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.

Augustine of Hippo, Christian thinker

Aurelius Augustinus, arguably perhaps the greatest figure in the Western church, was born at Thagaste in North Africa in 354CE, the son of a devout Christian mother, Monica and a pagan father, Patricius. He lived only five of his 76 years outside of North Africa. Schooled at Madaura and Carthage, his reading of Cicero’s protreptic work Hortensius inspired him at the age of eighteen – the same year when his father died and his own son Adeodatus was born – to pursue Truth. He taught briefly at Thagaste and then at Carthage and then in 383, perhaps to escape the suffocating presence of his mother, he took ship for Rome itself where he accepted an imperial post teaching rhetoric.

In the intervening years, in his quest for truth, he had read the Bible but without real interest and engaged as a hearer with the Manichaean sect. While in the end he ended his association with this group, their influence, positively or negatively, continued to inform his theological development for the rest of his life. After a short stay in Rome he accepted the imperial post of Professor of Rhetoric at Milan and his move there in 384 began for him a journey from Platonism to Christianity, from Milan to Cassiciacum to Ostia to Thagaste and thence to Hippo in North Africa.

In Milan he met the formidable bishop Ambrose who introduced him to (Neo) platonism and to Greek Fathers like Basil. In the garden of his residence at Milan he experienced his famous conversion, went on retreat to Cassiciacum where he wrote his Soliloquies, and thence to Ostia where he experienced his famous vision.

Following Monica’s death he returned to North Africa and Thagaste via Rome and there determined to set up a retreat of sorts for like-minded men. A side-trip to Hippo – and the untimely death of his son – saw a life-changing experience where he was ordained, effectively by force, by the church there, made co-bishop and then, on the death of the bishop in 395, elected in his place.

As bishop he wrote much. Between 397 and 401 he wrote his magisterial Confessions in which he explored the personal life in the context of his own journey to faith. This work is widely regarded as not only a major text in the Christian canon but also in the Western literary canon itself. Over a twenty year period – from 399 to 419 – he wrote the De Trinitate which has so influenced the development of this central doctrine in the Western church. From 411 onwards he began a series of anti-Donatist writings in which he developed his ecclesiological thought. Between 413 and 425 he authored the De Civitate Dei – perhaps it should have been titled A Tale of Two Cities! – in which he presented a way in which human history might be understand as a process in which people either turn towards God or away from God and into themselves. The content is somewhat drawn-out perhaps but the idea is magnificent. From 413 he began his writing against the teaching of the British Pelagius – whom he never actually met in person – and the so-called Pelagians, including the extremist Julian, bishop of Eclanum. His authoritative De natura et gratia in which he outlined his concerns with Pelagius’ own writings – though Augustine managed here to play the ball and not the man, for he clearly regarded him with great respect – and with presenting his notion of original sin [or guilt], that idea with which Augustine is clearly, rightly or not, so identified. The next few years saw other like writings, including the contra Julianum (in six books) and On Grace and Freewill. In his later years he developed and published his Retractationes in which he amended, modified and even dismissed some of his earlier views on a wide range of matters.

In 430, as the Arian Vandals besieged the city of Hippo, the great bishop and Doctor of the Church died. When the Vandals finally entered and burned the city all that they left untouched were Augustine’s cathedral and his library.

by Rev Dr David Mackay-Rankin

 

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.

Bernard of Clairvaux, person of prayer

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was a complex and many-sided character. He was a Cistercian abbot and monastic reformer, a spiritual writer of exceptional depth and beauty, an ecclesiastical statesman who advised kings, cardinals and popes, a preacher of crusades and a dogged opponent of heresy.

He was undoubtedly the most commanding Church leader in the first half of the twelfth century and one of the great spiritual masters of all times. He left his mark on schools of spirituality, monasticism, theology, worship, church music, church administration, art and architecture. Almost everything that he did had a tremendous effect in shaping the course of history.

Born to minor nobility at Fontaines-les-Dijon, Bernard entered the recently founded ‘New Monastery’ of Citeaux in Burgundy, France, in 1112, bringing with him some thirty friends and relatives whom he had persuaded to join him. Three years later, Bernard, then only twenty-four or twenty-five, was sent to found a new monastery at Clairvaux (‘Valley of Light’) in Champagne, which became the most successful Cistercian house in Europe. From this time Bernard’s fame spread and reluctantly he began to enter public affairs. Popes, bishops, abbesses (including Hildegard of Bingen), almost anyone in difficulty, sought his advice and support.

Bernard led a remarkable public life. He intervened (not always appropriately) in ecclesiastical elections to ensure the appointment of reform-minded candidates. He arbitrated disputes and resolved papal schism. He supported bright young men such as Peter Lombard, Robert Pullen (one of the early Masters at Oxford), and John of Salisbury (who became bishop of Chartres). Although a monk he spent more than a third of his time traversing Europe resolving disputes, upbraiding popes and emperor, dislodging archbishops, defending orthodoxy, pursuing heretics, writing prolifically, and leading the broadest reform movement in monastic history. Aware of the incongruity of his busy life, Bernard wrote that, ‘I am like a little bird that has not yet grown feathers, nearly all the time outside its dear nest, at the mercy of wind and storm’. It would be easy to censure Bernard for being drawn so heavily into politics, especially when he preached a very different set of priorities, but his manner of living—struggling to be in the world but not of it—inspired and challenged other spiritual and political leaders of the time to be more devoted to Christ in their daily life.

Primarily, Bernard is remembered as a master of the spiritual life rather than as a statesman or ecclesiastical diplomat. And although his writings were mostly addressed to those living the monastic life, his prayerful, pastoral approach to theology was and still is attractive to many outside monastic cloisters. In Bernard’s theology there is a comprehensive and cohesive ‘theology of experience’. Experience is the distinguishing mark of his thought. His spirituality embraced notions of desire, delight, love, awe, wonder and anticipation. He treated religious experience as the gateway to God, beginning with introspection and self-knowledge and ending with the contemplation of and direct knowledge of God. Bernard effectively took Anselm’s classic dictum, ‘I believe so that I might understand’, so characteristic of the scholastic approach to theology, and supplanted it with one of his own, ‘I believe so that I might experience’.

Bernard speaks of the spiritual life as a kind of interior pilgrimage whereby one passes from lower to higher forms of love. This is clearly illustrated in his little classic On the Love of God where he traces the spiritual journey in terms of four degrees of love: human or carnal love, self-interested love of God; filial love of God; and a selfless love of God. For Bernard the body is important; the spiritual life begins with human nature and utilises human feelings such as desire, friendship, love, affection, and deep and unexplainable attachments to discover one’s capacity and longing for God. Similarly, in Bernard’s great masterpiece, Sermons on the Song of Songs, he discusses various themes on the love of God and the movement towards union with God.

Bernard was one of the few medieval theologians that the Protestant reformers spoke of with praise. Both Luther and Calvin valued him as an ally and quoted him extensively. Luther ranked Bernard alongside the Latin ‘Fathers’ of the Western Church: Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose and Gregory the Great. Luther appreciated Bernard’s devotion to the humanity of Christ and regarded him as an outstanding preacher and witness to the gospel. In recent times Bernard has been described as a ‘forerunner of the Reformation’ and an ‘evangelical Catholic’.

Bernard is a key literary source of hope and encouragement in the Christian life. His influence is still felt in the joyfulness of Francis of Assisi, the devotion in Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, and in the oratorios of J. S. Bach. His theology has much that is worthy of the modern church’s attention. It captures the best elements of both Catholicism and Protestantism. He emphasized teachings precious to Protestants such as confidence in God’s grace, conversion and salvation through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ; he also honoured Catholic teachings on the sacraments, the saints and of the necessity of the Church.

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.

Ann Griffiths, person of prayer

Ann Griffiths (1776-1805) was a prominent Welsh poet and hymn-writer, and a Christian poet of international stature. Although she died at only 29 years of age, this farmer’s daughter from mid-Wales left poems and letters that are considered among the highlights of Welsh literature. Many scholars consider her to be the greatest of Welsh women poets and claim that her stanzas include some of the great Christian poetry of Europe.

Ann Griffiths was born Ann Thomas in Montgomeryshire the daughter of a prosperous farmer, a devout Anglican. In her youth she was known to seek the society of others and enjoyed dancing, a little too much perhaps. In 1796, two years after the death of her mother, Ann was converted by the preaching of a Congregational minister Benjamin Jones. Later, with her family she came under the influence of Thomas Charles a Calvinist Methodist who made a great impression on the young woman’s mind and heart. Calvinistic Methodism was a movement which placed great emphasis not only on the orthodox beliefs of the Christian faith, but on the personal experience of those beliefs, on feeling the truths of the Faith. Until 1811 Welsh Calvinistic Methodism was officially a movement within the Established Church and not a separate denomination.  Members of the movement would meet together in local groups called seiadau (singular seiat, from the English word ‘society’), where they would discuss and examine their religious experiences and receive help and instruction on their spiritual journey. In addition, there was a network of monthly meetings and quarterly association meetings (or sasiynau; singular sasiwn) to superintend the work.

Ann, then, was considered a person whose spiritual experiences were remarkable even at a time of powerful religious awakening. The examples of Ann’s work that have been preserved for us are both the fruit of those intense spiritual experiences and an expression of them. The sum total of her surviving work is small: eight letters and just over 70 stanzas, and only one letter and one stanza in her own hand. Ann Griffith’s poems would probably be called “hymns” but they are not ‘congregational’ hymns. They are more “praise poems” written by Ann as a kind of spiritual journal entry when there was ‘something in particular on her mind.’

The Bible was central to Ann’s life and work and the key to forming and interpreting her experience of God whom she knew through the person of Jesus Christ. The hymns she wrote were centered on the figure of Christ crucified but including imagery from both Testaments. They exhibit an extraordinary emotional fervor and a critical knowledge of the Bible with a combination of intellect and devotion that is remarkable in a woman of her time.
At the same time Ann’s experience of God included having visions of Jesus and she admitted to “visitations”, seeing Christ waiting for her among the myrtles.   Sent into the potato shed to collect potatoes she might be found hours later in a trance. This has given rise to the tendency to call her “a mystic.”

Ann Griffiths died aged 29 after giving birth to her only child who also died and was buried two weeks before her.

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.

Mary Helen MacKillop, Christian pioneer

 Mary Helen MacKillop became the first Australian to be officially recognised for ‘extraordinary holiness’ by the Roman Catholic church in October 2010.  She pioneered a new form of religious community for women, working in twos and threes to respond to the the need for both education in faith and social outreach in colonial Australia, especially among the poor.

A plaque in the footpath in Brunswick St, Fitzroy marks the place where the MacKillops’ rented house stood and where Mary was born on 15 January 1842. She was the first of eight children of Alexander MacKillop and his wife Flora (MacDonald) who had migrated from Inverness, Scotland. She was educated mostly at home by her father. The family finances which were often precarious, and relied on Mary’s income from the time she was 14. She was a clerk in Sands and Kenny stationers (later Sands and MacDougal) for four years, and then teacher in Portland, Victoria before taking a position as governess to her aunt and uncle’s children (the Camerons) in Penola, South Australia.

In Penola she shared her hopes of religious life with the parish priest, Fr Julian Tenison-Woods, and together they developed plans to provide Catholic education to children especially in rural and poor areas.  On 15 August 1867 she took vows as a religious sister within the new community dedicated to St Joseph and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and adopted the name Mary of the Cross. The rule of life of the new community emphasised poverty, dependence on Divine Providence, no private ownership and the openness of the Sisters to go wherever they were needed. In November 1867 Mary’s sisters Annie and Lexie joined the new community, by the end of 1867 there were 10 members, and two years later 72 members running 21 schools as well as outreach and welfare centres.

However, misunderstanding dogged the work, and Mary learnt early to remain serene while being misrepresented and humiliated. The Sisters did not fit traditional European models of cloistered life, and Mary was famously excommunicated in Adelaide for nine months from September 1871 until the sentence was lifted in February 1872, and papal authority for the work confirmed in 1873. Nevertheless, the Sisters’ system of central government (under the director of their own superior rather than the local bishops) remained controversial. In 1883 in the midst of ongoing tensions, Mary transferred the administrative centre to Sydney. She suffered a stroke in 1901, and although mentally alert was an invalid until her death on 8 August1909.

The wideapread publicity around her canonisation in 2010 brought new interest in her life. As the Josephite Sisters continued to remind the public, the conviction that God is to be trusted, that Jesus really is the model of freedom, defined MacKillop’s commitments before anything else. See http://www.marymackillop.org.au/.

Mary modelled a commitment to ‘above all get help in prayer’. Her letters (the bulk of her writing) were often preoccupied with business, but underpinned by faith. She was sustained by her conviction that the human dignity of each person was God-given. Her capacity to speak reverently and carefully even of those who had caused her great pain and damage inspired her Sisters. She was committed to drawing out the best in others, advising: in 1871:  “Make no reserves with God. Reject no-one. You never know what grace can do.”

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.

William Wilberforce, renewer of society

Born on 24 August, 1759 in Hull, Wilberforce was the son of a wealthy merchant, who died in 1768. Brought up by an aunt, he attended Hull Grammar and then St John’s College Cambridge in 1776.  In 1780, he became member for Kingston upon Hull. He was a close friend of William Pitt and an important independent, because of his eloquence and membership of networks. In 1784 he moved to the influential constituency of Yorkshire and travelled round Europe during 1784-85 in the company of Isaac Milner, who guided him into a deeper commitment to Christ and persuaded him to see a parliamentary career as a Christian vocation. He had two priorities – the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners, setting up a society for that purpose in 1787.

Wilberforce married Barbara Spooner in 1797. They had two daughters and four sons, brought up in Clapham, where he was part of an influential network of Christian activists. Concerned about the nominal commitment of many Christians, he wrote a best- selling book of 500 pages in 1797 to challenge their limitations. Entitled A practical view of the prevailing religious system of professed Christians of  the higher and middle classes of this country contrasted with real Christianity, it went through many editions.  Wilberforce wrote passionately about the need for recognition of humanity’s sinful nature, the need for redemption and the importance of holiness, based on total commitment to the crucified and risen Lord. He thus outlined the main features of 19^th century British Evangelicalism and its implications.

In addition, Wilberforce actively supported bodies such as the Church Missionary Society and the Bible Society, as well as assisting Hannah Moore’s work. He worked with Thomas Clarkson to achieve the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, after a wide-ranging combination of debate and publication. Initially supportive of Catholic Emancipation, he became more cautious on this after observing the results of the French Revolution. He helped to open India to Christian missions and was a strong ally of those working for comprehensive Sunday observance.

From 1823, he and his allies worked diligently for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, a goal achieved just three days before his death, 29 July, 1833. Not always sensitive to social injustice in Britain and becoming more conservative in his later years, he nevertheless contributed to many changes which benefited the poor. His example continues to inspire Evangelicals worldwide to work for spiritual renewal and social justice.

by Rev Dr Ian Breward