Frances Perkins

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Before the Icon

V. Serve the Lord with intelligence and courage
R. Be ye steadfast
V. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
R. Be ye steadfast

A reading
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15: 51-58, KJV)


A collect
Loving God, we bless your Name for Frances Perkins who in faithfulness to her baptism sought to build a society in which all may live in health and decency: Help us, following her example and in union with her prayers, to contend tirelessly for justice and for the protection of all, that we may be faithful followers of Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessed Frances, protector of those in need, pray for us.

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Feast Day May 13 About Frances Perkins Frances & Faith Lectionary

April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965

In 1905 Frances became an Episcopalian. Kirstin Downey, her biographer, wrote,

She sought a more structured religion with a more formal ceremony… She reveled in its elaborate and archaic rituals. They helped her remain serene and centered at times of stress. The church’s teaching also gave her substantive guidance about the right path to take when confronted with decisions, and the hopeful message of Christianity helped her retain her optimism. Her devotion waxed and waned over the years, but nonetheless served as a bedrock and a way to seek meaning in life when so much seemed inexplicable. These religious leanings became progressively more pronounced over time. (The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR'S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience) 

When she was Secretary of Labor, she made a monthly retreat with the All Saints' Sisters of the Poor in nearby Catonsville, Maryland. During her years of service in Washington she attended Saint James, Capital Hill (now Saint Monica’s and Saint James). A news article

I have discovered the rule of silence is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It preserves one from the temptation of the idle word, the fresh remark, the wisecrack, the angry challenge…. It is really quite remarkable what it does.
― Frances Perkins  in The Roosevelt I Knew 

The vocation of the laity, I think, is a vocation to handle the secular affairs as Christians and as instructed Christians who know what the end purpose of Man’s life on earth is … So instructed, they can develop an order and a system in their particular field of operations which is a Christian system …So, I plead…for a consistent instruction by the clergy and the church to the laity in which the nature of their responsibility is—what Christian principles are that are to be applied in conducting a bank, in running a business, in operating a labor union, in keeping house and doing the marketing—in any of the multiple activities of the secular life which fall to the lot of Christians. (pp. 45 and 48) Tread the Streets Again: Francis Perkins shares her theology by Donn Mitchell, 2018.

Icon writer: Suzanne Schleck Web

Jonathan Daniels

Jon Daniels 1.jpg

Before the Icon

V. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones

R.  and has lifted up the lowly

Together:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
    for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. 
From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
    the Almighty has done great things for me,
    and holy is his Name. 
He has mercy on those who fear him *
    in every generation. 
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit. 
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
    and has lifted up the lowly. 
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he has sent away empty. 
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
    for he has remembered his promise of mercy, 
The promise he made to our fathers, *
    to Abraham and his children for ever. 

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *
    as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.


A reading

“I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary’s glad song. ‘He hath showed strength with his arm….’ As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled ‘moment’ that would, in retrospect, remind me of others – particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. ‘He….hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things…’ I knew then that I must go to Selma.”

Prayer -

O God of justice and compassion, who put down the proud and the mighty from their place, and lift up the poor and afflicted: We give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another; and we pray that we, following his example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ the just one: who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Blessed Jonathan, lover of justice, pray for us.

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Feast Day August 16 March 20, 1939 – August 20, 1965

About Jon Daniels Lectionary Film -Here Am I Send Me.


Jonathan Myrick Daniels (March 20, 1939 – August 20, 1965) was an Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist. In 1965 he was assassinated by a shotgun-wielding construction worker, Tom Coleman, who was a special county deputy, in Hayneville, Alabama while in the act of shielding 17-year-old Ruby Sales.[1] He saved the life of the young black civil rights activist. They both were working in the Civil Rights Movement in Lowndes County to integrate public places and register black voters after passage of the Voting Rights Act that summer. Daniels' death generated further support for the Civil Rights Movement.

I lost fear in the black belt when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord's death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. I began to lose self-righteousness when I discovered the extent to which my behavior was motivated by worldly desires and by the self- seeking messianism of Yankee deliverance! The point is simply, of course, that one's motives are usually mixed, and one had better know it. As Judy and I said the daily offices day by day, we became more and more aware of the living reality of the invisible "communion of saints"--of the beloved community in Cambridge who were saying the offices too, of the ones gathered around a near-distant throne in heaven--who blend with theirs our faltering songs of prayer and praise. With them, with black men and white men, with all of life, in Him Whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout, whose Name is Itself the Song Which fulfills and "ends" all songs, we are indelibly, unspeakably ONE. - Jonathan Daniels on the Daily Office

 

Icon writer: Suzanne Schleck Web

 

Evelyn Underhill

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Before the icon

V. We are to be transformed, consecrated, made sacred to his creative purpose

R. And so, fulfill the meaning of our life. 


A Reading

One’s first duty is adoration, and one’s second duty is awe and only one’s third duty is service. And that for those three things and nothing else, addressed to God and no one else, you and I and all other countless human creatures evolved upon the surface of this planet were created. We observe then that two of the three things for which our souls were made are matters of attitude, of relation: adoration and awe. Unless these two are right, the last of the triad, service, won’t be right. Unless the whole of your...life is a movement of praise and adoration, unless it is instinct with awe, the work which the life produces won’t be much good.

For the real saint is neither a special creation nor a spiritual freak. He is just a human being in whom has been fulfilled the great aspiration of St. Augustine – “My life shall be a real life, being wholly full of Thee.” And as that real life, the interior union with God grows, so too does the saints’ self ­identification with humanity grow. They do not stand aside wrapped in delightful prayers and feeling pure and agreeable to God. They go right down into the mess; and there, right down in the mess, they are able to radiate God because they possess Him.

Collect

O God, Origin, Sustainer, and End of all your creatures: Grant that your Church, taught by your servant Evelyn Underhill, guarded evermore by your power, and guided by your Spirit into the light of truth, may continually offer to you all glory and thanksgiving, and attain with your saints to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have promised us by our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.

  Blessed Evelyn, guide to our inner life, pray for us.

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 Feast Day June 15 December 6, 1875 – June 15, 1941

The Evelyn Underhill Association In lectionary

Icon writer: Mary Ellen Watson

 

Frank Weston

Weston icon.jpg

Before the icon

V. Look for Jesus

R. In the oppressed and sweated

Two Readings

You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slums. . . It is folly, it is madness, to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children.   Bishop Frank Weston, Anglo-Catholic Congress of 1923

Preaching at Weston's former church on the centenary of his birth, the then Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey said "But Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever; and for all time his people need the witness of sacrifice, of selflessness, of penitence, and of joy which shone in Frank Weston of Zanzibar. But it would displease him if we tried to be solemn about him. So let the last word be that of a little African boy who said 'You know he is a loving man, for his mouth is always opened ready for laughter, for he is still laughing and he will laugh forever.'"

 A collect

Lord God, King and Servant, you are the mighty one who kneels to wash the feet of the oppressed; we thank you for the witness of Frank Weston of Zanzibar, who sought to be one with those he served, in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Blessed Frank, advocate of racial justice, pray for us.

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Feast Day — He died on All Souls Day, 11/2/1924 September 13, 1871 - November 2, 1924

Zanzibar takes London – Covenant

Notwithstanding the corporate mind of Lambeth 1920 on race, Bishop Weston had already concluded by 1899 that, as his biographer recounts, the great obstacle to real progress [in establishing a self-supporting African Church] lay in that consciousness of race superiority which is so characteristic of Englishmen. Missionaries had come to Africa to be kind to Africans, but they were inclined to treat them as children to be corrected and controlled, and they expected from them deference and service. This [Weston] saw to be the wrong attitude, for if a native Church was ever to grow, the native priests must be treated as equals. “We have,” he said, “always to remember that they, and not we, are the permanent leaders of the African Church.”[6]

Accordingly, for his part, Bishop Weston sought to “break down the barrier which separated black from white” by articulating, for his context, a “missionary ideal” of blackness, that is, “to become as the black man, and to identify oneself with black ideals” (p. 36). His biographer explains:

Frank believed that God had made of one blood all the nations of men, that our Lord had come to be the servant of all, had died for all, and had commissioned His disciples to serve and suffer gladly, that all might be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He could not understand a missionary who adopted the attitude of a master with benevolent intentions; the missionary, he thought, should only be eager to serve. … For him there was only one way of service — it was the way of the Incarnation — a man must make himself one with those whom he wished to serve….

When race cleavage is so complete …, it is difficult to see how the gulf can ever be bridged. Frank saw a way and was bold enough to follow it. He found it “necessary to adopt as far as possible African ways in order to help his African priests to feel at home in his own house.” In 1919 he sent a circular letter to his staff, saying that in future he intended to live as much as possible with natives, and must not be expected to pay long visits to European Mission stations.[7]

 About Frank Weston In Project Canterbury

Racial solidarity and English Catholicism – Covenant

 

 

Icon writer: Mary Ellen Watson

Allan Rohan Crite

V. The unspeakable joys of the Beatific Vision.

R. Filled with the holy gaiety of the saints 

A Reading

We are part of each other. So anything that happens to any part of us, we all feel. But the thing is, we think that we’re doing something to somebody ‘over there’ who’s different from me,” he said. “Actually what we’re doing is doing something to ourselves through that person. So if we do an injury to that particular person, we’re hurting. And if something happens to that particular person, we feel it. That probably accounts for, you might say, the extreme and sharp pain that a lot of us feel. We’re thinking we’re doing to somebody else, but it’s happening to us. That, in my opinion, is the real tragedy. Allan Crite


A collect

Eternal God, light of the world and Creator of all that is good and lovely:
We bless your name for inspiring Allan Rohan Crite
and all those who with images and words
have filled us with desire and love for you;
through Jesus Christ our Savior,
who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,
one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Blessed Allan, who helps us see the Holy, pray for us.

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Feast Day September 6

March 20, 1910– September 6, 2007  Allan Crite was a Boston-based artist born in North Plainfield, New Jersey. For thirty years Crite worked as an engineering draftsman at the Boston Naval Shipyard.

Allan Crite’s work, both religious and of the broad African American experience, have the shared desire – I’ve only done one piece of work in my whole life and am still at it. I wanted to paint people of color as normal human beings. I tell the story of man through the black figure.

 

The holy gaiety of the saints

Allan Crite’s 1948 Three Spirituals from Earth to Heavenis his artistic reflection on three spirituals. His written explanation of the spiritual “Heaven” includes this -- 

In these last drawings the saints are in solemn procession before the throne of Our Lord, who is vested as a prelate and king, having all authority both in heaven and in earth. Surrounding Our Lord are the hosts of heaven: the winged wheel-type angels are the Thrones, whose duty it is uphold the throne of God; closest to Our Lord are the Seraphim, reflecting the love of God; And further away are the Cherubim, reflecting God's wisdom; thus the highest hierarchy of the nine choirs of angels shown. The entire character of this hymn reflects faith in the unspeakable joys of the Beatific Vision; it is filled with the holy gaiety of the saints 

 The Church Awakens Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Compassion & Justice Award God is in the Neighborhood

Icon writer: Christine Simoneau Hales  Web

Bernard Mizeki

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Before the icon

V. These people are suffering

R. I cannot leave my people now in a time of such darkness

A Reading

In the writings of Brother Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE

But in the year 1896, uprisings began against colonial rule.  Many nationalists regarded all missionaries as working for European colonial governments, and Bernard was warned to flee.  He didn’t know what to do, so he prayed.  And then he saw a man, old and wracked with sores, whom he some time ago, had rescued, and taken in.  How could he leave him to starve?  So he wrote to the local priest and said, “These people are suffering.  The Bishop has put me here: here I must stay.  I cannot leave my people now in a time of such darkness.”

Two days later, On June 18 at midnight, men arrived at the door of his hut.  Three men were standing there.  They dragged him outside.  Two of them held him down, while the third drove a spear into Bernard’s side.  His wife and her friend ran away thinking he was dead, but Bernard was not dead.  He managed to pull himself up a hillside to a spring, where he washed his wounds.  His wife heard his cry and found him there.  He said to her, “Although I am dying, my work, and the work of other teachers and priests has not ended.”  She and her friend went to find some food for him, but mysteriously they seemed to see a brilliant light, and a sound of what they described being like “many wings of great birds.”  When they returned, the spot where Bernard had lain was empty.  His body has never been found. …

I love the image of Bernard, setting up his mission station, building a school, growing his vegetables, teaching faithfully.  But what I most love is the image conveyed by these words, written of him, “he prayed the Anglican hours each day.”  Something very moving about that.  Every day, several times a day, he would stop, to pray the office.   

A reading (if desired) from Nehemiah 6:6–11 (From the Propers for Bernard Mizeki)

In the letter was written, “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem also says it—that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall; and according to this report you wish to become their king. You have also set up prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you, ‘There is a king in Judah!’ And now it will be reported to the king according to these words. So come, therefore, and let us confer together.” Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say have been done; you are inventing them out of your own mind” —for they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.” But now, O God, strengthen my hands.

One day when I went into the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his house, he said, “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you; indeed, tonight they are coming to kill you.” But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Would a man like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in!”    [Nehemiah 6:6–11]

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, who kindled the flame of your love in the heart of your holy martyr Bernard Mizeki: Grant to us, your humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who rejoice in his triumph may profit by his example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessed Bernard, who was faithful to the end, prayer for us.

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Feast Day June 18     1861 – 18 June 1896 Lectionary About Bernard Mizeki

Bernard Mizeki – Br. Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE

The Story of an African Martyr

  

Icon writer: Suzanne Zoole Web

Anglo Catholic Slum Priests

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Alexander Heriot Mackonochie Aug 11, 1825 – Dec 14, 1887

Charles Lowder, SSC June 22, 1820 – Sept 9, 1880

Robert Dolling Feb 10, 1851 – May 15, 1902

Arthur Stanton June 21, 1839 – March 28, 1913

Lincoln Stanhope Wainright  1847 – Feb 12, 1929

 

Before the icon

 

V. The saint gave himself
R. To the work to which he was called
V. Your life and your death
R. Are with your neighbor

A Reading

“A certain brother said, ‘it is right for a man to take up the burden for them who are near him, whatever it may be, and so to speak to put his own soul in the place of that of his neighbor, and to become, if it were possible, a double man, and he must suffer, and weep, and mourn with him, and finally the matter must be accounted by him as if he himself had acquired his countenance and soul, and he must suffer for him as he would for himself. For those it is written, we are all one body, and this passage also informs us concerning the holy and mysterious kiss.’ “ Charles Williams

A collect

We give you thanks for the lives of the slum priests, who gave themselves to the way of sacrifice, discipline, and the beauty of worship; may we be moved to follow their example, in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Blessed Alexander, Charles, Arthur, Robert and Lincoln; who served the poor of the city in Eucharistic service and liturgy, pray for us. 

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Alexander Heriot Mackonochie Feast Day Dec 14, 1887 Project Canterbury

Charles Lowder, SSC Feast Day Sept 9, 1880 (Church of England) Project Canterbury

Robert Dolling Feast Day May 15, 1902 Project Canterbury Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum (a book)

Arthur Stanton Feast Day March 28, 1913 Project Canterbury Father Stanton of Saint Alban’s (a book)

Lincoln Stanhope Wainright Feast Day Feb 12 Studies in Holiness Father Wainright (a book)

NOTE: As far as I know, other than Fr. Lowder, the slum priests aren’t in any lectionary. For the others I am suggesting the date of their deaths be used.

From The Vision Glorious: Themes and Personalities of the Catholic Revival in Anglicanism, Geoffrey Rowell

On Fr. Dolling’s approach to parish work: “So Dolling was not afraid to be thought vulgar in order that a living faith might be communicated. His congregations could kneel in silence before the Blessed Sacrament, and also sing ‘I need Thee precious Jesu’ to the tune of ‘Home Sweet Home.’ Like many slum priests it was not only the worship which was important to him, but a whole range of other activities which met community needs: communicants’ guilds, a boy’s gymnasium, work amongst sailors, rescue work for alcoholics and prostitutes, and battles for causes such as reasonable hours for shop-girls.” (p. 138-139) On Fr. Lowder and worship: “He considered that it was as much his duty as parish priest to put before the eyes of his people the pattern of the worship in Heaven, as it was to preach the Gospel.” (p.133) On Fr. Stanton when a visitor objected to the smell of incense, "Well," said Stanton, "there are only two stinks in the next world: incense and brimstone; and you’ve got to choose between them." “Decorous restraint and academic discourse were like out of place in the slums. Mystery and movement, Color and ceremonial were more powerful. The Sacramento sign could speak more strongly than the written word. But these were the characteristics of worship in the town parishes influenced by the Oxford movement, that worship impressed through the devotion and holiness of life and pastoral concern of the priests who led that worship. .. they maintained that the riches of Eucharistic worship was not only the legitimate heritage of the Church of England, but that which embodied is nothing else could the sense of the reality of Divine grace in a way which could be grasped by the poor and unlettered.” (p. 117)

In 1866 the new Church of S. Peter in Old Gravel Lane (Now Wapping Lane) was consecrated. Soon afterwards cholera struck the East End, Lowder organised Sisters of mercy and others to care for the sick and raised funds for a tented hospital. The Priests and Sisters took great risks and worked without stint for the people of Wapping. At the end of the cholera people were calling Lowder, ‘the Father’ because he seemed like the father of the whole community. This soon became ‘Father Lowder’, the first known example of an Anglican priest being thus addressed. In 1873 Lincoln Stanhope Wainright came to Wapping as curate to Father Lowder. He was to remain over 50 years in the service of the people here . Father Wainright was a living saint working without stint, giving away the very clothes and shoes we wore. He once discovered a young lad stealing a clock from the Clergy House, persuaded him to have some cocoa in the kitchen, talked to him at length and soon had him serving Mass in the Church and in employment. Fr Wainright died in February 1929 in S. Peter’s Clergy House. The people of Wapping stood in line to climb the un-carpeted stairs to view the mortal remains of one who had been their priest and friend for a life-time. From the website of St. Peter’s London Docks

Urban Liturgy in the Church of England: A historical, theological and anthroplogical analysis of the mid Victorian slum priest ritualists and their legacy By Timothy Richard Stratford. A study of the slum priests with an analysis that draws on liberation theology.

The way of the slum priests influenced priests and their families in the years following. In the late 19th and early 20th century at Saint Elizabeth’s, South Philadelphia, the Companions of the Holy Saviour (CSSS) lived together in the rectory and carried on a ministry of evangelization, pastoral care, and education. They said the Prayer Book Office, celebrated the Eucharist at least twice each week, made a daily meditation, engaged in sacramental confession each month and sought to cultivate a spirit of poverty. Years later in Jersey City, in 1949, Paul Moore and his family moved into the city to serve at Grace Church. Jenny McKean Moore wrote a chapter in “The Church Reclaims the City” in which she presented a version of the slum priest’s “open rectory” — “The majority of the parish lived in substandard housing with unspeakable plumbing and inadequate heat; television and parties were their only respite at home. Even our simple house represented a haven for those who visited it....Caryll Houselander says that the non-Christian works to alleviate suffering but that the Christian must also share in it. I shared in it only in that with my children, I visited people, and they became our friends. They talked with me of the endless broken down toilets that froze in winter, of the rats that attacked their children, of the uncollected garbage that littered the yards and the alleys, and the inevitable urine stench in the halls and stairways. We would sit in the kitchen or the window of the center room of a railroad flat, and although there were constant reminders that they were barriers between us, we had children and the same neighborhood in common. Most of the every day activity in the rectory offends all modern techniques: the unstructured conversations, the giving of food and second hand clothing at the door with a little thought of what you might be made of them(“Won’t he sell the overcoat for some wine?”), the extra guests for supper, the general permissive atmosphere. The Cure d’Ars wrote that we are responsible for the giving of alms; we are not responsible for what is done with them.”

“The Anglo Catholic Inner City Experience” Robert A. Gallagher, OA

Icon writer: Suzanne Zoole  Web

Restoration of the Religious Life in Anglicanism

Feast Day June 6

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Priscilla Lydia Sellon November 20 Feast Day (Church of England)

Mother Harriet Monsell Feast Day March 26 (in Church of England)

Father James Huntington Feast Day Nov 25

Father Richard Meux Benson Feast Day January 16


Before the icon

V. There was a consciousness of God's Saints actually around and about us,
R. Which moved and inspired us to do and to dare anything and everything.

A reading

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned
(Song of Songs 8:6-7)

A collect

O God, by whose grace your servants Priscilla, Harriet, James and Richard, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Blessed Priscilla, Harriet, James and Richard; aflame with God's love and discipline, pray for us.

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The Restoration of the Religious Life in Anglicanism Feast Day June 6. I suggest that date because it is when the first vows of the religious life were taken by Marian Rebecca Hughes.

First Vows

On Trinity Sunday, June 6, 1841, Mother Marian Hughes made religious vows of poverty and celibacy and obedience before Edward Pusey She was the first woman to take such vows in the Church of England since the Reformation. She then went to a Eucharist celebrated by John Newman at Saint Mary’s, Oxford. At the time there was no community for her to be part of. Marian Hughes continued to live in Oxford with her mother until her mother’s death (early 1850s). After that she became the first Superior of the Society of the Holy and Undivided Trinity at Oxford. The society was dedicated to the service of the poor and the care of the sick. They also ran schools. During a cholera outbreak in Oxford the sisters showed great courage in ministering to the ill. More on Mother Marian.

 

Priscilla  Lydia Sellon

November 20 Feast Day (Church of England) Web

March 21, 1821 – November 20, 1876. In 1848 Bishop H. Phillpotts of Exeter appealed for help in working among the poor. Miss Sellon responded and set out to work in Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse. Others came and they created a community life , then called the Devonport Sisters of Mercy. In 1856 that community joined with the Sisters of the Holy Cross at Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, in London. Miss Sellon became the Abbess of the combined sisterhood — the "Society of the Most Holy Trinity. Later the community was located at Ascot Priory..

Mother Harriet Monsell      

Feast Day March 26 (in Church of England) Web

Born in 1811 and died March 25, 1883.  In 1849 the Community of St John Baptist (CSJB)  was founded. Mother Harriet Monsell, was the first superior. By the 20th century there were over 200 members, six houses for "fallen women", seven orphanages, nine elementary and high schools and colleges, five hospitals, mission work in 13 parishes. CSJB has a house in Mendham, NJ.

  

Father James Huntington     

Feast Day Nov 25 (date of his entry into the religious life) Web

Father Huntington founded the Order of the Holy Cross in 1884.

died on 28 June 1935 and is buried in the Monastery Church of St Augustine in West Park. The order he founded remains active; several of the schools the order founded also continue teaching children. The Episcopal Church commemorates Rev. Huntington annually on the anniversary of his entry into monastic life, 25 November 1884.
 

Father Richard Meux Benson     

Feast Day Jan 16 Web

 July 6,1824 – January, 14 1915. Fr. Benson was a priest in the Church of England and founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. SSJE was the first religious order of monks in the Anglican Communion since the Reformation. The website of the American community.

 More on the Restoration of the Religious Life

By Br. Curtis Almquist, SSJE

Icon writer: Christine Simoneau Hales  Web

Musicians & Poets

“Now let the heavens be joyful, Let earth her song begin, The round world keep high triumph, and all therein, Let all things seen and unseen their notes together blend”
Musicians.jpg

Cecil Frances Alexander    

April 1818 – 12 October 1895

John Mason Neale      

24 January 1818 – 6 August 1866

Christina Rossetti      

5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894

Percy Dearmer     

27 February 1867 – 29 May 1936

Before the icon

V. Now let the heavens be joyful

R. Let earth her song begin

A reading

 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our* hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3: 1-3)

A collect
O God, whom saints and angels delight to worship in heaven: Be ever present with your servants who seek through art and music to perfect the praises offered by your people on earth; and grant to them even now glimpses of your beauty, and make them worthy at length to behold it unveiled for evermore; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blessed Cecil Frances, John, Christina, and Percy; you show us the beauty of God, prayer for us.

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John Mason Neale Feast Day August 7 (Church of England)

24 January 1818 – 6 August 1866

Best known as a hymn writer and, especially, translator, having enriched English hymnody with many ancient and mediaeval hymns translated from Latin and Greek. More than anyone else, he made English-speaking congregations aware of the centuries-old tradition of Latin, Greek, Russian, and Syrian hymns. The 1875 edition of the Hymns Ancient and Modern contains 58 of his translated hymns; The English Hymnal (1906) contains 63 of his translated hymns and six original hymns by Neale.

His translations include:

All Glory, Laud and Honour
A Great and Mighty Wonder
O come, O come, Emmanuel
Of the Father's Heart Begotten
Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle
To Thee Before the Close of Day

Cecil Frances Alexander

April 1818 – 12 October 1895[

  "All Things Bright and Beautiful", "There is a Green Hill Far Away" [c] and the Christmas carol "Once in Royal David's City", are known by Christians the world over, as is her rendering of "Saint Patrick's Breastplate".

Christina Rossetti Feast Day April 27 (Church of England)

5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894

An English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is famous for writing Goblin Market and "Remember." She also wrote the words of the Christmas carols "In the Bleak Midwinter,

Percy Dearmer

27 February 1867 – 29 May 1936

“where thy saints united joy without ending” Hymnal 1

A priest and liturgist. The author of The Parson’s Handbook, a liturgical manual for clergy,  and The English Hymnal. He was a socialist and an advocate of the public ministry of women. Fr. Dearmer had a significant influence on the music of the church. With Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, he is credited with the revival and spread of traditional and medieval English musical forms. In 1915 during World War I his wife died of a fever while serving with an ambulance unit in Serbia. Dearmer was the unit’s chaplain. A son died the same year of wounds received in battle. His ashes are in the Great Cloister at Westminster Abbey.

Translator or writer of several hymns in the Hymnal

 

 Icon writer: Suzanne Schleck Web

 The Oxford Movement and Anglo-Catholicism An exploration of the Oxford Movement and it’s impact on church music.

Constance and her Companions: the Martyrs of Memphis

Constance+and+Companions.jpg

Before the Icon

V. I will guard them to the utmost

R. But they know, and you know, that they are offering their lives

A Reading - From a letter on the death of Sister Ruth. She was 26 years old and had been professed only one year –

 "You have probably already heard to-day's heavy tidings that God has taken home to himself our dear Sister Ruth. Her short life has closed, as her Sister's life began, in devotion to God's poor and suffering. Only a year ago, in July, she was professed; but in this one year she has brought comfort to many suffering ones, and helped to lead back those who had strayed far out of the way. Many of the poor speak of her as the ‘Sunbeam’ that came to brighten their lives. Her last words, as she went off, were, ‘You will be good to my people;' and her first letter repeated the same message. Yet she was ready to leave her favorite work when God called. The same brave, single-hearted sense of duty breathes out in all her letters. I have the last one here, if you have not seen it. We can easily say, in this sad world, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; but it is very, very hard to say, when those who, we thought, would do Him such service are taken, Thy will be done."

 We give you thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and the dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death. Inspire in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.

Blessed Constance, Frances, Ruth, Thecla, Charles and Louis, servants of the dying, pray for us.

 Icon writer: Suzanne Schleck Web

About the Martyrs of Memphis

From “Memphis: The City Magazine”

From Project Canterbury - The Sisters of St. Mary at Memphis: with the Acts and Sufferings of the Priests and Others Who Were There with Them during the Yellow Fever Season of 1878.

The Oxford Fathers: Keble, Pusey, and Newman

Oxford Fathers.jpg

Before the icon

V. God’s chief gift
R. Is Himself
V. God has created me to do some definite service
R. I shall do God’s work
V. I will arise
R. And in the strength of love pursue the bright track

A Reading 

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
Once you were not a people,
   but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
   but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2: 9-10)

A collect

Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know your presence and obey your will; that, following the examples of your servants Edward Pusey, John Keble, and John Newman, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what you give us to do, and endure what you give us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Blessed Oxford Fathers, servants of courage and integrity, pray for us.

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John Keble, Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Henry Newman were the three primary movers of the Oxford Movement.

If they are to be acknowledged collectively I suggest July 29 as the appropriate day. It’s the anniversary of John Keble’s Assize sermon in 1833 which is generally seen as the beginning of the Oxford Movement. In the the U.S, and the Church of England Pusey’s feast day is September 18, Keble’s July 14 in England and March 29 in the U.S., and Newman’s is August 11 in the U.S.

Icon Writer: Maureen McCormick Web