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 of the Cross, person of prayer

John de Yepes, known as John of the Cross was poet, mystic and reformer, born in 1542 near Avila in Spain. His writing makes clear the spiritual significance of ‘the dark night of the soul’. John became a Carmelite Friar and got to know Teresa of Avila and supported her work for reform within the Carmelite community, introducing the movement to the men. He was imprisoned at Toledo by opponents of the reform in 1577, and treated with great cruelty. He wrote his first poems in this period. After nine months, he escaped and held leadership roles in the reformed group in the 1580s. However, as the reformed group also split, John supported the moderates, was removed from office, and sent to a remote community in Andalusia in 1591. He died there after a severe, three-month illness. It was only after his death that the significance of his thought and work for the community was recognised.

John’s writings flowed from his own experience, and are recognised for their literary beauty as well as their spiritual significance. There are three poems, all with related commentaries by him: The Dark Night of the Soul, The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love, as well as the famous second commentary on Dark Night known as The Ascent of Mount Carmel. An emphasis on trust is God’s grace not worldly success is typical of his thought.

If only people would understand how impossible it is to reach God’s riches and wisdom except by passing through the thicket of toil and suffering! The soul must first put aside every comfort and desire of its own. A soul that truly yearns for divine wisdom begins by yearning to enter the thicket of the Cross.

Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians ‘not to be disheartened by tribulations’ but to be courageous, ‘rooted and grounded in love so that you may grasp, with the saints, the breadth and length and height and depth and the all-surpassing love of the knowledge of Christ, so as to attain the fullness of God himself.’  For the gate to these riches of God’s wisdom is the Cross; many desire the consoling joy to which the Cross leads, but few desire the Cross itself. (The Spiritual Canticle,  37)

With Teresa of Avila, John’s writing on the experience of prayer and growth in the spiritual life are regarded as having a unique authority.

By Dr Katharine Massam

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.

Teresa of Avila, person of prayer

Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was a mystic, reformer of the church and teacher of Christian spiritual life. With John of the Cross she is co-founder of the Discalced (or “shoeless”) Carmelites, who observe a stricter form of monastic life than other communities.

Teresa was born in 1515 in the northern Spanish town of Avila and died at the age of 67 in 1582. Her family, probably converted from Judaism some generations earlier, were merchants and relatively well-off. She was one of 10 children, and a lively, extroverted and idealistic child who, aged about 7, set off with her favourite brother to convert ‘the Moors’ or be beheaded for Christ. An uncle turned them back at the edge of Avila.

She entered the Carmelite community of the Incarnation in Avila at the age of 20, with more determination than enthusiasm and seems to have struggled at first, with periods of paralysis that led to a prolonged stay with her family. However, she persevered, and as a contemporary Carmelite community remembers ‘her great work of reform began with herself’ (http://www.ocd.pcn.net/teresa.htm) with careful observance of the way of life and increasing understanding of God in prayer as the focus and source of all.

A more serious group within the relatively easy-going convent of the Incarnation became interested in living the earlier traditions of Carmelite life, and in 1562 after delays and public outcry against it, Teresa was confirmed as leader of a reformed community at the Convent of St Joseph also in Avila. Over the next 20 years her life combined the practicalities of leadership with intense interior prayer,  From the age of 51 as she founded 17 new houses across Spain and expanded the reform to include the Carmelite men through her collaboration with John of the Cross, although controversy continued and she often had to arrive in town after nightfall to avoid causing a riot.

Her most significant writing is her autobiography (covering up to 1562), The Way of Perfection (for the instruction of her Sisters), The Book of Foundations (a feisty account of establishing new convents), and The Interior Castle (the work considered the best account of her spiritual insight).

Her compelling image of the interior castle stands for the human soul itself. God dwells in the central apartments of the castle, and Teresa traces the journey of the spiritual life from the outer dungeons through other stages in the development of prayerful awareness to the luminous centre. Essentially, being ‘at one’ with God, surrendered to God, the human soul is also at the centre of itself.

Teresa’s prayer also included frank exchanges like that after her cart had overturned and she had watched her luggage fall into the mud.  Asking for an explanation in prayer, she understood Jesus to tell her that this was how he treated his friends. She remarked ‘Then it is no wonder you have so few.’

The apparently flippant remark underpins a more profound theological conviction, that God is to be trusted and that suffering is not necessarily to be avoided. The Way of Perfection develops this idea that growth in spiritual life involves a merging of the self with God’s will.

I believe that love is the measure of our ability to bear crosses, whether great or small. So if you have this love, try not to let the prayers you make to so great a Lord be words of mere politeness, but brace yourselves to suffer what God’s Majesty desires. For if you give God your will in any other way, you are just showing the Lord a precious stone, making as if to give it and begging God to take it, and then, when God’s hand reaches out to do so, taking it back and holding on to it tightly. Such mockery is no fit treatment for One who endured so much for us. … Unless we make a total surrender of our will so that the Lord may do in all things what is best for us in accordance with the divine will, we will never be allowed to drink of the fountain of living water.

Teresa distrusted mystical experience as a distraction from authentic prayer, but could not argue with the reality of what came to her unsought. One such occasion underlined the personal quality of God’s love for her and for each person. She saw a child in a vision asking ‘Who are you?’. She replied ‘I am Teresa of Jesus, who are you?’.  He answered her, ‘I am Jesus of Teresa!’.

In 1970 she became one of the first two women acknowledged as a ’Doctor of the Church’ within the Roman Catholic tradition, so that her writing sits alongside Augustine, Ambrose, Basil and a shortlist of others whose teaching is deemed to have ‘universal significance’.

By Dr Katharine Massam; see Hymn TIS 530 for a prayer of Teresa.

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.

William Tyndale (c.1494-1556), reformer of the Church

Born to a yeoman family in Stinchcombe, Gloucestershire, where Lollard influences appear to have survived, he studied in Magdalen Hall, Oxford from 1510-15, gaining an MA and being ordained, possibly in 1514. He appears to have met Erasmus when he was teaching in Cambridge, gaining from him a passionate commitment to translation of the Bible4 into the vernacular. For some 18 months, he lived with Sir John and Lady Walsh in Little Sodbury, possibly as a tutor, and took a lively part in the theological discussion in their home Suspected of unorthodoxy, he translated Erasmus’ Enchiridion to underline his Christian commitment. He needed episcopal support to translate the New Testament, but Bishop Tunstall of London refused that in late 1523.. Tyndale, however, had built up support among London merchants like Humphrey Monmouth, who later were to help to distribute his translations.

He went to Hamburg in early 1524 and later that year moved to Wittenberg. His New Testament translation was published in Cologne in 1525 and Worms in 1526 after narrowly escaping confiscation by the authorities.  Some copies reached England in 1526. Many were burnt and Sir Thomas More, in his Dialogue concerning heresies published in 1529, attacked numerous alleged errors in translation, claiming that English was not a suitable language for conveying theological truth. Tyndale forcibly replied the following year in Answer to More, to which More replied in his Confutation. Tyndale was living clandestinely in Antwerp, supported by some English merchants there. In addition to continuing his translations, he wrote on aspects of Christian discipleship in Parable of the wicked Mammon and Obedience of a Christian man in 1528 and Practice of prelates in 1530. For a time he was assisted by George Joye, but their partnership broke up because of deep differences over translation.

Thomas Cromwell made several attempts to contact Tyndale through Stephen Vaughan, but his attempts to persuade Tyndale to return home failed, because he did not trust the goodwill of Henry VIII. Fluent in Hebrew and Greek, Tyndale also made discerning use of Luther in Prologue to Romans (1528) the Pentateuch (153o), Jonah (1531), Genesis 1534). He was constantly frustrated by printing mistakes, but was an outstanding translator, putting the Scriptures into vivid and readily understandable English which still resonates with readers.

A sharp critic of the papacy and medieval formularies, he was constantly at the risk of arrest. Finally betrayed by Henry Phillips, he was imprisoned at Vilvorde near Brussels in May, 1534 on the orders of Henry VIII.  His trial for heresy was very comprehensive, but he continued to revise the New Testament and translate the Old Testament. He was strangled and burnt on 6 October, 1536.

Though sometimes abrasive personally, he could also be warm and generous in pastoral care.He demonstrated the positive features of Reformation discipleship.  His translations were incorporated into officially approved English Bibles up to the Authorised Version, so that his influence continued until late in the 20^th century.

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.

Helen Pearl Mackenzie (1913-2009), medical missionary and educator

HELEN Mackenzie, who was instrumental in bringing life and health to many mothers and babies, and training women doctors in obstetrics and gynaecology in postwar Korea, has died at an aged-care facility in Kew. She was 95.

Born in Pusan, Korea, the eldest daughter of five children of the Reverend James and Mary Mackenzie, missionaries of the Presbyterian Church, she was educated at the American Missionary School in Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea. She completed her schooling with one year at Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne.

Helen and her younger sister, Cath, felt called to return to Korea as missionaries and from their childhood experience were convinced that they needed medical training. Helen studied medicine at Melbourne University, and with a friend during holidays she rode a bicycle once to Adelaide and twice to Sydney; they slept in barns and church halls along the way. In her pack was a dress and hat for when she attended church.

Helen graduated as one of the few women do so in medicine in 1938. World War II prevented her from going to Korea, but she gained invaluable experience at Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne, where she became acting medical superintendent. In 1944, Helen and Cath accepted a call from the Church of Christ in China and the following year they established a small hospital in an old Taoist temple in Jianshui, Yunnan. It took some time but the facility was accepted by the people; it was the only “Western medicine” within a three-day journey. Much to their sorrow, they had to leave in 1950 after the communist takeover, not knowing what would happen to the hospital. (In 2007, a colleague travelled to Jianshui and found that the hospital had continued to grow and was now a major part of the provincial hospital.)

On return to Australia, the Mackenzie sisters again hoped to go to Korea, but this time were frustrated by the Korean War. However, in 1951, they were appointed by the Australian Presbyterian Mission Board and in February 1952 eventually landed in Pusan, at that time a city of refugees with overwhelming medical needs. The Korean Ministry of Health and United Nations agencies advised them that the main need was for maternal and child health, something for which the sisters were well suited.

On September 17, 1952, Il Sin Women’s Hospital was opened in a kindergarten hall with 20 beds and a staff of five. The name “Il Sin” was chosen because it was the name of the pre-war Australian mission school, and very appropriate for an obstetric hospital as it means “Daily New”. There were two main objectives. One was to accept anyone who came, irrespective of that person’s ability to pay and regardless of their religion, or lack of any faith. This differed from the local system in which a person had to pay first, and the local church, which felt that a Christian hospital was primarily for Christians.

The Mackenzies, however, were convinced that through the healing ministry, God’s love should be to shown to all. The other main objective was to train women doctors in obstetrics and gynaecology, and nurses in midwifery.

At that time it was difficult for women doctors to get good post-graduate training, and with changes in nursing education, nurses were being given midwifery certificates along with their basic certificate, sometimes not even having seen a normal delivery. Through hard work and determination, using limited and basic resources, the Mackenzies, along with the Korean staff, built the hospital into one that was highly regarded throughout Korea for training and for expert care.

Helen was a brilliant surgeon and a great educator; although often tired given the constant load, she gave of herself for hours in the operating theatre or delivery room. When Helen retired in February 1976, 12 doctors had been trained in obstetrics and gynaecology – and since then another 120 have graduated. Other doctors have been trained in pediatrics, family medicine and anaesthetics, all women except for three or four. By last month, 2599 nurses had graduated as midwives, and 284,655 women delivered of their babies.

After she retired, Helen studied theology at the Melbourne College of Divinity, and wrote a biography of her father titled Mackenzie – Man of Mission (Hyland House, 1995). She also continued her love of music as someone who was able to play many instruments: tuba in her school band, then cello, clarinet, piano, and in her 70s she learnt to play the pipe organ.

Helen received many awards from the Korean Government and in 1962, along with Cath, she was awarded the MBE. In October 2002, she was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in recognition not only of her expertise in this field, although she had not received specialist training, but also of all that she did to train women in that specialty.

Helen is survived by her sisters Lucy Lane and Sheila Krysz, and their families.

Lucy Lane (Helen Mackenzie’s sister)

and Dr Barbara Martin (a colleague)