Sarah Hale

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (October 24, 1788 - April 30, 1879)
Editor and Prophetic Witness

With the possible exception of the Lady anchoress at the church of St Julian in Norwich is there an Editor in the calendar of saints (here, in the 2008 revised edition of Lesser Feasts and Fasts)?

In the case of Sarah Hale probably it is her championing of women in ministry, building toward the modern (relatively) deaconess movement, that got her a place in modern saints calendaring. What makes her story more compelling to me is the editorial quality of her sanctity.

Editor of Ladies' Magazine. 1828-1836; Godey's Lady's Book, 1837-1877.

Who knew? Who knew that an editor could be a saint? Well I've met plenty, and yes, though mostly I express gratitude for their work and their personal demeanor rather than putting the two together. Perhaps I should. Perhaps I should. 

N.B. She is also noted for a 17 year campaign to establish a new national holiday, at length persuading Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to support the effort, for which we owe her Thanksgiving.

https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/19349

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/sara_hale.htm

Psalm 96
Jeremiah 30:17-19, 22
Philippians 1:27–2:2
Matthew 5:1-12

 

Ten Years After

09/11/11

What do we feed our hearts? What do we feast on?

Do we feast on freedom – or fear?

What is on the menu for today? What are we consuming?

What are we taking in to ourselves?

What do we seek for sustenance?

Do we feed on fear, anger, revenge – or peace and reconciliation?

What is on offer today, here, is the same as always –
and that is good news.

Peace and reconciliation, through bread and wine, the body and blood.

Ten years ago we woke to an unhappy morning.
It was 5:46 AM Local Time.

We rose in
shock and disbelief
witnessing events we could not control,
that seemed doomed to loop through our minds endlessly,
repeated as if present not past,
images indelibling themselves onto our minds.
Planes crashing, towers falling.

And then maybe after a few days
another possibility offered to us,
after trauma’s initial stages:
we could weep with grief,
we could grind with anger,
we could resolve on revenge –

or on some succor to the victims and families,
to reach out in compassion and try to understand –

not only how this evil could be
but how good could be found in those far from us,
different or the same.

Ten years after, now – do we feed on memory hardened and fermented into vinegary bitterness?

Do we try to forget?

Do we try to live?

Do we feast with gratitude for the gift of God’s merciful love? For Christ in the Eucharist, for the love shown in his gift of himself, in life and death and life again?

Bread and wine are not what it means –
they are how its meaning,
that life offered and given, that death and that resurrected life –
is conveyed to us.

To give us sustenance: that we may feed on him in our hearts
with faith and with thanksgiving.

Do we welcome the Christ hidden in the other? –
in those of whom Jesus said:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful,
for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.



(Matthew 5.3-10), The Beatitudes

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Jesus, dwell in our hearts - forever!

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

God loves you
God LOVES you
GOD loves you
God loves YOU

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: grant us your servants so to follow you that we may always find you and rejoice in you as the source of life, here and everlasting. Amen.

Jesus went up the mountain – like Moses. What he encountered there – who he encountered there – was not a distant, clockmaker, vengeful deity but the love at the source of all being, who gave him not judgment to render but good news to preach.

And Jesus preached. At the synagogue in Nazareth he took up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and found his place – and began to read:

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (Isaiah 61:1-2a)

John the Baptizer sent word to him from prison. Are you the Messiah we’ve been looking for? Should we be looking for somebody else? What are you doing, cousin J?

And Jesus sent word back, by way of John’s own disciples: You go and tell John what you have seen and you have heard. The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead rise, prisoners hear glad news of freedom and lepers are cleansed. What was he expecting?

What John might have been hoping for was a savior of the military kind – a champion who would grab up the jawbone of an ass, or a sling and five small stones, or just grow out his hair and get busy, like one of the heroes of old – and knock Herod off his throne and send the Roman legions packing. Someone who would declare the day of vengeance of our God – as they say in the movies:

And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them. (Ezekiel 25:17)

But that is not what he got.

Let this be written above my throne:

My mercy always prevails over my anger.

For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may linger for the night; but joy comes in the morning.

We know that weeping – and we know that compassion.

For in Christ God has become incarnate – has taken on flesh and dwelt among us, as a human being among human beings. He suffered as we have, loved as we have, wept as we have, and – finally – when they thought it was all over, rejoiced as we have.

Darkness is conquered by light; the night passes into everlasting dawning.

Jesus gave his life for us – not just his death; his whole life, a witness to the truth, truth of God’s mercy and love, compassion and justice. Jesus gave his life – but that is not the end of the story. By his death he defeated death. And he arose.

He arose to new life – and victory. He calls us into new life – but not to wait. Not to wait – to take on that new life of Christ, to take on his legacy, now – and begin to live it out.

Begin to be the people who bring the good news of Christ to the world.

Proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind. Bind up the broken-hearted.

Yearn for justice, and be blessed with peace.

Act with compassion, and delight in his mercy.

Work for peace, and let God gather you to him as his own children.

Be pure in heart – cast away the gloom and darkness – and become children of the day.

Live the truth of God’s love – and rejoice: for this is God’s day, and it is meant for joy.

We know that our Redeemer lives – and that we will receive mercy through him.

We know that death is swallowed up in the Victory of the Cross – and we exult in peace.

We know that with Chuck and all the saints, we will be welcomed in the heavenly home.

We know that heaven is doing all right – but there is work to be done on earth.

We know that we are called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

Let’s let that light shine – let’s not hide it; let’s be a city on a hill, a sanctuary and a light.

Let our hearts be places of God’s abiding. Abide in us, Jesus, that we, following in your footsteps, may bring the joy and good news of the reign of God into the world. Amen.

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flatland

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 or Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
Gospel hymn #560: Matthew 5:1-12 (The Beatitudes)
John 11:32-44

All Saints' Day November 1, 2006
All Saints' Sunday November 5, 2006
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento

In the name of God, source of all being, eternal Word, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The only tragedy, in the end, is the tragedy of not becoming a saint.

Originally All Saints was a remembrance of, and a communion with, Christians martyred under the pagan kings. Over the years its meaning has expanded, and we remember all saints. What is a saint?

• A witness to the resurrected Christ.
• An example of a godly life.
• A believer.
• An intercessor, an absent friend whom we can ask to pray for us.
• Someone who reminds us that there is another dimension to reality.

A mother of teenagers recently remarked that her son lives much of his life in Flatland. That is, he spends an inordinate amount of time on the computer, the iPod, the PDA, emailing and IM'ing his friends. Most of the conversations consist of, "I'm so bored...." He is living an existence that seems to be lacking a dimension. And so, without grace, are we.

Into the plane of Flatland, the revelation of God in Christ arrives precipitously from above, revealing the existence of a vertical dimension. This forms a crossroads, a thin place, in which the reality of heaven breaks into our one-dimensional, spirit-impoverished Flatland.

Thin places are places where heaven and earth come close together. You might think of a place like Iona, or Lindisfarne, soaked in centuries of prayer. Or you might think of a saint's shrine.

Saints are people who recall us to the divine. They are, in a sense, thin people.

You may have your own gallery of saints - witnesses, martyrs, exemplars of godly living, intercessors, friends who have gone before.

One of my teachers had pictures of his favorite saints pinned up on the wall across from his desk, or his bed.

We meet them in a thin place that is closer than you might think: we meet them in the Eucharist. When we participate in communion, we take part in the communion of saints.

In the communion of saints, we are connected through Christ to all who have gone before, all who witness to his resurrection, all who have remembered him in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers, all who have testified to the reality of God revealed in Christ.

These are the mysteries of our faith: we proclaim them openly, on billboards and radio, in bedside Bibles placed by The Gideons, in our thoughts and words and deeds. And we affirm together our common faith, in the words of the Nicene Creed ...





Flatland: a romance of many dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott

See: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi783.htm and http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/97




JRL+