All posts by Rod White

Ignatius of Loyola — July 31

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)

Bible connection

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this. — 2 Timothy 2:1-7

All about Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)

Ignatius Loyola was born in 1491 as Iñigo Lopez de Loyola, to a noble and wealthy Basque family, one of 13 children. As a young man Ignatius was inflamed by the ideals of courtly love and knighthood and dreamed of doing great deeds. He was sent to the Spanish court to become a page. He embraced court life with enthusiasm, learning weapons, gambling, and courtly love—he was “a man given to the vanities of the world,” he later wrote in his autobiography, “whose chief delight consisted in martial exercises, with a great and vain desire to win renown.”

In 1521, In a battle with the French for the town of Pamplona, Spain, he was hit by a cannon ball the size of a fist. The five-foot-two-inch Iñigo was helped back to Loyola by French soldiers (who admired his courage). He underwent surgeries to reset his right knee and remove a protruding bone. For seven weeks he lay in bed recuperating.

During this time, he began reading spiritual books and accounts of the exploits of Dominic and Francis. In one book by a Cistercian monk, the spiritual life was conceived as one of holy chivalry; the idea fascinated him. During his convalescence he received spiritual visions, so that by the time he recuperated, he had resolved to live a life of austerity to do penance for his sins.

In February 1522, Iñigo left his family and went to Montserrat, a pilgrimage site in northeastern Spain. He spent three days confessing his life sins, then hung his sword and dagger near the statue of the Virgin Mary to symbolize his break with his old life. He donned sack cloth and walked to Manresa, a town 30 miles from Barcelona, where he experienced the decisive months of his career (from March 1522 to mid-February 1523). He lived as a beggar, ate and drank sparingly, scourged himself, and for a time neither trimmed his tangled hair nor cut his nails. He attended Mass daily and spent seven hours a day in prayer, often in a cave outside the town.

While sitting one day by the Cardoner River, “the eyes of his understanding began to open,” he later wrote, referring to himself in the third person, “and, without seeing any vision, he understood and knew many things, as well spiritual things as things of the faith.” At Manresa, he sketched the fundamentals of his little book Spiritual Exercises.

Over the years, Ignatius became expert in the art of spiritual direction. He collected his insights, prayers, and suggestions in his guide for new disciples called the Spiritual Exercises. His 200-page text is one of the most influential books on the spiritual life ever written. With a small group of friends, he founded the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. Ignatius conceived the Jesuits as “contemplatives in action.” This also describes the many Christians who have been touched by Ignatian spirituality.

“Act as if everything depended on you; trust as if everything depended on God.”

“Go forth and set the world on fire.”

The quotes above are among the most famous from Ignatius and they sum up the practicality and ambition that he lived out after his commitment to follow Jesus.

Those of us who are Protestants probably haven’t been given much information about Ignatius because he was a strong opponent of the Reformation in the 1500’s and vigorously supported (some would argue blindly) the hierarchy of the Catholic Church at the time. None of us gets everything right and this lasting division of the Church has proven itself to be deeply problematic for centuries. Much is lost if we refuse to listen to one another.

Ignatius became a powerful leader in the Church of his day. His writings have become a wonderful guide to many who seek Jesus. He was a devoted follower who took his early experiences as a soldier prior to his conversion and applied all the good lessons he learned to the work of discipleship.

More

Here is a video biography

Here is a nice spirituality site with extensive biography resources: [link]

Discernment of spirits for young people [link]

Pilgrimage reflections by Rod. [link]

What do we do with this?

Ignatian spirituality is one of the most influential and pervasive outlooks of our age. Here are ten markers of Ignatian spirituality. Consider them. Try them.

1. It begins with a wounded soldier daydreaming on his sickbed.
Ignatian spirituality is rooted in the experiences of Ignatius, whose conversion to a fervent Christian faith began while he was recovering from war wounds. Ignatius gained many insights into the spiritual life in the course of a decades long spiritual journey during which he became expert at helping others deepen their relationship with God. Its basis in personal experience makes Ignatian spirituality an intensely practical spirituality, well suited to laymen and laywomen living active lives in the world.

2. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”
This line from a poem by the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins captures a central theme of Ignatian spirituality: its insistence that God is at work everywhere—in work, relationships, culture, the arts, the intellectual life, creation itself. As Ignatius put it, all the things in the world are presented to us “so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.” Ignatian spirituality places great emphasis on discerning God’s presence in the everyday activities of ordinary life. It sees God as an active God, always at work, inviting us to an ever-deeper walk.

3. It’s about call and response—like the music of a gospel choir.
An Ignatian spiritual life focuses on God at work now. It fosters an active attentiveness to God joined with a prompt responsiveness to God. God calls; we respond. This call-response rhythm of the inner life makes discernment and decision making especially important. Ignatius’s rules for discernment and his astute approach to decision making are well-regarded for their psychological and spiritual wisdom.

4. “The heart has its reasons of which the mind knows nothing.”
Ignatius Loyola’s conversion occurred as he became able to interpret the spiritual meaning of his emotional life. The spirituality he developed places great emphasis on the affective life: the use of imagination in prayer, discernment and interpretation of feelings, cultivation of great desires, and generous service. Ignatian spiritual renewal focuses more on the heart than the intellect. It holds that our choices and decisions are often beyond the merely rational or reasonable. Its goal is an eager, generous, wholehearted offer of oneself to God and to his work.

5. Free at last.
Ignatian spirituality emphasizes interior freedom. To choose rightly, we should strive to be free of personal preferences, superfluous attachments, and preformed opinions. Ignatius counseled radical detachment: “We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one.” Our one goal is the freedom to make a wholehearted choice to follow God.

6. “Sum up at night what thou hast done by day.”
The Ignatian mind-set is strongly inclined to reflection and self-scrutiny. The distinctive Ignatian prayer is the Daily Examen, a review of the day’s activities with an eye toward detecting and responding to the presence of God. Three challenging, reflective questions lie at the heart of the Spiritual Exercises, the book Ignatius wrote, to help others deepen their spiritual lives: “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?”

7. A practical spirituality.
Ignatian spirituality is adaptable. It is an outlook, not a program; a set of attitudes and insights, not rules or a scheme. Ignatius’s first advice to spiritual directors was to adapt the Spiritual Exercises to the needs of the person entering the retreat. At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is a profound humanism. It respects people’s lived experience and honors the vast diversity of God’s work in the world. The Latin phrase cura personalis is often heard in Ignatian circles. It means “care of the person”—attention to people’s individual needs and respect for their unique circumstances and concerns.

8. Don’t do it alone.
Ignatian spirituality places great value on collaboration and teamwork. Ignatian spirituality sees the link between God and man as a relationship—a bond of friendship that develops over time as a human relationship does. Collaboration is built into the very structure of the Spiritual Exercises; they are almost always guided by a spiritual director who helps the retreatant interpret the spiritual content of the retreat experience. Similarly, mission and service in the Ignatian mode is seen not as an individualistic enterprise, but as work done in collaboration with Christ and others.

9. “Contemplatives in action.”
Those formed by Ignatian spirituality are often called “contemplatives in action.” They are reflective people with a rich inner life who are deeply engaged in God’s work in the world. They unite themselves with God by joining God’s active labor to save and heal the world. It’s an active spiritual attitude—a way for everyone to seek and find God in their workplaces, homes, families, and communities.

10. “Men and women for others.”
The early Jesuits often described their work as simply “helping souls.” The great Jesuit leader Pedro Arrupe updated this idea in the twentieth century by calling those formed in Ignatian spirituality “men and women for others.” Both phrases express a deep commitment to social justice and a radical giving of oneself to others. The heart of this service is the radical generosity that Ignatius asked for in his most famous prayer:

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

William Wilberforce — July 29

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Unfinished portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1828

Bible connection

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. — 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

All about William Wilberforce (1759-1833)

In the late 1700s, when William Wilberforce was a teenager, English traders raided the African coast on the Gulf of Guinea, captured between 35,000 and 50,000 Africans a year, shipped them across the Atlantic, and sold them into slavery. It was a profitable business upon which many powerful people were dependent. One publicist for the West Indies trade wrote, “The impossibility of doing without slaves in the West Indies will always prevent this traffic being dropped. The necessity, the absolute necessity, then, of carrying it on, must, since there is no other, be its excuse.”

By the late 1700s, the economics of slavery were so entrenched that only a handful of people thought anything could be done about it. That handful included William Wilberforce.

His conviction surprised those who knew Wilberforce as a young man. He grew up surrounded by wealth and was educated at Cambridge. But he wasn’t a serious student. He later reflected, “As much pains were taken to make me idle as were ever taken to make me studious.” A neighbor at Cambridge added, “When he [Wilberforce] returned late in the evening to his rooms, he would summon me to join him…He was so winning and amusing that I often sat up half the night with him, much to the detriment of my attendance at lectures the next day.”

Yet Wilberforce had political ambitions and, with his connections, managed to win election to Parliament in 1780, where he formed a lasting friendship with William Pitt, the future prime minister. But he later admitted, “The first years in Parliament I did nothing—nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object.”

But he began to reflect deeply on his life, which led to a period of intense sorrow. “I am sure that no human creature could suffer more than I did for some months,” he later wrote. His unnatural gloom lifted on Easter 1786, “amidst the general chorus with which all nature seems on such a morning to be swelling the song of praise and thanksgiving.” He  experienced a spiritual rebirth.

He then abstained from alcohol and practiced rigorous self-examination as befit, he believed, a “serious” Christian. He abhorred the socializing that went along with politicking. He worried about “the temptations at the table,” the endless dinner parties, which he thought were full of vain and useless conversation: “[They] disqualify me for every useful purpose in life, waste my time, impair my health, fill my mind with thoughts of resistance before and self-condemnation afterwards.”

He began to see his life’s purpose: “My walk is a public one,” he wrote in his diary. “My business is in the world, and I must mix in the assemblies of men or quit the post which Providence seems to have assigned me.”

In particular, two causes caught his attention. First, under the influence of Thomas Clarkson, he became absorbed with the issue of slavery. Later he wrote, “So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”

Wilberforce was initially optimistic, even naively so. He expressed “no doubt” about his chances of quick success. As early as 1789, he and Clarkson managed to have 12 resolutions against the slave trade introduced—only to be outmaneuvered on fine legal points. The pathway to abolition was blocked by vested interests, parliamentary filibustering, entrenched bigotry, international politics, slave unrest, personal sickness, and political fear. Other bills introduced by Wilberforce were defeated in 1791, 1792, 1793, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1804, and 1805.

When it became clear that Wilberforce was not going to let the issue die, pro-slavery forces targeted him. He was vilified; opponents spoke of “the damnable doctrine of Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies.” The opposition became so fierce, one friend feared that one day he would read about Wilberforce’s being “carbonated [broiled] by Indian planters, barbecued by African merchants, and eaten by Guinea captains.” 

Slavery was only one cause that excited Wilberforce’s passions. His second great calling was for the “reformation of manners,” that is, morals. In early 1787, he conceived of a society that would work, as a royal proclamation put it, “for the encouragement of piety and virtue; and for the preventing of vice, profaneness, and immorality.” It eventually become known as the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

In fact, Wilberforce—dubbed “the prime minister of a cabinet of philanthropists”—was at one time active in support of 69 philanthropic causes. He gave away one-quarter of his annual income to the poor. He fought on behalf of chimney sweeps, single mothers, Sunday schools, orphans, and juvenile delinquents. He helped found parachurch groups like the Society for Bettering the Cause of the Poor, the Church Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Antislavery Society.

In 1797, he settled at Clapham, where he became a prominent member of the “Clapham Sect,” a group of devout Christians of influence in government and business. That same year he wrote Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians—a scathing critique of comfortable Christianity that became a bestseller.

He did all this in spite of the fact that poor health plagued him his entire life, sometimes keeping him bedridden for weeks. During one such time in his late twenties, he wrote, “[I] am still a close prisoner, wholly unequal even to such a little business as I am now engaged in: add to which my eyes are so bad that I can scarce see how to direct my pen.” Friends called him “all soul and no body.”

He survived this and other bouts of debilitating illness with the help of opium, a new drug at the time, the affects of which were still unknown. Wilberforce soon became addicted, though opium’s hallucinatory powers terrified him, and the depressions it caused virtually crippled him at times.

When healthy, however, he was a persistent and effective politician, partly due to his natural charm and partly to his eloquence. His antislavery efforts finally bore fruit in 1807: Parliament abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. He then worked to ensure the slave trade laws were enforced and, finally, that slavery in the British Empire was abolished. Wilberforce’s health prevented him from leading the last charge, though he heard three days before he died that the final passage of the emancipation bill was ensured in committee.

More

Wilberforce Institute and the ongoing fight against slavery.

Westminster Abbey memorial.

Wilberforce House in Hull.

What do we do with this?

An addicted, sickly man uses his inherited wealth to change history. It is a good story in any culture, much more in the rapacious history of Europeans.

Revisit today’s Bible reading and consider your own “long view.” What are the things you hope to be working on when you die? Some may have been your life’s work. In an age when advertisers regularly teach us that the long view does not matter, putting our attention on heaven is truly radical.

Johann Sebastian Bach– July 28

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)

Image result for bach

Bible connection

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. – Matthew 5:11-12

All about J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

The Bach Archive researcher, Michael Maul, was looking through a shoebox that had only narrowly escaped a fire in the Anna Amalia Library a few months before. Inside lay more than 100 letters and poems dedicated to the 52nd birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach’s patron, Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. Maul had hoped to find a greeting from the composer himself, who in 1713 was the court organist. What he found instead was a two-page hand-written aria for soprano and harpsichord, the first Bach vocal work discovered in 70 years.

The text is a 12-stanza poem by Johann Anton Mylius, beginning, “Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn’ ihn” (Everything with God and nothing without him). The music, British conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner told The Guardian, is “a reflective, meditative, soothing piece, as Bach’s church music so often is.” The Bach Archive asked Gardiner to record and perform the piece and the aria’s first recording can be heard at NPR.org.

J.S. Bach is still influencing people with his faith expressed in his music.

When he was 48, Bach acquired a copy of Luther’s three-volume translation of the Bible. He poured over it as if it were a long-lost treasure. He underlined passages, corrected errors in the text and commentary, inserted missing words, and made notes in the margins. Near 1 Chronicles 25 (a listing of Davidic musicians) he wrote, “This chapter is the true foundation of all God-pleasing music.” At 2 Chronicles 5:13 (which speaks of temple musicians praising God), he noted, “At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence.”

Bach was a Christian who lived with the Bible. Besides being the baroque era’s greatest organist and composer, and one of the most productive geniuses in the history of Western music, Bach was also a theologian who just happened to work with a keyboard.

He was born and schooled in Eisenach, Thuringia (at the same school Martin Luther had attended), part of a family that in seven generations produced 53 prominent musicians. Johann Sebastian received his first musical instruction from his father, Johann Ambrosius, a town musician. By age 10 Bach was orphaned, and he went to live and study with his elder brother, Johann Christoph, an organist in Ohrdruf.

By age 15 Bach was ready to establish himself in the musical world, and he immediately showed immense talent in a variety of areas. He became a soprano (women weren’t permitted to sing in church) in the choir of Lüneburg’s Church of Saint Michael. Three years later, he was a violinist in the chamber orchestra of Prince Johann Ernst of Weimar. After a few months, he moved to Arnstadt to become a church organist.

In October 1705, Bach was invited to study for one month with the renowned Danish-born German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude. Bach was so enamored with his teacher, he stretched the visit to two months. When he returned to his church, he was severely criticized for breach of contract and, in the ensuing weeks, for his new organ flourishes and harmonies that accompanied congregational singing. But he was already too highly respected to be dismissed.

In 1707 he married a second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, and went to Mülhausen to become organist in the Church of Saint Blasius. After various moves and prominent jobs, he finally settled down in Leipzig in 1723, where he remained for the rest of his life.

St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, restored after being bombed in WW2

Maria died in 1720, and the next year he married Anna Magdalena Wilcken, an accomplished singer. She bore him 13 children, to add to the seven he’d had by Maria, and helped copy his music for performers.

Bach’s stay in Leipzig, as musical director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas’s church and school, wasn’t always happy. He squabbled continually with the town council, and neither the council nor the populace appreciated his musical genius. Some said he was a stuffy old man who clung stubbornly to obsolete forms of music. Consequently, they paid him a miserable salary, and when he died even contrived to defraud his widow of her meager inheritance.

Ironically, in this setting Bach wrote his most enduring music. For a time, he wrote a cantata each week (today, a composer who writes a cantata a year is considered ambitious), 202 of which survive. Most conclude with a chorale based on a simple Lutheran hymn, and the music is at all times closely bound to biblical texts. Among these works are the Ascension Cantata and the Christmas Oratorio.

In Leipzig he also composed his epic Mass in B Minor, The Passion of St. John and The Passion of St. Matthew—all for use as worship services. The last piece has been called “the supreme cultural achievement of all Western civilization,” and even the radical skeptic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) admitted upon hearing it, “One who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it here as gospel.” You’ll experience the spiritual gifts of Bach if you listen to the great recording linked above.

After Bach’s death, people seemed glad to wipe their ears of his music. He was remembered less as a composer than as an organist and harpsichordist. Some of his music was sold, and some was reportedly used to wrap garbage. For the next 80 years his music was neglected by the public, although a few musicians (Mozart and Beethoven, for example) admired it. Not until 1829, when German composer Felix Mendelssohn arranged a performance of The Passion of St. Matthew, did a larger audience appreciate Bach the composer.

In terms of pure music, Bach has become known as one who could combine the rhythm of French dances, the gracefulness of Italian song, and the intricacy of German counterpoint—all in one composition. In addition, Bach could write musical equivalents of verbal ideas, such as undulating a melody to represent the sea.

But music was never just music to Bach. Nearly three-fourths of his 1,000 compositions were written for use in worship. Between his musical genius, his devotion to Christ, and the effect of his music, he has come to be known in many circles as “the Fifth Evangelist.”

More

10-minute video biography.

Listen to Sheep May Safely Graze with period instruments.

An a capella boy choir Libera sings an Air.

Contra tenor sings the great alto solo:

What do we do with this?

It should not surprise us that a Christian musical genius was left unpraised and even abused in the flower of his talent. Yet it is still shocking. Maybe it should encourage us to keep on serving whether we are  appreciated or not. Whatever genius we offering is just that, an offering, not our part of a transaction for which we expect a profit. As Jesus keeps saying, “What does it profit us if we gain the whole world and lose our souls? What can we give in exchange for our souls?”

Revisit what you think it important. What has God given you to give and how are you making it a priority? Is some power trying to undermine your devotion?

Mary of Magdala — July 22

Asia, Forerunners (33-1226)

Bible connection

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” — Matthew 28:1-10

All about Mary of Magdala (born c. 8 A.D.)

One of the most maligned women in the Bible is actually a very interesting example of someone who dramatically overcame her past and pioneered a new direction for others to follow as she followed Jesus: Mary of Magdala — Mary from a little town not far from Capernaum called Magdala, the Magdalene.

There is a new interpretation of Mary Magdalene which is represented in the picture above. She is getting out from under the nonsense piled on her over the years. For instance, long about the 600’s, the church in Europe went into a new phase of reinterpreting the Bible and women got a raw deal. This can especially be seen in the way the two most famous Marys in the New Testament were developed. Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene end up on the opposite ends of the stereotype of womankind in Europe: Mary as an untouchable, perpetually virgin saint and Mary Magdalene as the all-too-touched, perpetually repentant sinner. Instead of the saved people Jesus and Paul so obviously saw women to be, they end up back in oppression.

Mary Magdalene even ended up with a derogatory word attached to her stereotype: maudlin. It means affectionate or sentimental in an effusive, tearful or foolish manner (especially when you’re drunk and self-pitying). The ways some British people pronounce Magdalene is “maudlin.” So her name means weepy.

Maudlin Preaching | DominicanaIn church art, Mary has almost always been pictured as a loose woman who is weeping, since her main scene in the Bible is one in which she is crying: “Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying” (John 20:11). For some reason the church kept her weeping, even though in just a few more lines of John she recognizes the risen Jesus and becomes the apostle to the apostles.

We know just a little from the Bible about Mary Magdalene, although she is mentioned much more than most of the twelve disciples. Here is one of the places we get some details: “Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,  and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means” (Luke 8:1-3).

Housing seven demons is an extreme problem! But nobody knows what kind of life Mary Magdalene had been living before she met Jesus. When Luke says women followed along with Jesus who “had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities” he could be talking about a variety of things we regularly experience ourselves: a person who is sick physically, relationally, mentally, or certainly spiritually. These women were also people of means who apparently bankrolled the mission.

Later in church history, the legend of Mary Magdalene was used to discredit sex in general and to disempower women, so her “demons” were characterized as the torments that accompany someone who is promiscuous. She was tagged as a prostitute, for which there is no shred of evidence in the Bible or even in the extra-Biblical books from the early years in which she is mentioned. Regardless, she had been consumed by something horrible and Jesus freed her. His grace made her thankful and devoted.

She was not only tied to Jesus, she was important to Jesus. During the time of her life recorded in the Bible, Mary Magdalene’s name is one of the most frequently found. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, each time the women who were with Jesus are listed, Mary Magdalene’s name appears first. In Luke, when the three main men disciples are listed, Peter is listed first.  The small piece of evidence suggests Mary Magdalene must have held a central position among the followers of Jesus. She could have been the lead woman like Peter was the lead man.

At the time of the crucifixion and resurrection Mary Magdalene comes to the fore. Uniquely among the followers of Jesus, she is specifically named as a witness to three key events: Jesus’ crucifixion, his burial, and the discovery that his tomb was empty. In Mark, Matthew, and John, Mary Magdalene is the first witness to the resurrection. She is the who told the disciples what happened and gave them a message from the Lord. So Mary Magdalene was the “Apostle to the Apostles.” After her first report to the other disciples that Jesus was risen, Mary Magdalene disappears from the New Testament. She is not mentioned by name in the Acts of the Apostles, although she may be one of the women mentioned in Acts 1:14. Her next acts are undocumented.

As the church was co-opted into the state and then when the church of Rome became the state after the Roman empire fell apart, Jesus’ rejection of the prevailing male dominance was eroded in the Christian community. In the books of the New Testament, the argument among Christians over the place of women in the community is already a regular feature. Mary Magdalene became the poster child for the argument as time went on. She was a leader, the apostle to the apostles, but she became a weepy prostitute repenting of her sins.

ECCLESIA–EGLISE– , Κ-ΥΡΙΑΚΟΝ/CH-UR(IA)CH/ц-ер(IA)ковь (2) | WE THE ECOUMENISTS exontes zilon FOR AN OECOUMENIC POLIS
Gregory I dictating a chant

Here’s an example of how her deformation happened. In the late 500’s Pope Pelagius II died of plague and one of the most influential popes of all time succeeded him, Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604).  When the disciplined and brilliant Gregory was elected pope he at once emphasized penitential forms of worship as a way of warding off plague, among other things. His reign was marked by the codification of spiritual disciplines and thought; it was a time of reform and invention. But it all occurred against the backdrop of the plague, a doom-laden circumstance in which the abjectly repentant Mary Magdalene, warding off the spiritual plague of damnation, was created. With Gregory’s help, she was transformed from leader among women to maudlin prostitute.

In about 591 Pope Gregory I gave a series of sermons that rewrote Mary’s history. He took a few of those Marys in the Bible, squashed them together and made them into a composite Mary Magdalene. He said that Mary’s seven demons were the seven deadly sins, heavy on the lust. He said she was the same woman who poured ointment on Jesus — repurposed ointment that formerly made her a nice-smelling sex partner. She was the one who washed Jesus’s feet with tears and dried them with her wantonly uncovered hair. He said, ”She turned the mass of her crimes to virtues, in order to serve God entirely in penance.”

Serving Gregory’s agenda, Mary of Magdala, who began as a powerful woman at Jesus’ side became the redeemed prostitute and Christianity’s model of repentance — a manageable, controllable figure, and an effective weapon and instrument of propaganda against her own gender. What most drove the anti-sexual sexualizing of Mary Magdalene was the male need to dominate women. In the Roman Catholic Church, as elsewhere, that need is still being met.

More

The Wikipedia page is very good

The Chosen has a nice view of Mary of Magdala:

Recently, there has been a boomlet of books about Mary Magdalene. Some are interested in upgrading her by applying the Gospel of Mary  which was never taken seriously as worthy of being canonical. Nevertheless, in The DaVinci Code  movie, a few years back, a quote from the Gospel of Mary confirms that Jesus was married and was mortal. The Last Temptation of Christ and Jesus Christ Superstar follow the suspicions that Jesus and Mary had a thing going on. These books are clearer: The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity by Cynthia Bourgeault and Mary Magdalene: Apostle to the Apostles by Dinesh Deckker

What do we do with this?

In the time of Jesus, there is every reason to believe that, according to his teaching and who was in his circle, women were unusually empowered as fully equal. In the early church, when the norms and assumptions of the Jesus community were being written down, the equality of women is reflected in the letters of St. Paul (c. 50-60), who names women as full partners—his partners—in the Christian movement. In the Gospel accounts that were written later, evidence of Jesus’ own attitudes can be seen and women are highlighted as people who had courage and fidelity that stood in marked contrast to the men’s cowardice.

The Church did Mary of Magdala wrong. It may have done you wrong and may do you wrong again. Even so, like Mary, maintain your own sense of how Jesus freed you and let you touch him and made you his messenger, even if someone tries to steal that from you.  Mary Magdalene is a cautionary tale about how the story of redemption can be warped. But she is also an example of how the truth retold has a remarkable capacity to shake off the corrosion of the misguided. People overcome what loads them down and stride into their fullness when they follow Jesus.

John Lewis — July 17

North America, This century (1937-2025)
Lewis, one of the original thirteen Freedom Riders who left Washington DC on May 4, 1961

Bible connection

“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” — Matthew 13:18-23

All about John Lewis (1940-2020)

Lewis, one of the original thirteen Freedom Riders who left Washington DC on May 4, 1961.

John Robert Lewis was born outside of Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940. He was the happy, hardworking child of sharecroppers. But as a fourteen-year-old  he chafed against the unfairness of segregation as the Supreme Court ruling in 1954’s Brown v. The Board of Education didn’t affect his school life. After hearing Martin Luther King’s sermons and news of the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott Lewis was inspired to act for the changes he wanted to see.

In 1957, Lewis left Alabama to attend the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. There, he learned about nonviolent protest and helped to organize sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. This led to his first of many arrests.

He went on to become among the first to participate in the Freedom Rides of 1961. These bus rides challenged the segregated facilities at interstate bus terminals in the South, which had been deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. He was arrested and beaten.

In 1963, Lewis became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. That same year, as one of the “Big Six” leaders of the civil rights movement, he helped plan the March on Washington. Lewis, the youngest speaker at the event, had to alter his speech in order to please other organizers, but still delivered a powerful oration that declared, “We want our freedom and we want it now….We all recognize the fact that if any radical social, political and economic changes are to take place in our society, the people, the masses, must bring them about.”

After the March on Washington, in 1964, the Civil Rights Act became law but it did not make it easier for Black people to vote in the South. So Lewis and Hosea Williams led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. After crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers were attacked by state troopers. Lewis was severely beaten once more, this time suffering a fractured skull. The violent attacks were recorded and disseminated throughout the country, and the images proved too powerful to ignore. “Bloody Sunday,” as the day was labeled, sped up the passage of 1965’s Voting Rights Act.

Lewis left the SNCC in 1966. Though devastated by the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy in 1968, Lewis continued his work to enfranchise minorities. In 1970, he became director of the Voter Education Project. During his tenure, the VEP helped to register millions of minority voters.

Picture during a campaign in the 1980’s with his wife, Lillian, who died in 2012.

Lewis ran for office himself in 1981, winning a seat on the Atlanta City Council. In 1986, he was elected to the House of Representatives. Representing Georgia’s 5th District, becoming one of the most respected members of Congress.

As a congressman, he worked for healthcare reform, measures to fight poverty and improvements in education. Most important, he oversaw multiple renewals of the Voting Rights Act. When the Supreme Court struck down part of the law in 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, Lewis decried the decision as a “dagger into the heart” of voting rights.

In the wake of the mass shooting that took place on June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida, Lewis led a sit-in comprised of approximately 40 House Democrats on the floor of the House of Representatives on June 22nd in an attempt to bring attention and force Congress to address gun violence by taking definitive legislative action. “We have been too quiet for too long,” Lewis said. “There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time.” He did not get what he wanted, but he never gave up. And he never gave up his remarkable love as he did it.

Image

Lewis also spoke out against the presidency of Donald Trump. On Meet the Press he said he didn’t believe Trump was a “legitimate president” because of Russian interference in the election. Trump responded on Twitter, criticizing Lewis’ work as a congressman and tweeting that Lewis was “All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!” The president-elect’s attack came just days before the Martin Luther King holiday, and prompted vocal support of the civil rights icon across social media. He decided to boycott the inauguration. Trump continued his war of words, tweeting: “John Lewis said about my inauguration, ‘It will be the first one that I’ve missed.’ WRONG (or lie)! He boycotted Bush 43 also because he…thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush’s swearing-in….he doesn’t believe Bush is the true elected president. Sound familiar!”A spokeswoman for Lewis confirmed that he had missed the inauguration of George W. Bush: “His absence at that time was also a form of dissent. He did not believe the outcome of that election, including the controversies around the results in Florida and the unprecedented intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, reflected a free, fair and open democratic process.”

In December 2019, Lewis announced that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

Quotes

  • You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone—any person or any force—dampen, dim or diminish your light … Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. — Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America
  • Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
  • The vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have.
  • We must be bold, brave, and courageous and find a way…to get in the way.
  • Freedom is not a state; it is an act.
  • When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up.
  • Not one of us can rest, be happy, be at home, be at peace with ourselves, until we end hatred and division.
  • We have to believe that we’re one people, one family. And we cannot turn against each other. We have to turn to each other. – 2018 National Geographic interview
  • At a very early stage of the movement, I accepted the teaching of Jesus, the way of love, the way of nonviolence, the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. The idea of hate is too heavy a burden to bear. It’s better to love.” — 2004 PBS interview
  • Many of us that got caught up and involved in the civil rights movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith… Without our faith, without the spirit and spiritual bearings and underpinning, we would not have been so successful. Without prayer, without faith in the Almighty, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings. — 2004 PBS interview
  • Nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. Why? Because human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet.”– from Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change
  • It was no accident that the movement was led primarily by ministers—not politicians, presidents or even community activists—but ministers first, who believed they were called to the work of civil rights as an expression of their faith.”…“Religious faith is a powerful connecting force for any group of people who are working toward social change. — Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

More

When he knew he was dying, Lewis asked the NYTimes to print his final words, and they did. At his funeral, President Obama reflected them in his eulogy. Here’s part of his parting words:

I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself

In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

The movie of his life:

March is a graphic novel trilogy  of John Lewis’ autobiography.

Rod’s tribute upon his passing.

What do we do with this?

John Lewis was an influencer par excellence from the beginning of social media. He used every means at his disposal to get noticed and cause trouble for the love of God. So he has made it rather plain what he thinks you should do; follow in his footsteps as he follows Jesus. Get on the bus, get arrested, get into the march, get elected, use your voice, hands and feet to advance the cause of freedom. Be free in Christ so you can set others free.

The American Bar Association wrote “When 2020 began, very few could have predicted how important Lewis’s words would once again prove. Following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, widespread protests broke out across the country. According to data collected by the New York Times, somewhere between 15 million and 26 million people participated in Black Lives Matter demonstrations in more than 500 locations. Journalists covering these protests found themselves on the front lines like never before: In the course of covering these protests, members of the press were arrested, struck by rubber bullets, tear gassed, and otherwise targeted by law enforcement. People of all ages and races are taking to the streets to wage ‘good trouble,’ and journalists are putting themselves in harm’s way to make sure that message gets to as many people as possible….Shortly before his death, Lewis commented on the connective thread linking this movement to the movement he helped lead decades prior, writing in a statement, ‘My fellow Americans, this is a special moment in our history. Just as people of all faiths and no faiths, and all backgrounds, creeds, and colors banded together decades ago to fight for equality and justice in a peaceful, orderly, non-violent fashion, we must do so again.'” The struggle is ongoing.

Peter Waldo — July 17

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226)
St. Alexius

Bible connection

Read Deuteronomy 33

This is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, gave the Israelites before his death.

All about Peter Waldo (1140-1218)

Nobody knows the day Peter Waldo died. But we do know his faith was warmed when he listened to a sermon about Alexius of Rome. So it seems appropriate to celebrate him on St. Alexius Day.

Let’s start with a bit about what made Alexius a moving example of faith. Alexius was the only son of a wealthy Christian Roman of the senatorial class. He fled his arranged marriage to follow his call to holiness. Disguised as a beggar, he lived near Edessa in Syria, accepting alms even from his own household slaves, who had been sent to look for him but did not recognize him, until a miraculous icon singled him out as a “Man of God.” Fleeing the fame that resulted, he returned to Rome, so changed that his parents did not recognize him. But as good Christians they took him in and sheltered him for seventeen years, which he spent in a dark cubbyhole beneath the stairs, praying and teaching catechism to children. After his death, his family found writings on his body which told them who he was and how he had lived his life of penance from the day of his wedding, for the love of God.

While Peter Waldo was listening to this story, he was moved to also become a man of God. Like others in his day, he embraced the value of poverty, giving away his wealth and property in 1170. Specific details of his life are largely unknown. Extant sources relate that he was a wealthy clothier and merchant from Lyons and a man of some learning.

The church of 12th Century Europe was powerful and impressive. The emerging Gothic architecture shows the devotion of the people and the wealth of the bishops. The developing scholastic theology shows the intellectual dominance and refinement of thinking among academic theologians. The Crusades against Islam in Jerusalem and heretics at home show the coercive strength of the church in cooperation with the state.

The church’s success, however, alienated many people. To the dissatisfied, the church seemed greatly corrupted by its power. To them, the church seemed to have forgotten Christ’s call to otherworldliness, poverty, and humility. In various, often quite divergent movements, a reaction of Christian simplicity was raised against the wealth and power of the church.

The established church managed to contain some of this unrest, particularly through the asceticism of the monastic movements. But even these movements tended over time to be corrupted by wealth and immorality. Some of the unrest moved outside the church and orthodox teaching. For instance, the Cathari, also known as the Cathars or Albigensians, adopted a spiritualistic religion that rejected the material world so radically that it left no place for the incarnation. This movement attracted many followers, particularly in the south of France, and it was viciously persecuted by church and state.

A similar critique against the church was initiated by Peter Waldo (sometimes Peter Valdez). He was inspired by a series of events: 1) as noted, a sermon on the life of St. Alexius, 2) his rejection of transubstantiation when it was considered a capital crime to do so, 3) the sudden and unexpected death of a friend during an evening meal. From this point onward he began living a radical Christian life, giving his property over to his wife, while the remainder of his belongings he distributed to the poor.

His followers were sometimes called the Poor Men of Lyons. But his critique of the church adopted neither the radical love of poverty in itself, as St. Francis later adopted, nor the radical spiritualizing of the Cathars. Instead, they turned to the simple vision of Christianity that they found in the Bible. Waldo saw to the translation of the Bible into the language of the people. He and his followers went about preaching a simple understanding of the word.

Waldo preached and taught publicly, based on his ideas of simplicity and poverty, notably that “No man can serve two masters, God and Mammon” accompanied by strong condemnations of Papal excesses and Catholic dogmas, including purgatory and transubstantiation, picturing the Church of Rome as the harlot from the book of Revelation. His followers spread this word  disguised as peddlers.

For a time, the movement spread widely into parts of Germany and Austria, as well as Northern Italy. Persecution by the church, however, was severe and eventually reduced the movement to a remnant in the valleys of Northern Italy. Efforts to eradicate them through the centuries failed. It was only in 1870 that the Waldensians received full civil rights in Italy. Pope Francis recently asked their forgiveness.

Waldo and his followers have sometimes been listed among the forerunners of the Franciscans and the Reformation. When the Reformation began in the sixteenth century, contact was established between the Waldensians and the Reformers. Ultimately the Waldensians accepted the spiritual connection between their movement and Protestantism. Unfortunately, this connection led to even greater persecution.

The Waldensians were witnesses to the presence of Christ’s word and Spirit in the church through the centuries. They expressed aspects of Apostolic faith that were threatened with extinction in the dominant church. They remind us that in every era, Christ fulfills His promise: “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

More

There is still a Waldensian Church. In the U.S. you can learn about the American Waldensian Society. 

Nice video by the Discerning History people — You will be challenged to “think about history from a biblical perspective, and put current events in a historical context:”

A history of the Waldensian movement and persecution [link].

What do we do with this?

It is always exciting to see a relatively normal group of people come to faith, against all odds, and then give witness to the powers that deprived them of faith to begin with!

Does Peter Waldo embolden you? What have you heard, lately, that, if you took it to heart, would cause some revolution in you and your environment?

Argula von Grumbach — July 14

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Argula von Grumbach
Medal with the portrait of Argula von Grumbach, Hans Schwarz, Nürnberg, around 1520 © Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg

Bible connection

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” — Romans 1:16

All about Argula von Grumbach (1492–1554/7)

Argula Von Grumbach was born in 1492 (the year Columbus sailed for India) into the lively, educated, and chivalrous von Stauff family, living in Ehrenfels Castle on the Laber River in Germany. Her first name recalls the noble Argeluse, a prominent character in the epic Parsifal about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. “Orgelûse” is a proud and beautiful duchess associated with the Castle of Marvels. She is depicted as a “lure to love’s desire” and is described in verses like “aller wîbes varwe ein bêâ flûrs” meaning “the fairest flower of feminine beauty.”  No one in her family thought small. 

When she was 10, her father gave her a beautiful Koberger edition of the Bible in German. That Bible was notable as the ninth German Bible to be printed full of numerous hand-colored woodcuts. It is also significant as the first Bible printed in Nuremberg. The Koberger Bible is an incunabulum, meaning it was printed before 1500.  

Ruins of Ehrenfels Castle on the Rhine River
Ruins of Ehrenfels Castle on the Rhine River

When she married nobleman Friedrich von Grumbach in 1510, she set up homes in little Bavarian villages and market towns: Lenting, Dietfurt, Burggrumbach, and Zeilitzheim. Her children were born there. Her time in small villages prepared von Grumbach for her later role in establishing Lutheranism in these rural areas.

Martin Luther put a note in her much-loved copy of his Little Book of Prayers.

In 1523, during the exciting early years of the Reformation, this Bavarian noblewoman, with four little children dependent on her, took a big risk when she challenged the influential theologians of Ingolstadt University to a public debate in German about their persecution of a young student. They arrested and interrogated an 18-year-old student, and threatened him with death if he would not renounce his evangelical views. Theologians didn’t lower themselves to debate with lay people, much less a women, not to mention in German rather than Latin.

But Von Grumbach knew the young man and reacted with horror:

“My heart and all my limbs tremble. Nowhere in the Bible do I find that Christ, or his apostles, or his prophets, put people in prison, burnt or murdered them. How in God’s name can you and your university expect to prevail, when you deploy such foolish violence against the word of God?”

The professors tried to ignore her, but friends had her letter to them published by the new social media of the time: the printing press. Sympathizers and publishers with a  nose for news raced to reprint the compilation. It went “viral” — a mere woman challenges a university!

The woodcuts on the front cover portray von Grumbach, Bible in hand, alone, confronting an intimidated, bewildered group of scholars. The heavy books of their traditional theology and canon law lie discarded on the ground.

Earlier that year in Zürich, a public debate took place between defenders of the old church and the evangelical reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531). It was conducted in German, and it had convinced the city fathers to promote the Reformation. Von Grumbach followed the news. No doubt this dramatic event encouraged her to make her own protest—though she said that she did so in fear and trembling:

I suppressed my inclinations [to criticize Catholic preaching against Luther]; heavy of heart, I did nothing. Because Paul says in 1 Timothy 2: “The women should keep silence, and should not speak in church.” But now that I cannot see any man who is up to it, who is either willing or able to speak, I am constrained . . . .

She had found it impossible, following Matthew 10, to keep silent:

I find there is a text in Matthew 10 which runs: “Whoever confesses me before another I too will confess before my heavenly Father.” And Luke 9: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, I too will be ashamed of when I come in my majesty,” etc. Words like these, coming from the very mouth of God, are always before my eyes. For they exclude neither woman nor man. And this is why I am compelled as a Christian to write to you.

Von Grumbach’s responses were both substantial and sensational. In words that ordinary people could understand, her pamphlet—which was soon followed by seven others she wrote—raised key issues about freedom of speech, the authority of Scripture, and the urgent need to reform the church.  She pointed out that throughout Scripture and the history of the church, the Holy Spirit had moved women like her to speak out. She felt she was another woman following that prophetic tradition.

Statue by Bavarian theologian and writer Mihai Buculei in Beratzhausen

Argula von Grumbach’s forthrightness infuriated every leading institution of her time: the university, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the Bavarian princes under whose rule she lived, and not least of all her own husband, “Fritz.” Critics pointed to his inability to “control his wife,” and Fritz lost his lucrative job in the service of the Bavarian dukes as punishment.  Her letters only survived because authorities confiscated them as they gathered evidence for a legal challenge involving her son, Gottfried. She had tough times.

Von Grumbach never received the public debate she asked for, but instead struggled with financial difficulties for the remainder of her life, pawning a precious necklace again and again to raise funds. Her second husband, Burian von Schlick, a Bohemian nobleman, ardently supported the Reformation but also died prematurely, imprisoned by his relatives over a family dispute. In a raw and violent society, tragedy upon tragedy befell von Grumbach. Near the end of her life, she herself was grossly mistreated, held captive, and forced to flee her family home in Bavaria.

Quotes

God’s spirit is within you, read,
Is woman shut out, there, indeed?
While you oppress God’s word,
Consign souls to the devil’s game
I cannot and I will not cease
To speak at home and on the street.

What I have written to you is no woman’s chit-chat, but the word of God.

Ah, but what a joy it is when the spirit of God teaches us and gives us understanding, flitting from one text to the next, so that I came to see the true genuine light shining out.

A excerpt of the letter she wrote to the University of Ingolstadt:

To the honorable, worthy, highborn, erudite, noble, stalwart Rector and all the Faculty of the University of Ingolstadt: When I heard what you had done to Arsacius Seehofer under terror of imprisonment and the stake, my heart trembled and my bones quaked. What have Luther and Melanchthon taught save the Word of God? You have condemned them. You have not refuted them. Where do you read in the Bible that Christ, the apostles, and the prophets imprisoned, banished, burned, or murdered anyone? You tell us that we must obey the magistrates. Correct. But neither the pope, nor the Kaiser, not the princes have any authority over the Word of God. You need not think you can pull God, the prophets and the apostles out of heaven with papal decretals drawn from Aristotle, who was not a Christian at all. . . .

You seek to destroy all of Luther’s works. In that case you will have to destroy the New Testament, which he has translated. In the German writings of Luther and Melanchthon I have found nothing heretical. . . Even if Luther should recant, what he has said would still be the Word of God. I would be willing to come and dispute with you in German. . . . You have the key of knowledge and you close the kingdom of heaven. But you are defeating yourselves. The news of what has been done to this lad of 18 has reached us and other cities in so short a time that soon it will be known to all the world. The Lord will forgive Arsacius, as he forgave Peter, who denied his master, though not threatened by prison and fire. Great good will yet come from this young man. I send you not a woman’s ranting, but the Word of God. I write as a member of the Church of Christ against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. . .

More

An exhibition in Munster included a musical:

An 1860 biography by Eduard Engelhardt (online in German).

Peter Matheson, emeritus professor at Knox Theological College, Dunedin, New Zealand, wrote the definitive biography: Argula von Grumbach: A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation and Argula von Grumbach: A Woman Before Her Time

What do we do with this?

If you are a woman, you might enjoy some overdue validation.

If you are a Bavarian, you might wonder at the violence and division religion caused in your territory. It still exists today. Millions of people have turned their backs on the church because of it.

Von Grumbach was so brave! Her convictions carried her into all sorts of good trouble. Jesus was buried in a lot of nonsense in her day. She worked hard to sweep it all away. We could use some sweeping in our era , couldn’t we?

Benedict of Nursia — July 11

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226)
Benedict of Nursia icon

Bible connection

Read 1 Peter 3:8-9

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing.

All about Benedict of Nursia (c.480- c.547)

Benedict of Nursia  was born in North Central Italy (the Umbria province) when the Ostrogoths were ousting, Odoacer, the usurper who deposed the last Roman Emperor, And the Eastern Roman Emperor was using Bulgars to fight Theodoric’s rivals. That meant random violence and pillaging. The shaky Western Roman Empire descended into 100 years of trouble. Benedict’s biographer, Gregory the Great (Pope from 590 to 604), does not record the dates of his birth and death, but he certainly refers to the famous Rule he wrote to organize the communities he founded.

According to Gregory’s Dialogues, Benedict’s parents sent him to Rome for classical studies. But he found the life of the city too degenerate for his tastes. He fled to a place southeast of Rome called Subiaco where he lived as a hermit. Once there, he was discovered by a group of seekers who prevailed upon him to become their spiritual leader. His rule soon became too much for his lukewarm followers so they plotted to poison him. Gregory recounts the tale of Benedict’s rescue; when he blessed the pitcher of poisoned wine, it broke into many pieces.

Benedict left these wayward men and established twelve monasteries with twelve monks each in the area south of Rome. Later, around 529, he moved to Monte Cassino, about eighty miles southeast of Rome; there he destroyed the pagan temple dedicated to Apollo and built his premier monastery. There he wrote the Rule for the monastery of Monte Cassino, though he envisioned that it could be used elsewhere. Gregory presents Benedict as the model of a saint who flees temptation to pursue a life of attention to God. Through a balanced pattern of action and contemplation, Benedict reached the point where he glimpsed the glory of God.

Gregory recounts a vision Benedict received toward the end of his life. In the dead of night he was enveloped by a flood of light shining down from above, more brilliant than the sun; it chased away every trace of darkness. According to his own description, the whole world was gathered up before his eyes “in what appeared to be a single ray of light” (ch. 34). St. Benedict, the monk par excellence, led a monastic life that reached the vision of God.

Benedict is considered to be the father of Western Monasticism—coming a few centuries after Monasticism began in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Palestine. His genius was to put the forms of the East into an accessible format that was warm and flexible. He was mostly the leader of a community, not a scholar. The Rule is the sole known example of Benedict’s writing, but it shows his genius. In The Rule of St. Benedict he crystallized the best of the monastic tradition and passed it on to Europe.

The Benedictine vows are basically “obedience, stability, and conversion of life.”  Benedict, and the subsequent monks in his tradition, are known for their daily rhythm of prayer and labor (ora et labora). He helped formalize a movement of the Spirit into “a school of the Lord’s service, in which we hope to order nothing harsh or rigorous.” These “schools” that soon dotted Europe were centers of light and stability for centuries.

Some of the stories about Benedict told by Gregory can be found here [link].

Quotes from the Rule of St. Benedict:

  • The first degree of humility is prompt obedience.
  • Listen and attend with the ear of your heart.
  • Prayer ought to be short and pure, unless it be prolonged by the inspiration of Divine grace.
  • He should first show them in deeds rather than words all that is good and holy.
  • Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from that every day calls out…What dear brothers, is more delightful than the voice of the Lord calling to us?
  • We must know that God regards our purity of heart and tears of compunction, not our many words. 
  • [About the abbot] He must show forethought and consideration in his orders, and whether the task he assigns concerns God or the world, he should be discerning and moderate, bearing in mind the discretion of holy Jacob, who said: If I drive my flocks too hard, they will all die in a single day (Gen 33:13). 19 Therefore, drawing on this and other examples of discretion, the mother of virtues, he must so arrange everything that the strong have something to yearn for and the weak nothing to run from.

More 

Catholic Encyclopedia bio [link]

Order of St. Benedict bio [link]

Bio from the Monastery of Christ in the Desert  in New Mexico [link]

Italian high schoolers made a nice bio:

Novels that take place in a Benedictine Abbey: The Hawk and the Dove series by Penelope Wilcock, Cadfael Mysteries by Ellis Peters (and TV series),  The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (and movie), The Bell by Iris Murdoch, In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden (and movie), The Nun’s Story by Kathryn Hulme (and movie)

Rod’s tribute: Benedict (not Cumberbatch) the most influential Christian you never heard of

Suggestions for action

Benedict lived in a violent society. His response was to trust God and act out his faith in a radical way. This inevitably resulted in a community he needed to lead. If God leads you, you might need to lead others.

Spiritual depth and community go together. We never escape the duties of love to seek our own connection with God. Benedict challenges us to go deeper and go wider, to flee the world but also to save it. If you look at your own life, what vision does it appear to follow?

Jan Hus — July 6

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Diebold Schilling the Older, Spiezer Chronik (1485): Burning of Jan Hus at Constanz

Bible connection

Read Matthew 10:16-31

On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say

All about Jan Hus (ca. 1369-1415)

Jan Hus was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in about 1369, just after the Black Plague killed about a third of the population of Europe. The Church was in the middle of what is known as the Western Schism or the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy (1309-1377). Simply put, the King of France (Philip IV, the “Fair”) moved the seat of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon. Rival popes were elected, sides were taken, and battles were fought.

By 1400 Hus was a priest and about to become part of the university in Prague. By 1402 he was instrumental in fomenting vigorous reform in the Church.  The fights between Kings and the Pope continued, other ferment bubbled, and finally, another Council, the Council of Constance from 1414 to 1418, was called to solve the issues.

In the middle of this period, Jan Hus denounced various church practices in his sermons, taking his lead from the famous John Wycliffe of England (the “morning star of the Reformation”). For instance, Hus thought it was unbiblical for the wine of communion to be reserved for the priest. He wholeheartedly accepted the practice of the church worshiping in the Czech language, rather than in Latin. He argued that “laypeople” had an important role to play in the administration of the Church, and that Christ was the true head of the Church, not the Pope. He thought church officials should not be earthly governors.

After the death of Pope Alexander V (an “antipope“), a prolonged protest against the practices of granting indulgences started, of which Hus was also a part. He produced writings that are said to be directly taken from Wycliffe’s writings, notably: De ecclesia (The Church). In them he argued that no Pope or Bishop had the right to raise a sword in the name of Church. He insisted that people attained forgiveness only by repentance, not Papal indulgence. His followers publicly burned Papal communiques (“bulls”) and believed that Hus’ sayings should be followed, rather than those of the Church hierarchy. As a result, in 1412 Jan Hus was excommunicated for insubordination.

In 1414 he was summoned to the Council of Constance, with the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund guaranteeing his personal safety even if found guilty. He was tried, and ordered to recant certain heretical doctrines. He replied that he had never held or taught the doctrines in question, and was willing to declare the doctrines false, but not willing to declare on oath that he had once taught them. The one point on which Hus could be said to have a doctrinal difference with the Council was that he taught the office of the Pope did not exist by God’s command, but was established by the Church so things might be done in an orderly fashion. The Council, having just narrowly succeeded in uniting Western Christendom under a single Pope after years of chaos, was not about to have its work undermined. So it found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake on July 6, 1415.

Jan Hus Memorial Prague

Hus’ approach to being the church was human, Bible centered, and spiritual.  To partisans on both sides of the Schism, his views seemed idealistic at best, and at worst a dreamy anarchism or outright heresy. Throughout all the controversy that followed his teaching he maintained a creative loyalty to the church while challenging its pathologies. His death helped give birth to the Moravian Church. That group held the light out for his prophecy to be fulfilled: it is claimed he said, “In one hundred years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed.” In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous “Ninety-five Theses of Contention” to the church door in Wittenberg. Before he died in flames, Hus is said to have stated: “It is better to die well than to live wickedly … Truth conquers all things.”

More 

Jan Hus Center in Cesko, his birthplace.

The Hussites: The Amazing Story of the “First Reformation” [link]

1977 movie:

What do we do with this?

It takes faith to see beyond one’s present time and to act for generations yet to be born. We are prone to saving our lives, meaning we are out for ourselves in the present, rather than losing our lives for Christ’s sake, and so gaining a true life. Hus lived for something that was true to Jesus and big enough to be important for the people he loved—something worth risking his life to bring about. It is worth asking the question, “When I die, will people remember my faith? Will I leave them a vision of the world that is beyond me?”

Harriet Beecher Stowe — July 1

North America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Harriet Beecher Stowe by Francis Holl (ca. 1855)

Bible connection

No, that’s not your experience at all. You’ve come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens. It is the city where God is Judge, with judgments that make us just. You’ve come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel’s—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace. — Hebrews 12:22-4 (Message)

All about Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

When President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1863, he is reported to have said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin may not have caused the Civil War, but it shook both North and South. It declared the profound value of a human soul and pictured emancipation as inevitable. Susan Bradford Eppes wrote, after her state of Florida seceded, “If Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had died before she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, this would never have happened … Isn’t it strange how much harm a pack of lies can do?”

Harriet was the seventh of 12 children born to Lyman Beecher, the Congregationalist minister, noted revivalist and reformer. When Harriet’s mother lay dying, Lyman repeatedly spoke words to her that the family embraced as their life text, often repeating it to one another:

“… Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, … and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”

The essence of those words energized the unanswerable argument in Uncle Tom’s Cabin: if a slave can come to Mount Sion and to Jesus and to the company of saints in the New Jerusalem, how can you set him up on an auction block and trade him from one white man to another?

In 1832 her father moved the family to the frontier city of Cincinnati, where he became president of Lane Seminary, soon a center for abolitionists. At 25 Harriet married Calvin Ellis Stowe, professor of Biblical literature at Lane.

Harriet was often morbid while growing up as she struggled with issues of faith. But when she was fourteen, she told her father she had given herself to Christ. Later in her marriage to Calvin Stowe, she would plead with him to seek Christ with the same burning devotion with which he sought knowledge. “If you had studied Christ with half the energy that you have studied Luther … then would he be formed in you … ” When he turned to spiritualism, she pleaded with him, the Biblical scholar, that it was unbiblical.

During her child-rearing years, she read to her seven children two hours each evening and, for a time, ran a small school in her home. She described herself as “a little bit of a woman, just as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very much to look at in my best days and very much used-up by now, a mere drudge with few ideas beyond babies and housekeeping.”

But she was not a mere drudge. She found time to write, partially to bolster the meager family income. An early literary success at age 32 (for a collection of short stories) encouraged her, but she still worried about the conflict between writing and mothering. Despite privation and anxiety, due largely to her husband’s poor health, she wrote continually and in 1843 published The Mayflower; or, Sketches of Scenes and Characters Among the Descendants of the Pilgrims. Her husband urged her on, predicting she could mold “the mind of the West for the coming generation.” That she did with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly at 40.

She had lived for 18 years in Cincinnati, separated only by the Ohio River from a slave-holding community in Kentucky. She gained firsthand knowledge of fugitive slaves and about life in the South from friends and through her contact with the “Underground Railroad” there. The railroad was a secret network started in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act mandating severe measures for the return of runaway slaves without trial. It helped  escaped slaves reach safety in the North or in Canada. Stowe herself helped some slaves escape. (If you his the link above, you’ll see that it was a victim of website editors scrubbing out DEI from Government sites. Here’s a look at the act from elsewhere).

Even though she had dipped her toes in abolition, Stowe still brooded over how she could further respond. Then, during a church communion service, the scene of the triumphant death of Tom flashed before her. She soon formed the story that preceded Tom’s death.

In 1850 her husband became professor at Bowdoin College and moved his family to Brunswick, Maine. In Brunswick, Stowe wrote the story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin for serial publication in the National Era, an antislavery paper from Washington, D.C., in 1851 and 1852 in 40 installments, each with a cliffhanger ending. Her name became anathema in the South. But elsewhere the book had an unparalleled popularity; it was translated into at least 23 languages. When it appeared in book form, it sold 1,000,000 copies before the Civil War. The dramatic adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin played to capacity audiences. Stowe reinforced her story with The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853), in which she accumulated a large number of documents and testimonies against slavery.

Its publication also inspired a reaction from the South: critical reviews and the publication of some 30 anti-abolitionist Uncle Tom novels within three years.

Illustration from original.

By literary standards, the novel’s situations are contrived, the dialogue unreal, and the slaves romanticized. Still, Stowe communicated the absurdity of slavery through Tom’s triumph over the brutal evil of Simon Legree.

“‘How would ye like to be tied to a tree, and have a slow fire lit up around ye?’ asked Legree. ‘Wouldn’t that be pleasant, eh, Tom?’

“‘Mas’r,’ said Tom, ‘I know ye can do dreadful things, but’—he stretched himself upward and clasped his hands—’but after ye’ve killed the body, there ain’t no more ye can do. And oh! there’s all eternity to come after that!’”

Until her death in July 1896, Stowe averaged nearly a book a year, but Uncle Tom’s Cabin was her legacy. Even one of her harshest critics acknowledged that it was “perhaps the most influential novel ever published, a verbal earthquake, an ink-and-paper tidal wave.”

She thereafter led the life of a woman of letters, writing novels, of which The Minister’s Wooing (1859) is best known, and many studies of social life in both fiction and essay. Stowe published also a small volume of religious poems and toward the end of her career gave some public readings from her writings.

Harriet Beecher Stowe quotes:

  • Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
  • The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
  • Women are the real architects of society.
  • Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
  • It’s a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.
  • Human nature is above all things lazy.
  • The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

More

Read Uncle Tom’s Cabin for free.

“The Small House of Uncle Thomas” ballet portion of The King and I in which a young Siamese women confronts the King with his resemblance to Simon of Legree.

What do we do with this?

Stowe came from a skilled and disciplined family, but even then she was still a woman trapped in the day-to-day life of a patriarchal society. Her life suggests that conviction counts, if it is followed up by deeds, no matter the circumstance.

What is God moving you to do? What should you be sticking with until it is done?

Uncle Tom’s Cabin would make an interesting group reading as a family or small group.