Rector's Rambling for November, 2013

November is upon us. The month starts with All Saint's Day (and I encourage everyone to send the Names of those departed Christians you would like us to remember at the Altar on Sunday the 3^rd to the Parish office at <office@stjohnlancaster.org> ,) and continues with the upland and waterfowl seasons in full swing as we make our way to Thanksgiving (which by the way is NOT a Church holiday.) We will celebrate Thanksgiving again this year with our friends at Sixth Avenue United Methodist Church and St. Mark's Roman Catholic Church at 7 PM on Tuesday the 26th at St. Marks. In between the two great celebrations of family and community fall the commemorations of several of my favorite people.

Richard Hooker, 3 November +1600

Hooker was an Anglican Apologist who defended the via media, or middle way, between Puritanism and Roman Catholicism, and whose book Ecclesiastical Polity demonstrated that Anglicanism is both catholic and reformed, and is firmly rooted in both scripture and tradition.

Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht and Apostle of Frisia, 7 November +739

Alcuin wrote that he was “venerable, gracious, and full of joy,” and that his ministry was “based on energetic preaching informed by prayer and sacred reading. His mission brought Christianity to the peoples of the low countries and Germany.

Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, 10 November +461

Leo's Treatise on Pastoral Care was formative in my development as a priest. What a shame it is no longer required reading in the seminaries.

Martin of Tours, Soldier, Monk, and Bishop, 11 November +397

Martin was a Roman soldier who left the army and founded a rural monastery after sensing a conflict between his military duties and his faith. Perhaps his best known act of compassion was giving half of his Army issue uniform cloak to a beggar, and receiving Christ's blessing for his mercy. He was one of the first to bring Christianity to the rural people of what is now France. A soldier and a country boy- it doesn't get much more inspiring than that!

Queen Margaret of Scotland, 16 November +1093

She was a woman of prayer and good to the poor. She seemed to influence all those around her for good, and is considered to have brought holiness and civilization to the court of Malcolm III.

Edmund of East Anglia, King and Martyr, 20 November +870

Loved by his subjects because he cared for the poor and suppressed wrong doing in his dominions, he was tied to a tree, shot with arrows, and beheaded by the Danes because he refused to renounce Jesus Christ and his responsibility to the people of his kingdom.

Isaac Watts, 25 November +1748

His hymns filled my boyhood and I love them even today.

When I survey the wondrous cross,

On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

I hope that this traditional month for remembrance, family, and the hunt will call us all to remember the blessings God has given us by giving us each other. AMEN!