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.

Clare & Francis of Assisi, faithful servants

Francis of Assisi (c.1182-1226) and Clare of Assisi (c.1194-1253) are among the best-loved saints in the Christian tradition. Over the centuries they have captured the hearts and imaginations of men and women of all nationalities and creeds. People everywhere have been attracted to their manifest spirituality, their Christlike nature, and their genuine simplicity, devotion and compassion. Their lives are increasingly relevant to today’s world: in 1979 Pope John Paul II named Francis as ‘Patron Saint of Ecology’ and recent studies of Clare portray her not only as a fervent disciple of Francis but also as a new leader of women and ‘a light for our time’. Francis and Clare shared a similar vision—a love of the crucified Christ and a desire to lead a biblically-inspired, simple life modelled on the example of Christ in the Gospels. The chief characteristics of their spirituality may be treated under four headings: poverty, contemplation or prayer, mission and creation.

Francis and Clare embraced voluntary poverty because they wanted to imitate Jesus who had made himself poor for us (2 Cor. 8.9). Christ’s freely-chosen material poverty defined their whole manner of life. Francis’ understanding of poverty was shaped by Christ’s total obedience to the will of the Father. He saw in Jesus’ obedience a revelation of the humility of God. Clare, on the other hand, had a more ascetical understanding of poverty. She focussed her devotion on the ‘poor Christ’. For Clare, the spiritual life consisted of conforming oneself to the poor Christ by the observance of the most perfect poverty. Poverty was the door to contemplation. By living in poverty, Clare maintained, one might enter upon the ‘narrow’ way that leads to the kingdom of heaven. Following Christ’s example, both Clare and Francis vowed to use only that which was needed and to live without owning anything—no lands, no income, no saving up ‘for a rainy day’, no possessions beyond what was needed for daily life. Poverty was a source of their joy and freedom. It was a treasure to be sought, the ‘pearl of great price’.

Both Clare and Francis emphasized the close association between poverty and prayer (contemplation). For Clare, the ‘poor Christ’ was a mirror into which she gazes. She was awe-struck by the poverty of Him who was placed in the manger. She was overwhelmed by the mystery of God’s love that led Christ to suffer on the Cross. Her prayer gives us insight into her life of contemplation: ‘Gaze upon Him, consider (Him), contemplate Him.’ Her way of being was to be a mirror to others living in the world. Clare was careful to point out that no other work was to supersede the spirit of prayer and devotion. For Francis, however, contemplation was focused on the Eucharist. Participation in the Eucharist was tantamount to the apostles’ own experience of being with the earthly and incarnate Jesus. Thus, the mystery of the Eucharist enabled Francis to ‘see’ the poor and crucified Christ and to respond in a similar form of humility. The simple prayer that Francis taught his followers expresses his intense devotion to the Eucharist: ‘We adore You, Lord Jesus Christ, in all your churches throughout the world, and we bless You, for through Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world.’

Francis’ idea of poverty was also linked to his understanding of mission. In poverty Francis found a freedom that fostered reconciliation. In the spirit of poverty he urged his followers to adopt a simple, non-polemical style of missionary presence, to renounce any desire to dominate, and to minister mostly among the poor. Francis was accustomed to saying, ‘The poor are sacraments of Christ for in them we see the poor and humble Christ.’ When a brother asked if it were proper to feed some robbers, he responded affirmatively, for in every person he saw a possible thief and in every thief a possible brother or sister.

Finally, Francis’ concern for the environment was also shaped by his devotion to Christ. While the whole created order is a reminder of God’s goodness and to be received as gift, there are certain things that are worthy of our special love and care because they symbolise aspects of the nature and activity of Christ. Thus, rocks reminded Francis of the rock that was Christ, lambs of the Lamb of God, trees of the Cross, and lights of the Light of the World. In Francis’ magnificent hymn, the ‘Canticle of Brother Son’, he expresses his vision of a reconciled world that reflects the poor and crucified Christ. This, it is commonly said, is the deepest meaning of the Francis’ stigmata: his being becomes what he ‘sees’, he lives the life of Christ as literally as it is humanly possible.

Contributed by William Emilsen

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.

Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), faithful servant

Henri Nouwen was a well-known spiritualist and psychologist whose writings have been available to people in four continents. His teachings have helped seekers to develop authentic paths in providing space for others, for Christ to enter their lives and to make space for themselves.

During my studies at Yale Divinity School I was enrolled as a practical theology major, what we would recognize in Australia as Pastoral Theology. I took my first course taught by Henri in the Spring Semester of 1973. It was called “Ministry as Hospitality.” In that course we students did theological and personal exploration of God’s hospitality to us, how that spoke to our calling to ministry and how we, then, participated in the hospitality of Christ, which was about making space without conditions for others. We were also challenged about being open to the hospitality that we would receive in return. It was a way of recognizing that two people were both strangers in a hospitable space whereby we could offer and receive the gift of the other and no longer be “strangers”.

The hardest part for those of us ministry students out to save the world (or at least those that would eventually be in our pastoral care) was that Henri offered a teaching that challenged our perceived responsibility to change other people.

Instead he wanted us to step back while still being present and to offer others a space in which they could make change. It also meant that we had to be open to being changed by our “guest”.

Henri was a practical teacher. He wanted his students to experience what he was teaching, which included completely new (unfamiliar) ways of being a guest in order to understand how to be a host. One of those experiences was to accompany Henri for a week, in the middle of winter, to Mount Savior, a Benedictine Monastery near Elmira in Western New York State, about 440 km northwest of New York City. Having a fixed idea of what a monastery would look and be like, the first shock was to find that Mount Savior was a fully operational farm with each monk contributing skills that ensured its viability. Interwoven with looking after livestock (and winter work like repairing furniture or re-binding books) was the observance of worship called “vigils”. For a daughter of New England Congregationalism it was a new experience to slide in knee-deep snow down the long hill from the women’s guesthouse for the first vigil of the day, which in February was an hour before dawn. The monks made themselves available for conversations as well as providing spaces of quiet where we could learn to be available for God. Henri was their guest as we were.

Back at Yale Divinity School we would reflect often on that experience and others in learning what it mean to be hospitable in ministry as well as how to do hospitality in ministry. Henri shared with us what it meant to be “useless” for Christ. That is, not becoming trapped by the idea that our ministry to others was valid only if it was “useful” by the standards of contemporary life. This was my first “ministry formation” class—although that language was not used at that time.

Henri was my teacher and later an important friend in the time that followed my years at Yale. His letters to Harry and me during the time of our first child’s illness and death offered love and support and let us know that he felt our pain. Even after he left Yale we would hear from him by letters or through a mutual friend, Virginia (“Enie”) van Dooran, of his continued search for the spaces that would answer his own call to be host and guest in the name of Christ.

It remains important for us to hear Henri’s wisdom, to learn to live in the hospitable space he creates for us in the name of Christ, and to make that space available to others.

Contributed by Meg Herbert

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.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), person of prayer

Hildegard of Bingen, renowned for her spirituality in her day, was a German Benedictine abbess of the twelfth century. She was a poet, theologian, composer, artist, playwright, healer, visionary and advisor to eminent church authorities.  Hildegard was the tenth child of a noble family who, at age eight, went to live with the reclusive Jutta von Spanheim, at the monastery of Saint Disibod in Disibodenberg. She took her vows at 15 and on Jutta’s death in 1136 became leader of the convent.

Hildegard achieved fame when her remarkable work, Scivias, a record of her visions, was approved by Pope Eugenius who publicised it widely. Between 1147 and 1150, over the objections of the officials at Disibodenberg, Hildegard moved her community to Ruperstberg, near Bingen on the Rhine. In 1165, she founded a second convent at Eibingen.

Hildegard, despite frequent attacks of ill health, possessed extraordinary energy. During her long life she produced three books of visionary theology, several collections of writings on natural history and medicine, 77 songs and Ordo Vitutum the earliest surviving liturgical morality play. Hildegard is of contemporary interest with her appreciation of the feminine, her emphasis on the relationship between soul, mind and body.  Her inspirational music has been widely recorded—especially by the group Sequentia.

Since the fifteenth century, when her name was incorporated into the Roman Martyrology, she has been remembered on 17 September. 

Contributed by Carolyn Craig-Emilsen