prophets are all about. When they tell what is going to happen in the future, they are telling what will happen when the people don’t follow God’s call to them. So the first thing prophets are about is hearing the "call". That leads to a sense of humility- the "call" isn’t about me, it’s about God calling the person. Humbling- or should be. When the prophet reaches that point then, they will begin to follow set of values or principles based on the way of God.

So far so good.

Unfortunately when one reaches that level of being “called” things begin to get a little dicey. A quick look around will show that the ways of God- God’s values- are not often the basis for what is happening around us in the world. You know- those values like

• caring for the least and the lost; 
• remembering the prisoner and the sick; 
• working for the betterment of the homeless and those oppressed by political, religious or economic injustice.

At which point the one hearing the “call” can quickly opt out or face an even more difficult choice. The choice is whether or not to challenge the status quo- the powers that be- and take the side of those who have no power; give voice to those whose voice is muted or silenced.

Perhaps that is why the prophet has so much trouble in his hometown- he knows the people as well as they know him and it becomes difficult to take those necessary stands in that setting.

But many DO stand up and find they have a more far-reaching impact than they would have ever thought.

Six hundred years ago [yesterday]- July 5, 1415- one of those prophets sat in a prison in Constance, a significant university and political center in SW Germany, near the Swiss Border. This prisoner had been promised safe-passage by the Emperor, but had instead found himself imprisoned by the officials of the Roman Church holding an ecumenical council in the city.

The prisoner’s name was Jan Hus and [today] is his Day on the Calendar of Saints of both the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches. He was a priest from Prague who was caught in the middle of church and state because he had responded to a "call" to stand up to what he saw as corruption in the church.

Awakened by the writings of England’s John Wycliffe, Hus antagonized the church by likening the pope to antichrist. He urged that lay people be allowed both the bread and wine at Eucharist instead of only the bread. Calling for a reformed priesthood, he repudiated indulgences and rejected masses for the dead as worthless. Like Wycliffe, he declared that the Bible should be the sole standard by which the church judges religious truth.

He went into exile in 1413, unable to return to Prague, where he had taught and preached for 13 years. He stayed in exile, not from personal fear, but because the pope has placed an interdict on any city which harbored him. Rather than give Rome a reason to deprive Prague of baptism and communion, he chose exile under the protection of his feudal lord.

Hus had been wrongly described as a heretic, charged with beliefs he never held.

Just before traveling to Constance, Hus had written to a friend that he knew that by himself he could not restore all truth but vows at least not to be truth’s enemy. The world may run on in its usual way, but as for himself, he said,

Truth conquers all things.

In Constance, the council refused to allow him to speak. They ordered him to recant his heresies which he couldn’t do, he insists, since he had never held them.

Knowing that he faced death by burning, if he did not recant, he made a final declaration on the 1st of July, 1415:

I, Jan Hus, in hope a priest of Jesus Christ, fearing to offend God, and fearing to fall into perjury, do hereby profess my unwillingness to abjure all or any of the articles produced against me by false witnesses. For God is my witness that I neither preached, affirmed, nor defended them, though they say that I did.

I say I write this of my own free will and choice.

 They sentenced him to die by burning at the stake. On the morning of July 6, 1415, Hus was given one last opportunity to recant- which he naturally refused- and he died singing.

His followers were both religious and secular. The religious side, within 40 years founded what is now called the Moravian Church. Luther a century later affirmed that he was a Hussite. The Moravians found their way to England in the 1600s and bequeathed the legacy to the Anglicans.

The secular side became Czech nationalists and this weekend, celebrations are being held around the Czech Republic on the 600th Anniversary of his death.

The idea that “truth conquers all things,” or “truth prevails,” is not original with Hus. A few years earlier, Wycliffe had written,

I believe that in the end the truth will conquer.

The work of a prophet is to speak the truth to power. It is to be a voice for God’s ways. It may not always turn out the way WE want it to. Nor is it likely to always be popular. But we- each in our own way are called to be a source of the grace of God. As we each hear the call to mission, ministry and the way of a prophet, may we heed the words of one of Hus’s prayers.

Seek truth,
listen to the truth,
learn the truth,
love the truth,
speak the truth,
keep the truth,
defend the truth with your very life!