Winter Saints: Elizabeth Has a Baby

I've always loved the story of St. Elizabeth, not just because it's another story of a woman longing for a child and God blessing her, but because he gave her another gift as well-- nine months of silence from her husband, Zechariah.

Let's think about it for a minute- this is a man who argued with an angel, a messenger from God. I can only imagine what he must have been like to live with.

Nine months of silence did Zechariah good, though. When he finally spoke, it wasn't to question or criticize, but to praise God.

You, child, will be called Prophet of the Most High,
for you come to prepare a pathway for the Lord.

Winter Saints: Lazarus, Come Forth!

In Scripture, the story of Lazarus ends when Jesus calls him out of the tomb. He walks and breaths and eats, a witness to a miracle. But legend picks up where the Bible leaves off, and tales are told of what Lazarus made of his second life.

One such story tells of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, sharing the gospel in Jaffa. Their enemies put them in a leaky boat and sent them out to see, but God intervened once again and saved them, settling them on the island of Cyprus, where they settled and lived and preached for 30 years.

Another story, much like the first, has them landing on the coast of France, where Lazarus became a bishop and was eventually martyred by the Roman emperor.

What would we do with a second chance at life?

Winter Saints: Lucy, the Stubborn Teenager

We were out of town on Saturday morning (though we did wake up a little earlier so we could have our St. Lucy buns, masquerading as muffins!), so we didn't get to the story of St. Lucy until today. But what a story!

Legend has it that when the man chosen to marry Lucy was rejected, he denounced Lucy to the governor as a Christian. Lucy sat in a chair and waited to be taken away.

When the soldiers came, they found that they couldn't carry her out. They even hitched a team of oxen to her, and they still couldn't carry her out! They poured boiling oil on her and set the house on fire, but she would not move, nor would she die. Said Lucy,

To bear witness to my true bridegroom Jesus Christ, I do not burn.

It was only when a soldier ran a sword through her throat that she finally died.

We celebrate St. Lucy, whose name means "light" as one of the many lights along the path of our Advent journey.

Saint Lucy,

you did not hide your light under a basket,
but let it shine for the whole world,
for all the centuries to see.
We may not suffer torture in our lives the way you did,
but we are still called to let the light of our Christianity
illumine our daily lives.
Please help us to have the courage
to bring our Christianity into our work, our recreation, our relationships, our conversation
every corner of our day. Amen

Winter Saints: Old Testament Justice

This week, we've visited some women of the Old Testament:

Hagar, who conceived and bore a child as part of her duties as a slave.

Sarah, who wanted a baby more than anything in the world, and laughed when she was told that it would be so.

A woman known only to us as "A woman of Zorah," who was also visited by an angel, and given a pregnancy to-do list that makes "What to Expect When You're Expecting" look pretty mild in comparison.

Hannah, who wanted a child so badly that she was willing to give him back to God in return.

God, who heard the cries of their hearts, protected them and their children. During this Advent, we can seek to be like the women who place their hearts' desires in God's hands, like their families and friends who supported them, saying "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant what you ask", and like the angels sent by God to bring good news and peace to broken hearts.

Winter Saints: Our Lady of Guadalupe

"My little son, there are many I could send. But you are the one I have chosen."

Once again in Advent, we have a story of an unlikely messenger. The Mother of God appears not to a king or even directly to the bishop, but to a member of the lowest, despised class of the Aztecs, who themselves were now despised by the Spanish conquistadors. She chose him, not in spite of his lowliness, but because of it. He said:

"I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf"

And Mary replied:

"My dear little son, I love you. I desire you to know who I am. I am the ever-virgin Mary, Mother of the true God who gives life and maintains its existence. He created all things. He is in all places. He is Lord of Heaven and Earth. I desire a church in this place where your people may experience my compassion. All those who sincerely ask my help in their work and in their sorrows will know my Mother's Heart in this place. Here I will see their tears; I will console them and they will be at peace. So run now to Tenochtitlan and tell the Bishop all that you have seen and heard."

Winter Saints: Franco Lippi

Some saints get an early start. Like St. Rumbold, the infant saint who supposedly said "I am a Christian" when he was three days old, and then died. Or St. Therese, the Little Flower, who began seeking God early in life.

Other saints get off to a later start, like today's saint, Franco Lippi. After a life of sin, he fled Siena when accused of murder. He became blind, and went on a pilgrimage to Spain. When he returned, he sought to join a monastery, but was turned away. And really, who can blame them? He left an accused murderer and returned a saint-wanna-be. They instructed him to come back in five years, probably figuring he would be dead by then, since he was past fifty years old. He continued his life of penance and returned to the monastary in five years, where he was taken in. He died at the age of 70.

Where does this fit in on our Advent journey of social justice? Like Franco Lippi, we're all living a life of self-indulgance. We may not think we're as deep in as he is, but the truth is that every instance of putting ourselves above others grieves our Lord. And also, like Franco Lippi, we can remember that it's never too late to turn and repent, to put away the old person and be born again. And a final lesson, I think, is to remember that sometimes, even when we have a conversion experience and change our ways, we need to give those around a chance to see the change in us before they can believe it.

Peace and grace to you along your Advent journey!

Winter Saints: St. Francis Xavier, Big Maruthas, Crispina, Nicholas, and Ambrose

Obviously, I have gotten a bit behind.

Every morning during morning prayer, we read

Love and fidelity embrace,
peace and justice kiss.
Fidelity sprouts from the earth,
justice leans down from heaven.

The Lord pours out riches,
our land springs to life.
Justice clears God's path,
justice points the way.
--Psalm 85

Justice is a recurring theme in our Advent journey this year.

St. Francis Xavier sought justice and peace. In a time when those around him were attempting to share God's word with people they neither loved nor respected, St. Francis learned their language, wore their clothes, ate their food, adapted their customs. In a way, it mirrors the story of Christ's incarnation,

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Philippians 2: 6-10

As our book states, "How could anyone hear of the love of God from people who didn't love them?" How indeed.

And then Bishop Maruthas, that great, ungainly saint. He went seeking justice for his people and, along the way, caused another bishop's death. And yet it was his unfailing ability to love the unlovable--healing the very king who was a party to the persecution of the Christians--that brought justice to his land.

St. Crispina also sought justice. She would not, as the judge suggested, pretend to worship the gods of the Roman Empire just to keep her head, even if that meant being martyred. We copied the words of St. Crispina:

Would you have me turn against the one who gives me life?

And of course, St. Nicholas, who filled our shoes on Saturday morning with gingerbread men representing children, candy canes representing his staff, and chocolate coins representing the dowry of the girls destined for prostitution. St Nicholas, who said to the sailors when he wanted grain for his hungry people

Do not be afraid to do what is right.

And not only did his people have grain enough for that year and the next, but the sailors were left with the same amount of grain as they started with, satisfying the inspectors.

Finally, we have St. Ambrose, the poet bishop.
Our books says Ambrose was "fierce in God's service." He was not afraid to seek justice, and even engaged in a peaceful protest when a Roman governor misused one of the Christian churches. The people sang songs at this early sit-in written by St. Amrose himself. Here is one we still sing today:

Redeemer of the nations,
Make known your wondrous birth
Which so befits your grandeur
And sanctifies the earth.
A virgin was your mother,
O holy mystery!
Let all creation marvel
At your nativity.

It's a joy this Advent to study the lives of these peaceful, faith, and just saints. I pray you are finding similar inspiration during this season!

Winter Saints: Four Martyrs of El Salvador

"If we leave the people when they suffer the cross, how credible is our word to them? The church's role is to accompany those who suffer the most, and to witness our hope in the resurrection."
- Maura Clarke

Today, we read the story of four other modern saints: Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel. Maura and Ita were Maryknoll sisters, Ita, an Ursuline sister, and Jean a laywoman. They took to heart Christ's words:

"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison, and you visited me, for whatever you did for one of the least of mine, you did for me."

In the midst of a war raging in El Salvador, the women made their home among the widowed and the orphaned. They were afraid, and thought of returning home to the safety of America. Jean wrote:

Several times I have decided to leave-- I almost could except for the children, the poor bruised victims of adult lunacy. Who would care for them? Whose heart would be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of tears and loneliness? Not mine, dear friend, not mine.

And so, they chose the hard thing, and stayed. On December 2, 1980, Sisters Maura and Ita were picked up at the airport by Sister Dorothy and Jean. They were followed by soldiers, ordered out of the car, raped, beaten, shot, and left to die in a cow pasture.

Of course, the book didn't speak of the rape or the beating. The execution itself was enough to cause my children to stare at me in shock. "Why, mama? Why were they so afraid of their love that they had to kill them? What could they hurt by caring?" Good questions. And I had to ask myself, why does this martyrdom done only 20 years ago seem so much more real than the martyrs of old? Why does it prick my conscience so?

My husband preached a sermon not too long ago asserting that the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. And, of course, "perfect love casts out all fear." Indeed, "the history of the church is written in the blood of the martyrs," and in the stories of those who were willing to set aside their own comfort, their very selves, in order to serve others. May we, too, choose love over fear this Advent season, no matter what path it takes us down.

Am I willing to suffer with the people here, the powerless? Can I say to my neighbors, "I have no solutions to this situation; I don't know the answers, but I will walk with you, be with you"? Can I let myself be evangelized by this opportunity?
--Sister Ita Ford

Winter Saints: Rosa Parks

During Advent, we'll be working our way through a book called Winter Saints by Melissa Nussbaum with illustrations by Judy Jarrett. It fits in nicely with Katie Grace's second grade saints main lesson block.

The book not only tells the tales of great saints, both familiar and not-so-familiar, but also of some great heroes. Today we heard the story of a quiet hero, Rosa Parks.

What I love about this story is that it doesn't make Rosa out to be a passive hero, too lazy and tired to move to the back of the bus, a hero by happenstance and not by design. Neither is she an unsuspecting, unknowledgeable bystander-- this Rosa Parks, though forced to drop out of school to care for a sick mother-- was well-read, studying Ghandi and discussing with her church group how to effect change in a society that regarded her and all her people as second-class citizens. It acknowledges that Rosa and her friends spent hours planning how to make things more fair. Rosa wasn't a reluctant hero, but a purposeful one, volunteering to be the first to strike a blow for civil rights.

Another fascinating fact is that Rosa Parks had a baby just two weeks before she was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus. I can't imagine how bonewrearingly exhausted she must have been, how worried she must have been for her infant child at home, yet how convinced and sure-footed she was in knowing that her cause was just and right. Katie Grace wanted to know who nursed the baby while Rosa was in prison. It was an opportunity to explain the sad fact that some women cannot nurse their babies not because they don't want to, but because economic realities force them back to work at jobs that don't make accomodations for little babies.

In this time when we learn about the winter saints, it seems very fitted to acknowledge this brave woman who said "Do what you have to do. I am not moving."

Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! Amos 5:24) ~*~*~ Seek good and not evil, that you may live. (Amos 5:14) ~*~*~ For the needy will not always be forgotten, Nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever. (Psalm 9:18)