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| Frances Perkins |
If I were going to nominate someone to be on US currency it would be Frances Perkins, US secretary of labor under Franklin Roosevelt, the first woman to serve in the Cabinet, and a staunch Episcopalian; moreover, a staunch friend of the working man and woman and a friend of the poor. She began her public career much earlier than the New Deal era, of course: she had provided succour to the homeless and the unemployed in a number of guises before serving in Governor Roosevelt’s administration of New York State, the proving ground of so much of early New Deal initiatives. Initiatives, not just legislation; the government got to work.
Today’s daily office lectionary has us finishing a reading from Leviticus with the summary of the law ending with a bang; love your neighbor as your self. And the gospel begins, do not lay up for your selves treasure on earth.
Put together, a good creed for Frances Perkins day.
Frances Perkins continues to inspire her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/fp
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/media/frances-perkins-documentary-mount-holyoke-college
Lev. 19:1-18; 1 Thess. 5:12-28; Matt. 6:19-24
Frances Perkins
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.
This commemoration appears in Lesser Feasts & Fasts 2018 for trial use with revised lessons.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 833)
A prayer in the spirit of Francis … and of Frances:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 833)
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