These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis, Christian thinker and apologist

S. Lewis is a well known Christian author, academic and apologist for the Christian Faith. He is best known for his fiction writing in which Christian themes and symbolic characters are part of the structure of the story. Charles Staples Lewis was born in 1898 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Though he later became an academic at Oxford and Cambridge he maintained his Irish identity throughout his life.

As a young man he abandoned his childhood Christian faith and became an atheist. However in 1929 he read George MacDonald’s book Phantastes and said it “baptized his imagination” and gave him a deep sense of the holy. In 1931 he became a Christian after a long discussion with two Christian friends, JRR Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. Lewis describes his experience the following day in his book “Surprised by Joy”.

“When we (Warnie and Jack) set out by motorcycle to the Whipsnade Zoo, I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.” He had resisted conversion vigorously and in the same book he noted that he was brought to faith like a prodigal, “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape.” After his conversion he became a member of the Church of England.

His major vocation was as a Professor of English Language and Literature at the Universities of Oxford and then at Cambridge.

He was a prolific author during his lifetime, with many of his books becoming bestsellers. During the 1940’s he wrote and published in newspapers and for radio with many of those writings later published as books.

In 1950 the first book in the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published. It became very popular and is one of his most enduring and endearing books. The series contains Christian ideas intended to be easily accessible to young readers. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology, as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales.

Best known among his other writings, all of which explore various themes of Christian belief are Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters and The Four Loves. Following the death of his wife Joy Davidman Gresham after a relatively brief marriage, he wrote the moving book A Grief Observed.

S. Lewis is commemorated as a Christian Apologist. Not one who argued about Christian theology directly, but who was able to present Christian belief both rationally and imaginatively. His attempts to respond to common objections to Christian faith in his time gave him wide appeal to a popular audience.

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

John Williams & Thomas Baker, Christian pioneers

Rev. John Williams

Older members of the Uniting Church who attended a Congregational Sunday School remember collecting money for the missionary ship of the London Missionary Society called the John Williams. There was a whole series of ships over the years bearing the name of John Williams. The Rev. John Williams was not only one of the great missionaries of the Pacific but he also made a significant contribution to the development of the Christian faith in Australia.

John Williams was born in Tottenham High Cross in London 27 June 1796.  His father John was one of the many generations who had been Baptists. His mother had been influenced by Calvinistic Methodism and John Williams became a Congregationalist. He was apprenticed to an ironmonger at age 14 and soon after was entrusted with the management of the business. It was an indication of his ability, managerial skills and boundless energy. These were characteristics he displayed during his highly significant missionary work in the South Pacific.

In 1814 he underwent an evangelical conversion and became a member of the Tabernacle Church (Calvinistic Methodist) and in 1816 he volunteered for missionary service with the London Missionary Society. He was accepted and was ordained a Congregational Minister at Surrey Chapel on 3 September 1816. On 29 October that same year he married Mary Chauner of Deraton Hall, near Choadley in Staffordshire. Williams was accompanied to Tahiti by other mission staff. The Rev. Lancelot Threlkold whose work later in the central coast of NSW with aboriginal people was significant, joined the party at Rio de Janeiro. The group arrived in Hobart Town in March 1817 and John Williams conducted the first Evangelical service in Van Diemans Land. Williams defied the Anglican Chaplain and preached in the open air. The group moved on to Sydney where already there was an itinerant Evangelistic ministry. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was impressed by the group and their enthusiasm.

While not unique to the London Missionary Society there were certain principles that their missionaries were meant to follow. They were encouraged to relate to the administering authority. Not only was Governor Macquarie impressed with the calibre of these missionaries to the South Pacific but Samuel Marsden was very impressed with John William’s ability. There was a bond between John Williams and the Rev. Samuel Leigh, the pioneer Methodist minister in Australia.

Another principle was to encourage economic enterprise both to help the people and to assist the mission to become self-supporting. When John Williams and his wife came to Sydney in 1821, he recruited Thomas Scott to teach the people of Raiatea (the island where the mission was established) how to grow sugarcane and tobacco. Williams also bought a ship to ply between Raiatea and Sydney knowing that if any economic development was to happen it would need a bigger market. The Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane was so impressed by Williams that he gave him a gift of animals and gave him magisterial authority for the islands.

The London Missionary Society encouraged churches that had been established and people who had come to faith to evangelise other communities. So Tahitians went to the Cook Islands, Cook Islanders went to New Caledonia and its outlying islands and to Papua. John Williams was active in encouraging this missionary enterprise and was involved in it himself. In 1839 he landed on a beach in Eromanga in what is today Vanuatu, hoping to bring the Gospel to those people, but he was clubbed to death. It was a sad ending to a brilliant missionary career.

We think of John Williams as an Apostle to the Pacific but he also had an important contribution in Australian Christian faith. He was deeply concerned about the plight of the Aboriginal people, appearing before a House of Commons Committee in London looking into the matter. He was influential in the formation in Australia of the Aborigines Protection Society. He was at heart a missionary.

Much of this material has been drawn for the article on John Williams by Neil Gunsen in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Rev John Mavor

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Mechtild of Magdeburg, person of prayer

Mechtild was a celebrated medieval mystic, however not a lot is known about her. What we do know comes largely from hints she gives in her written work. She was born in a noble Saxon family about 1210.

Mechtild’s century, the 13th, was the golden age of chivalry. Troubadours sang of romance between lords and ladies. It was also a golden age of saints, including Francis, Clare, Dominic, and Gertrude. Mechtild takes her place among them as a mystic and poet. She was a troubadour of the love that binds the soul to God.

At 23, Mechtild moved from her village to Magdeburg, Thuringia, in central Europe. She lived there many years as a Béguine and later became a Dominican tertiary. Béguines were women without religious vows who formed communities to serve the poor. Mechtild exhausted herself with austerities because she believed she had to conquer herself in order to achieve oneness with God. Later she wrote this beautiful dialogue between God and the soul about curbing desires and orienting them to God:

God: You hunt ardently for your love, What do you bring to me, my Queen?
Soul: Lord! I bring you my treasure; It is greater than the mountains, . . .
          More glorious than the sun, More manifold than the stars,
          It outweighs the whole earth!
God: O image of my Divine Godhead, . . . What is your treasure called?
Soul: Lord! it is called my heart’s desire! I have withdrawn it from the
          world, . .
          Where, O Lord, shall I lay it?
God: Your heart’s desire shall you lay nowhere, but in my own divine heart
          and on my human breast. There alone you will find comfort and be
          embraced by my Spirit.

It was her Dominican confessor, Henry of Halle, who encouraged and helped Mechtild to compose The Flowing Light.

Her criticism of church dignitaries, religious laxity as well as her claims to theological insight aroused so much opposition that some called for the burning of her writings. With advancing age, she was not only alone, and the object of much criticism but she also became blind. Around 1272, she joined the Cistercian nunnery at Helfta, who offered her protection and support in the final years of her life, and where she finished writing down the contents of the many divine revelations, she claimed to have experienced. It says much of this community and its Abbess Gertrude, that they would embrace a woman who was over 60 years of age, in poor health and so isolated by society. It is unclear whether she formally joined the Cistercian community or if she simply resided there and participated in the religious services but did not take Cistercian vows.

It is unclear when Mechtild died. 1282 is a commonly cited date, but some scholars believe she lived into the 1290s.

 Written by Peter Gador-Whyte 

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Soren Kierkegaard, Christian thinker

Kierkegaard was at once a devastating critic and a passionate advocate of Christianity. He was a 19^th century Danish thinker, who wrote many books – often with very strange titles – in his own distinctive style and who continues to pose challenging questions to Christians today. Because of his intense focus on the individual person, he is often regarded as the ‘father’ of modern existentialism.

Born in 1813, he felt deeply the death of his mother, three siblings and his father within a short span of years. He felt that there was a curse on his family on account of a great ‘sin’ committed by his father. He felt a misfit in the society of his day and is often called ‘the melancholy Dane’. He broke off an engagement because he would not involve his fiancée in his unusual life and on his death-bed he would not receive holy Communion from a (Lutheran) pastor, ‘the king’s official’.

Kierkegaard was fiercely critical of the way Christianity was practised in Denmark, where the Lutheran church was the state church. ‘Even the cows in Denmark are Christian!’ He could not bear to think that people might live in the illusion of being Christian when they merely ‘played’ at Christianity. What matters is actually to be a Christian; it is not a system of thought simply to be given intellectual assent.

Kierkegaard attacked the very idea of explaining Christianity. He vigorously opposed the philo­sophical system of Hegel, both for its grand metaphysical systematising and for offering an explanation of Christianity at a higher level. Kierkegaard’s writing was a loud protest against this in the name of concrete existence; this made him one of the fore-runners of existentialism. Being based on the ‘Absolute Paradox’ (that God became human), Christianity is not to be explained. A person responds to it in faith and trust, staking one’s whole life on it, like ‘swimming in 20,000 fathoms of water’; not by intellectualising it and trying to prove its truth.

Kierkegaard never fails to challenge, even if he is sometimes shockingly over-stated. His style is deeply ironic, often caustic. If he were writing today, he might have said that faith is like bungy-jumping. This doesn’t say everything to be said about faith, but it does identify something essential to it.

Christiaan Mostert

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Luke, witness to Jesus

Luke (‘the beloved physician’)
(Greek: Loukas = luminous, white)

The name Luke occurs only three times in our New Testament (Philemon 24, ‘. . . Demas and Luke, my fellow workers’; Col 4:14, ‘Luke the beloved physician’; and 2 Timothy 4:11, ‘Only Luke is with me’), but authorship of the third gospel (and by association, The Acts of the Apostles) is also attributed to him from early times. Part of the evidence for this claim comes from the ‘we’ passages in Acts 16:20-21 and 27 onwards, describing sea voyages with Paul, where it seems that the author himself suddenly joins the story in Troas. Luke remains with Paul until the end (Acts 28:16 and 2 Timothy 4:11), though he refrains from telling us the sad story of Paul’s death.

Further evidence in support of these connections is given in the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to the Gospel of Luke, containing the following Greek section that may date as early as the second century:

Luke: a native of Antioch, by profession a physician. He had become a disciple of the apostle Paul and later followed Paul until his (Paul’s) martyrdom. Having served the Lord continuously, unmarried and without children, filled with the Holy Spirit, he died at the age of 84 years in Boeotia (Greece).

It was Luke’s genius that set the story of Jesus in the wider world of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1; 3:1) and then continued it into the story of the earliest followers (Acts). He did this in sensitive continuity with the Jewish traditions, yet in a way that rehabilitated Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, as the great missionary who took the Gospel beyond the boundaries of Judea.

We owe to Luke’s research and 2-volume narrative the conceptual and chronological framework for our understanding of the events following Jesus’ death: from Passover to Pentecost, from First Fruits to the full harvest. We also are indebted to Luke’s honesty for our awareness of the considerable tensions between the earliest communities of Jesus-followers (Acts 6:15; and 21, for example), and for his vibrant portrayal of the movement of God’s Spirit amongst diverse ethnic groups — a movement which the Apostles sometimes struggled to comprehend and affirm.

Traditionally, Luke has been the patron saint of artists, physicians, students, teachers and butchers (Feast Day, October 18). Given the particular emphasis of the Lukan tradition, we might also suggest he should be seen today as patron saint of single people, the childless, researchers, historians, and of multi-ethnic communities.

Contributed by Keith Dyer

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Ulrich Zwingli, reformer of the Church

His father was a respected farmer in Wildhaus, St. Gallen. Two brothers became priests and two sisters nuns. Little is known of his early years but he studied in Basel (1494), Bern (1496-98); Vienna (1498-1502). He gained his MA in 1506. Widely read in the Fathers and current humanism, he was deeply attracted by Erasmus and his scholarship. Ordained in 1506, he became parish priest in Glarus till 1516, taking time out in 1513 and 1515 to be a military chaplain. That experience left him strongly opposed to mercenary service. His next position was at the Benedictine Abbey at Einsiedeln, where he did further study of Greek, using Erasmus’ New Testament and further consolidated his reputation as a fine preacher.

That led in 1518 to an invitation to be people’s priest in the Old Minster in Zurich. Beginning on New Year’s Day, 1519, he undertook to preach through biblical books, instead of confining himself to the readings of the lectionary. At this stage, he had no commitment to reform, but a near-death experience from plague in 1519 altered his priorities, both in his personal life and in his ministry. In 1522, he began to live with Anna Reinhart, a widow, while at the same time criticising abuses in the Zurich churches and community.

His critique of fasting led to disregard of these rules.

The Bishop of Constance was concerned at this breach. Disputations on the matter in January and November, 1523 aroused intense interest and led to the civic authorities removing the Minster from the bishop’s jurisdiction and supporting some of Zwingli’s suggestions for change.

Images, pictures and organs were removed, the Mass was simplified and Zwingli established a combined school and seminary. Religious houses were sold and the proceeds used to set up a welfare fund. A marriage tribunal took over the role of the bishop’s court. Zwingli married his de facto wife in April, 1524.

By 1525, sharp differences were emerging about reform. Some clergy believed that Zwingli was too cautious. They set up fellowships outside parish structures and began re-baptising adults who confessed their faith. Zwingli rejected their views on pure churches and underlined the partnership of Council and Church. Some dissenters were exiled. Others were drowned as a punishment. Such were beginnings of the radical reformation.

Zwingli believed that reforming centres should form political alliances. A conference was held in Marburg in 1529 to this end. Much agreement was achieved, but Luther and Zwingli disagreed about the real presence in the Mass. Zwingli sent a version of his beliefs to the meeting in Augsburg in 1530, hoping that a coalition could be created against the Habsburgs. That was not successful. It was not even possible to achieve a union of Swiss cantons. Attempts to preach reform in the Forest cantons led to civil war and Zwingli’s death at the second Battle of Kappel in November, 1531. Catholicism was allowed back into Zurich.

Zwingli did not establish an international reform movement, but his teaching on God’s sovereignty and covenant, the sacraments and church-state relations brought Word and Spirit together in a vital partnership, which was influential in parts of Germany and the British Isles.

 G.W. Locher, Zwingli’s Thought, 1981; W.P. Stephens, Theology of Huldrych Zwingli, 1986

by Rev Dr Ian Breward

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Seluvaia Ma’u, martyr

The Methodist Church in Tonga first sent Missionaries to their South Pacific neighbours in Samoa in 1835. When the church called for Missionaries to go to Papua New Guinea, Siosaia Lavaka Ma’u from Ha’akio, Vava’u, Tonga and his wife Seluvaia were among the first four to offer to take the Gospel to Papua in 1891. They were sent to work at a place called Genaia, north of Dobu.

Siosaia and Seluvaia were students at Tupou College, the first Secondary School in the South Pacific, founded by Dr. James Egan Moulton. Both families were among those who were persecuted for supporting Wesleyans who remained loyal to the Church in Australia.

They faced many hardships at Genaia, because they were a long way from the towns, but the hardest of all for Siosaia was when his beloved wife and unborn child were murdered. His forgiving spirit is evident as he told the story in a letter to the Overseas Secretary Dr. Brown on the 26^th October 1896:

“I write this letter with loving greetings to you and your wife. All our workers are well and even though I have been struck with a cruel blow, my sorrow is mixed with happiness because I know for sure that Seluvaia is in Heaven.”

Siosaia was asked to to go Samarai to mend the Church’s boat, and to wait for the steamer which brought their supplies. When he returned he found Seluvaia with horrific injuries, and as a result she had lost their unborn child. These things happened early Sunday morning 4 October.

She was able to speak a few words to her husband. “I should have died but I pleaded with the Lord to keep me alive so that the little girl I was holding would be spared. (‘Ana was their adopted daughter) I stayed alive but I fainted from my injuries”. He asked her if she wanted him to tell of these things that had happened and she said, “Yes, give my love to the church. Tell them I send much love and I have peace in my soul”.

Siosaia wrote to the overseas Secretary Dr. Brown passing on Seluvaia’s love. He said she died peacefully and as he watched he knew that she was at peace and happy to leave this world.

When the judge asked the man who did this why he did it, he said that the police had taken his wife from the island of Nivani. He made up his mind to go to Panaieti and kill the missionary’s wife, because she was a foreigner the same as the policeman.

Siosaia said he did not understand the man’s reasoning, because the police did not visit them in their home. What he knew was that the man was afraid to go and look for the police and because he knew that Siosaia was away from home, he decided to murder dear Seluvaia.

“I am not complaining because I know that many have travelled this path to eternal life, to be martyred for the Gospel. Yes, nothing will separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord“, said Siosaia in his letter to Dr. Brown.

On her simple grave read these words:

HERE LIES SELUVAIA, WHO WAS MARTYRED FOR THE GOSPEL

Rev. ‘Isikeli Hau’ofa (Missionary to Papua 1937-1970) visited Seluvaia’s grave in 1970. He spoke to a man who was the son of the lady who was with Seluvaia. He was still young at the time but he remembered witnessing the event. This is what he said:

“When Tonkomkom (the man who attacked Seluvaia) reached the house of the missionary, Seluvaia came out holding her adopted daughter. Tonkomkom used a club to hit Seluvaia on the back of her neck and body, and when she realized that he intended to kill her and the child, she tried to shield the child and bear the blows herself. The village people rushed to her aid and took the child from her and vowed to take revenge but Seluvaia said, “Do no such thing. This is the way for me to reach the Kingdom, and this is the reason I came here.”

Missionary’s wife Mrs. Bartholomew described Seluvaia as a beautiful person, always with a smile who captivated everyone who met her. She was a true servant of Christ, and she was a fine example of humility in the midst of the heathen people. Her home was always spotless and the women of the village were always welcome. They came to watch her sew and weave and she took this opportunity to talk to them about the Gospel. The story of Seluvaia and her courage is well known in the history of the Papuan church, and because of her death, many souls accepted the Gospel.

Written by Rev. Siupeli Taliai whose grandfather, Henry Taliai Lavaka Ma’u, was the younger brother of Rev. Siosaia Lavaka Ma’u.

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Matthew, witness to Jesus

(the evangelist & martyr)
(Greek: Mattheus = given, a reward)

The calling of the tax (or toll) collector Matthew by Jesus is mentioned explicitly in the Gospel that bears his name (Mt 9:9), although Mark and Luke use the name Levi in their parallel stories (Mk 2:14; Lk 5:27). All three Gospels list the name Matthew among the twelve disciples (Mt 10:3; Mk 3:18; Lk 6:15; see also Acts 1:13), and tradition attributes the first Gospel in our NT canon to him.

The Gospel of Matthew has been associated with Antioch (Syria) by many scholars, coming together in the form we know today during the 80s at a time of great division and tension within the Jewish community there. It is not surprising then that this Gospel is in many respects the most Jewish of all (Mt 5:17–20!), whilst also containing the most severe criticism of the Temple authorities and other Jewish leaders (Mt 23; 27:25). Amongst other themes, Matthew’s Gospel is noted for its profound respect for the ‘Law and the Prophets’, the ‘New and the Old’, for the Sermon on the Mount, and for its 12 fulfilment citations of the OT (“This happened in order to fulfil — or to ‘fill up” — what was said in the Prophet/s . . .”).

Traditions about Matthew’s life after the resurrection are not very clear or convincing. One account has him on mission in Ethiopia, and martyred there (by axe).

Traditionally, St Matthew is Patron Saint of tax collectors and accountants. It would be appropriate also to suggest that he be Patron Saint to Jews who continue to wrestle with the Jesus traditions, to the persecuted, and to preachers and orators. His Feast Day is 21^st September (in the West, and 16^th November in the East).

By Dr Keith Dyer

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

John Hunt & Pacific Martyrs, martyrs

The invading Fijian warriors stormed the village. They intended to wipe out its residents. But they felt restrained. They planned to kill all the natives and cast them into ovens to cook them for eating. However, they admitted, they couldn’t carry out their grisly plan because the God of the Christian missionaries was stronger than they were.

The lead missionary of the village on the island of Viwa, John Hunt, had recently witnessed God’s power in another way. Prior to the civil war that brought the warriors rushing into the village, God sparked a spiritual revival in Viwa. In the first week alone over 100 natives confessed their sins. They spent time on their knees as warriors of prayer, unaware that a deadly physical war was about to erupt.

John Hunt was born near Lincoln, England. He engaged in farm work throughout his youth. At age fourteen, John became a Christian. He was eventually invited to become an exhorter at the local Methodist Church. Other speaking opportunities came. His messages won decisions for Christ. He decided to enter full-time ministry.

John studied at the Wesleyan Theological Institute in Hoxton. After graduation, the missions board asked him to consider Fiji. John married Hannah Summers and they departed by ship to the South Pacific.

In 1839, John and Hannah disembarked at a missionary station on Rewa. They soon witnessed the uncivilized Fijian’s ways. The punishment for stealing was usually to have the offending fingers chopped off. The natives purged their population of the sick and aged by strangling them to death. One day the natives of the village where John lived avenged the death of one of their own by killing eleven men from the other village, cutting up their bodies, and cooking and eating them.

John and Hannah Hunt’s lives were sometimes threatened, but they always felt that God protected them. John stated in one of his journal entries, “I feel myself saved from almost all fear though surrounded with men who have scarcely any regard for human life.”

The Hunts relocated to the missionary station at Somosomo and later saw their most rewarding ministry at Viwa.

John preached three times every Sunday and lectured three days a week. He opened a small medical clinic. He routinely sailed to nearby islands that had not heard the gospel message. While keeping up his demanding schedule, John became skilled in the Fijian language and spent what time he could translating the New Testament. God rewarded his efforts.

In 1845, John called a prayer meeting for villagers to confess their sins. They came and expressed their sorrow through sobbing and moaning as they pled for forgiveness. That atmosphere of repentance went on for days. Many came to a sincere confession of faith in Jesus Christ. The queen of Viwa became a devoted Christian. After that, the local beaches flowed with less blood.

John joyously wrote in a letter, “Many who, a little while ago, were among the worst cannibals in the world, are now rejoicing in God their Saviour.”

One of John’s greatest successes was the translation of the New Testament, not only into the Fijian language, but with Fijian idioms. He believed anyone could put Fijian words into sentences, but he gave careful attention to “expressing an idea exactly in the way in which a native would express it if he had the idea in his own mind.”

As he translated, John consulted a Greek Testament and a lexicon. Since so much of the New Testament had no literal equivalent in the Fijian culture, John also relied on help from converts. He completed the New Testament, and it was published in 1847.

William E. Richardson

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Dag Hammarsjkold, faithful servant

Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld, 1905 – 1961, was a Swedish economist and diplomat. He was appointed to the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations replacing the Norwegian Trygve Lie, after his sudden resignation on 10 November 1952. Hammarskjöld was a compromise candidate from unaligned Sweden. He was considered of impeccable diplomatic stock, in fact an aristo-bureaucrat. His father was Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Prime Minister of Sweden, from 1914 to 1917, and mother Agnes Hammarskjöld (née Almquist). Hjalmar Hammarskjöld was a polyglot intellectual, a full professor at Uppsala University, a scientist and a renowned expert in international law.

The young Dag grew up in the rarefied environs of Uppsala Castle, the residence of the Governor of Uppland, another high position his father held for a while. By 1930, Dag had obtained Licentiate of Philosophy and Master of Laws degrees. Before he finished his law degree he had already been appointed Assistant Secretary of the Swedish Government Unemployment Committee. He wrote his economics thesis, and received a doctorate from Stockholm University.

He developed a successful career, becoming the youngest secretary in the history of the Sveriges Riksbank (the Central Bank of Sweden) in 1936 and was soon promoted to serve as the Chairman of the Central Bank. He was the Governor of the Central Bank 1941–1948. Hammarskjöld appears on the new 1000 Kronor denomination note that the Swedish Central Bank recently printed and released.

Although Hammarskjöld served in a Government Cabinet dominated by the Social Democrats from 1949 to 1953, he never officially joined any political party remaining politically unaligned.

He became the Chairman of the Swedish delegation to the UN General Assembly in New York in 1952. The negotiations between the Western powers and the Soviet Union for a replacement as Secretary-General that ensued after Trygve Lies abrupt resignation in late 1952 were unfruitful at first. It was not until March 1953 after further deliberations the French Government put forward four candidates, including Hammarskjöld.

Then the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States all declared for Hammarskjöld. The U.S. State Department authorized the vote for Hammarskjöld after assurances that he ‘may be as good as we can get’. First the Security Council, followed suit by the UN General Assembly, voted to appoint Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General in April 1953. Dag Hammarskjöld was sworn in as Secretary-General on 10 April 1953 and voted in for a second period unanimously in 1957.

Under Hammarskjöld the UN became more actively involved in maintaining World Peace even if that meant sending out UN troops to areas of civil unrest. Hammarskjöld’s second term was cut short when he was killed in an airplane crash while en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo crisis in 1961. He is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize. President John F Kennedy named him one of the finest of statesmen that dedicated his life to serve the peace and the people around the globe. President Kennedy also proclaimed that in Honour and Tribute of Hammarskjöld after his death the National flag should be flown at half-staff on all Government buildings of the United States.

After his passing among his personal effects poems and Haikus were found. They showed another side of the aristocratic diplomat, namely of a deeply spiritual soul on a constant quest for personal enlightenment. The poems were later translated to English by W.H. Auden and appears as Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld in the Vintage Spiritual Classics series.

Like many Swedes today Dag charged his batteries, and took solace from his demanding position, in the natural landscapes of arctic northern Sweden also known as Lappland. This landscape also captured the imagination of Hammarskjöld. Many of his short poems in Japanese Haiku format are based on his brush strokes of poetic language that derive from the innermost depths of his soul and in equal part from observations of the surrounding landscape. Another space where his spirituality took concrete form is in the creation of ‘A Room of Quiet’ at the UN Headquarters. It was personally planned and supervised in every detail by Hammarskjöld and opened in 1957.

The Dag Hammarskjöld pilgrim trail meanders its way from the start at Abisko National Park 100 kilometers west of Kiruna to the Sami village of Nikkaluokta some 105 kilometers to the south. The trail runs through miles upon miles of sweeping high alpine terrain and wideopen spaces under a towering sky. The creation of the pilgrim trail in 2004, complete with seven meditation places inspired by ‘A Room of Quiet’, was a joint project between the northernmost Swedish Lutheran Diocese of Luleå, the Regional Government of North Bothnia and the Swedish Alpine Association. The indigenous Sami people and their organisations were consulted during all phases of the construction of this trail that goes through the heartland of their country.

‘A landscape can sing about God, a body about Spirit’, Markings. D Hammarskjöld translated by W.H. Auden

It is both a treat for the weary and retreat for the mind and soul to do your personal pilgrimage along the Dag Hammarskjöld trail in winter and spring on skis, and in summer and autumn by foot. I believe Dag thought so and this author concurs.

‘A sky as blue
As that above the snow-crest
Before the last ski-run’  

Poem by Dag Hammarskjöld
Translated into English by W.H. Auden

Dr Roger Kalla, Chair of the Swedish Church