George

Let's not forget George! George, who may or may not have existed, per recent scholars, nevertheless has served as patron of England, especially under the Crusaders of Richard I the good king of "Robin Hood".... 

George with his piety and precocious chivalry gives knighthood its first flower. The story of his rescue of a Christian maiden and subsequent conversion is matter for "1066 and All That". That's the spirit that made England 'top nation'. 

The historical George, as we learn from various sources, was a soldier martyred at Lydda in Palestine ca. 303 of our era. Lydda (Lod) is a Palestinian village in central Israel; in Ramallah at the Anglican Evangelical Episcopal School I met a nun who was born there.  https://afedj.org/institution/arab-evangelical-episcopal-school-ramallah-west-bank/

GEORGE, SOLDIER and MARTYR

23 APRIL 303
 

"George is a soldier and martyr who suffered around 303 at Lydda (Diospolis) in Palestine. The earliest surviving record of him is a church inscription in Syria, dated about 346. Commemorations of him are numerous, early, and widespread. However, no details of his life are known...." (http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/george.htm)

Lord Jesus Christ, whose cross didst seal thy servant George: Grant that we, strengthened by his example and prayers, may triumph to the end over all evils, to the glory of thy Name; for with the Father and Holy Spirit thou livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Kingdom of Anxiety

W. H. Auden

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden

Monday in the Second Week of Easter

We are into the Fifty Days of Easter season, and the Octave of Easter (Easter Day to Easter 2) has run out. This could be ordinary time, but will time ever be ordinary again? 1 Peter 1:23b-25 tells us

You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. For
‘All flesh is like grass
   and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
   and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’
That word is the good news that was announced to you.

Nothing will ever be the same, not simply because of Jesus' resurrection, but because of the new life he has engendered in us. And this through the holy Spirit, the Breath of God breathed upon us....

One of the first verses of the Bible I ever knew was one that I memorized for the Good News Club (which rewarded memorization):

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:2-3)

Honestly I only remember the first part of this; and together the two verses are not enough. Jesus goes on to say the controversial puzzling amazing thing, that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that we come to God the Father through him.

This has been taken as exclusionary but perhaps it is more cautionary. Remember the hymn # 463, 464 in The Hymnal 1982, with its words from the Christmas Oratorio, For the Time Being, (and that time being, immediately but not only, 1941-1942) by W. H. Auden:

Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety...

Perhaps that Kingdom is seeking us sometimes.

But no, what I would say, falling back on words I have said before, is in response to the question, what do all the great religions of the world have in common?

"We are all seeking the same thing - and the same thing is seeking all of us."

Now as much as ever. As always, and as always we are found, not least by our seeking.

Inshallah.


https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/22/us/beliefs-729090.html