Odo of Cluny — November 18

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226)
Odo Cluny-11.jpg
11th Century miniature

Bible connection

The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous…It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.—James 3:17-18

All about Odo of Cluny (c. 880-942)

Odo  was the abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Cluny. That community started a huge program of monastic and clerical reform which deeply influenced Europe for centuries.

Odo began his religious life at nineteen as a “canon” (a church leader living with other leaders) of the Church of St. Martin, in Tours, to whom he always had a deep devotion.

When Odo read The Rule of St. Benedict for himself as part of his studies, he was stunned. Judging that his Christian life did not measure up to Benedict’s standard, he decided to become a monk. In 909, Odo went to Beaume, a monastery where the Benedictine rule was strictly observed (unlike many other communities). Abbot Berno received him into the brotherhood.

That same year, Berno started a new monastery at Cluny, about fifty miles south of Beaume, also in Burgundy. He established the new community on the pattern of Beaume, insisting on a rigorous application of the Benedictine Rule. In 927, Odo succeeded Berno as Cluny’s abbot and spread its influence to monasteries all over Europe.

Odo encouraged lax monasteries to return to the original pattern of the Benedictine rule of prayer, manual labor, and community life under the direction of a spiritual father. Under his influence, monasteries chose more worthy abbots, cultivated a more committed spiritual life in the monks, and restored the solemnity of daily worship. As a result, Odo helped lay the foundation for a renewal movement that in two centuries reformed more than a thousand monastic communities and transformed the religious and political life of Europe.

In the following passage, John of Salerno, Odo’s biographer, says he combined his power with wry humor to compel members of his entourage to behave charitably:

The blind and the lame, Odo said, would be the doorkeepers of heaven. Therefore no one ought to drive them away from his house, so that in the future they should not shut the doors of heaven against him. So if one of our servants, not being able to put up with their shameless begging, replied sharply to them or denied them access to the door of our tent, Odo at once rebuked him with threats. Then in the servant’s presence he used to call the poor man and command him, saying, “When this man comes to the gate of heaven, pay him back in the same way.” He said this to frighten the servants, so that they should not act in this way again, and that he might teach them to love charity.

When Odo arrived at Monte Cassino (the original Benedictine monastery) to institute his reforms there and enforce the rule, he was met by armed monks ready to resist the unwanted interference. John of Salerno writes that he gained entry anyway with the disarming words: “I come peacefully—to hurt no one, injure no one, but that I may correct those who are not living according to rule.” [More here]

Along with his other duties, Odo wrote a number of important works, which reveal an original mind attempting to make sense of 10th-century society.

  • The Collationes (Conferences) is both a commentary on the virtues and vices of men in society and a spiritual meditation modeled on a work of the same name by the monk and theologian John Cassian (360–435).
  • De vita sancti Gerardi  (Life of St. Gerald of Aurillac) presents an exemplary warrior who fights only for peace, refuses to shed blood, attends Mass regularly, and is a model of humility, sobriety, and other virtues. The life of Gerald is one of the first depictions of a saintly layman—rather than a bishop, monk, or king—in medieval literature.

The Dialogue on Music was attributed to Odo, although it is unlikely he wrote it. Yet the attribution indicates he had a lively interest in the music developing in his day. He may have been the first to use seven letters for pitches (do-re-mi…) and some attribute to him the first clear discussion and illustration of organum.

He was also a diplomat. At the pope’s request, Odo traveled to Rome three times to pacify relations between Hugh, king of Italy and Alberic, called the Patrician (or Dictator) of the Romans. On each of these trips Odo took the opportunity to introduce the Cluniac reform to monasteries enroute. On returning from Rome in 942, he became sick and stopped at the monastery of St. Julian in Tours for the celebration of the feast day of St. Martin. He took part in the celebrations on November 11 and after a lingering illness died on November 18. During his last illness, he composed a hymn in honor of Martin.

More

The Abbey of Cluny is ten minutes from the Taize Community. 

Brief history of the Abbey.

Poem by Odo. Hymn to St. Martin.

This prayer guide from Bangalore/Bengaluru, India is fascinating.

The Odo Ensemble, based at Cluny.

What do we do with this?

Admiration for a saint can lead to saintliness. Odo of Cluny was deeply devoted to St. Martin of Tours and as a young student imitated Martin in his love of beggars. He always kept the example of Martin as his guide. Who are your favorite guides?

Perhaps the poor we refuse to care for, or people we snub will be our greeters after death. Imagine the person meeting us at heaven’s gate will be the person we have offended most, now empowered to welcome or to reject us. That thought might make us hurry to be reconciled with anyone we have hurt.

The church in the United States has a “lax rule” and is embroiled in corrupt politics and many scandals. Will you desert Jesus as a result? Or will you refocus on a true “rule” and transform the society?

Hild — November 17

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226),

Bible connection

Read Matthew 10:5-15

You received without having to pay. Therefore, give without demanding payment.

All about Hild of Whitby (614-680)

Hild (or Hilda) lived in the 7th Century and made her mark in the kingdom of Northumbria, now part of England. She took her first vows as a nun somewhat later in life, at the age of 33, but managed to help start several monasteries and become the founding Abbess at Whitby, a monastery where both men and women lived according to their rule. Her reputation for wise counsel made her a sought-after adviser to several kings and was crucial to the conversion of much her territory to Christianity. She is still known for her great love and devotion to people of “low estate.” [The Three Estates was a social hierarchy in medieval Europe that categorized people into the clergy (First Estate), nobility (Second Estate), and peasantry (Third Estate). The commoners, or Third Estate, were considered the lowest order and were largely excluded from political power. See also Romans 12:16 and  the carol “What Child is This?” And also note that people who think of themselves as “low estate” also need looking out for.]

While Hild’s Celtic people were pushed further and further North by the pagan groups such as the Saxons, a vital mission to the invaders remained. The church in Rome often competed with the Celtic tradition, and Hild was known for helping to settle the big question of when Easter would be celebrated. This was just one example of the peacemaking she was known for in rather turbulent times.

Her relationship with the farmhand, Caedmon, is a good example of her devotion to developing regular people. She recognized Caedmon’s gifts for music and poetry and encouraged them. He became the first published poet in English.

We mostly know about Hild from Bede’s Ecclesistical History. In it we often read about miracles accompanying his subject’s death. These miracles seem more likely when we remember they occurred among people who keep a common schedule and regimen of prayer, who are sealed by a common love for God and one another. Here is an example from his account of Hild:

It is also told, that her death was, in a vision, made known the same night to one of the virgins dedicated to God, who loved her with a great love, in the same monastery where the said handmaid of God died. This nun saw her soul ascend to heaven in the company of angels; and this she openly declared, in the very same hour that it happened, to those handmaids of Christ that were with her; and aroused them to pray for her soul, even before the rest of the community had heard of her death. The truth of which was known to the whole community in the morning. This same nun was at that time with some other handmaids of Christ, in the remotest part of the monastery, where the women who had lately entered the monastic life were wont to pass their time of probation, till they were instructed according to rule, and admitted into the fellowship of the community.

More

Saint Hilda’s snakes

Nicola Griffith’s novel expands on Bede’s account

Malcolm Guite’s tribute.

Whitby Abbey ruins [link]. A love letter to Whitby was a pandemic project for these folks. [beautiful].

Three-minute bio:

Some teaching Rod took from Hild about women leaders.

What do we do with this?

Hild was an unusual leader, mainly because she was a woman leading men in a time when that was almost unheard of. You’ve probably been led by a few church leaders who were unheard of before they got tapped, as well — maybe it was you! She was also a leader in difficult times when the church was challenged by antagonists and also divided from within. Her native Celtic church was being overrun by the legalists from Rome who desired to unite the church under the monarchy of the Pope.

The United States and the Church worldwide are changing. In some instances, old and better ways provide an alternative to the turmoil and self-interest around us. Like Hild, look around your church — start with the places you touch most directly, and notice the gifts and love the Spirit God is providing to make Jesus known and followed.

Lucretia Mott — November 11

North America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Lucretia Mott
Mott in the foreground of the Portrait Monument in the Capitol Rotunda. 

Bible connection

Read Jude 1:20-23

Have mercy on those who doubt. Save some by snatching them from the fire.

All about Lucretia Mott (1793-1880)

Lucretia Mott (U.S. National Park Service)Lucretia Mott became a Quaker minister at 25. Her whole adult life was devoted to church reform, women’s rights, and the abolition of slavery.

In her bid to end the evil of slavery, she and others refused to use cotton cloth, cane sugar, and other slave-produced goods as part of their protest. In 1833 Mott, along with Mary Ann M’Clintock and nearly 30 other female abolitionists, organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. She later served as a delegate from that organization to the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. After passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, her Pennsylvania home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. In 1866, Mott became the first president of the American Equal Rights Association.

In 1848 Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton held the Seneca Falls Convention advocating rights for women. Stanton remembered after she died, “When I first heard from the lips of Lucretia Mott that I had the same right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin and John Knox had, it was like suddenly coming into the rays of the noon-day sun, after wandering with a rushlight in the caves of the earth.” Mott was admired by followers and opponents for her clear thinking, passion, uncompromising convictions and courageous action.

At the convention, Mott presented the “Declaration of Sentiments,” [Fan favorite in light of recent events: “He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.” The resolutions attached included equal including property rights, the right to divorce, increased access to education, and the right to vote.

The last sentiment, voting rights, divided the convention; however, it was ultimately included in the Declaration and became the foundation of the women’s suffrage movement. It was forty years after Mott died before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote in 1920.

Mott’s fight for women’s rights included education. Her most famous work: Discourse on Woman, was published in 1849. She led the founding of Moore College of Art and the Medical College of Pennsylvania, both in Philadelphia. She was one of the founders of Swarthmore College.

Quotes:

  • We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.
  • It is not Christianity, but priestcraft that has subjected woman as we find her.
  • The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.
  • Any great change must expect opposition, because it shakes the very foundation of privilege.
  • I have no idea of submitting tamely to injustice inflicted either on me or on the slave. I will oppose it with all the moral powers with which I am endowed. I am no advocate of passivity.
  • It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practice is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ.

More

Exterior, Lucretia Mott is in the chair in the foreground.
Lucretia Mott at Roadside

Explore PA History supplies a good bio giving background for the historical marker at the site of “Roadside” (Old York Rd. and Latham Park in Elkins Park). The Mott family moved from 1316 Chestnut to this country house in 1857 and Mott died there. It was torn down by a developer in 1912.

“Lucretia Mott, the Brazen Infidel, ” a bio from the Unitarians [link]

Video from series on Philadelphia Women:

What do we do with this?

Lucretia Mott is such an inspiring example. What movement is God starting with us? Will we have the faith and courage to follow through?

Mott was among those who were disappointed the 15th Amendment gave the right to vote to black men, but not women. Radical and conservative reactions to that event divided the suffragist movement until it reunited in 1890. Have you ever been in a social action movement that divided and failed? James notes how common this is: “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. “ (James 4:1-2)

Name the evil against which you should be organizing. Take the lead, or join in.

Sundhar Singh — November 4

Asia, The Modern Era (1227-1936), , , , ,

Sadhu Sundar Singh Books E-books - PDF

Bible connection

As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. — 1 John 2:27

All about Sundar Singh (1889 – ca. 1929)

Sadhu Sundar Singh was born on September 3, 1889 into a rich Sikh family in Punjab. His mother was a pious woman who had a strong influence in his life. Her prayer was that her youngest son, Sundar, would renounce the world and become a Sadhu (or saintly wise man). She nurtured Sundar Singh in the Sikh and Hindu holy books. Her death when Sundar was only fourteen dealt her son a severe blow. He desperately searched for peace and began reading all sorts of religious books and practicing Yoga. His father put him in a Christian mission school in his village where Sundar developed a profound hatred for Christians. He went to the extent of tearing up a Bible and burning it into pieces.

Lost In despair, Sundar resolved to commit suicide if he failed to get a revelation of the living God. Early in the morning on Dec 18, 1904, he begged God to show him the way of salvation and determined to end his life on the railway track if his prayers were unanswered. At half past four a bright light shone in his room and he had a vision of Jesus. Sundar heard Christ speaking to him, “How long will you persecute me? I died for you, I gave my life for you.” Sundar Singh fell down in worship and surrendered his life to Christ.

This vision forever convinced him that he had seen the true God and it sustained him during the coming persecution. When he cut his long hair to renounce his religion, it was considered as a shame on the whole Sikh community and an unforgivable disobedience. His family poisoned the food he ate and sent him out of the house. He was miraculously saved by the grace of God and timely treatment given by nearby Christian villagers.

Thirty-three days after his baptism at sixteen years old, Sundar Singh began his life as a Christian sadhu. He was distressed to see the Indian church inculcating Western culture, imitating its customs, and failing to present the gospel in Indian terms. Sundar Singh knew that a life of a sadhu was the best way to present the gospel message of Christ to Indians. His yellow robe won him admission into many villages and people listened to him. He wandered barefoot, without any possessions except his thin linen garment, a blanket and a New Testament in Urdu. He preached the Gospel in villages near his home, then he traveled through Punjab to Afghanistan and Kashmir, lands where Christian mission work had hardly begun.

On his travels, Sundar Singh met Samuel Stokes, a wealthy American who came to India to work with lepers and briefly formed and travelled with a Franciscan Friary. Sundar joined with him for some time in ministry. He learned from him the ideals of Francis of Assisi; his life as a preaching friar inspired him.

Sundar Singh was always convinced that the water of life should be offered in the Indian cup. His short stint to equip himself with theological training at St. John’s Divinity College in Lahore in 1909 was largely unfruitful. Sundar considered that religious knowledge of the highest kind is acquired not by intellectual study but by direct contact with Christ. He even surrendered his preaching license from the Anglican church because he did not want to be constrained by a diocese. His call was to be a free agent without holding any office and to take the message of Jesus Christ to all churches and people of all faiths.

Tibet had always been a closed land for Christian missionaries as it was a strong Buddhist nation. Sundar Singh had a special burden for ministry in Tibet. It became his mission field and between 1908-1920 he reportedly made up to twenty risky trips to the country. In spite of stubborn opposition from the Lamas, his message was received in the important town of Tashigang. After returning from a trip to Tibet in 1912 he claimed to have met a guru connected to a Sanyasi (mendicant) Mission who were a secret Christian brotherhood numbering around 24,000. Some detractors loudly criticized what they said was a fantasy.

By 1918 Singh’s fame had spread far and wide and he was flooded with offers to preach all over South India. Thousands of people flocked to his meetings to hear him. He went to Ceylon to conduct powerful meetings six weeks. He was greatly disturbed by the caste system prevailing in these regions and condemned it severely. His ministry extended to Burma, Malaya, Penang, Singapore, China and Japan.

Sundar Singh had the joy of leading his father to Christ in the year 1919. His father sponsored him for his first journey to Europe. Sundar Singh was eager to find out the truth of the accusation that Christianity in the West had lost its splendor. He set off on a tour to England in January, 1920. He stayed in England for three months and went to America and Australia. He addressed huge gatherings everywhere to crowds of all denominations. Sundar Singh found the West to be indifferent to spiritual values and materialistic in their world view. While some people criticized him for his frank judgments, many were challenged and converted by his preaching.

Sundar Singh made a second trip to Europe and visited Palestine to satisfy his long cherished dream of seeing the Holy Land. He preached in most of the European countries to big audiences. It is indeed noteworthy to see an Indian presenting the message of the gospel to the Western world. However, Sundar Singh was disillusioned by the nominal Christianity and immorality of large sections of people in Europe. The Sadhu preferred the hardships of Tibet to the adulation of the Christian countries of the Western world.

Sadhu Sundar Singh experienced numerous miracles in his life which saved him from grave dangers. Once when he was in Tibet in a place called Risar, he was arrested for preaching a foreign religion and cast into a dry well outside the village. The well-pit was foul with rotten bodies and the top cover was locked. For two nights he trapped with little hope of survival. But the third night he saw the cover open and rope being let down and he was pulled up. The Sadhu was convinced that it was an angel of the Lord who helped him. Similarly, he experienced divine help many times when he was beaten up and persecuted.

Sundar Singh also experienced spiritual visions. He was in constant communion with Christ. He received ecstatic gifts from God when he saw visions as frequently as eight to ten times a month which lasted an hour or two. They were not in a dream state and the Sadhu was conscious of what was happening. His spiritual eyes were opened to see the glory of the heavenly sphere and walk there with Christ and converse with angels and spirits. This resulted in severe criticism and he was even called as an impostor and his imaginations as product of a diseased mind. But those who knew the Sadhu personally and witnessed his spiritual life never doubted his sincerity.

In 1923, Sundar Singh bought his own house in Subathu where he rested for almost three years because of heart attacks, trouble with eyesight, ulcers and several other complications which confined him to his home. The busy tours abroad and constant travel and preaching engagements took their toll on him. The Sadhu started contributing to articles in magazine and also writing his own books which amounted to seven thin volumes written in Urdu and translated into English with the assistance of his friends. The bulk of his writings contained messages he received through visions. His writings were influential and touched the lives of many people.

The Sadhu had a burning desire in his heart to visit Tibet again. He was strongly advised not to do so because of his ill health. When he attempted to go to Tibet in 1927, he suffered a severe hemorrhage of the stomach and had to be brought back. In April 1929, at the age of 39, Sundar determined to make another attempt to reach Tibet. He left instructions about his will and bid farewell to his friends. It was his last journey to Tibet and he was never to be seen again. Anxious friends made the efforts to trace him but to no avail. His death added one more mystery to a life which few people completely understood. We remember him on this day, although no one knows when he died.

Quotes

  • The Indian Seer lost God in Nature; the Christian mystic, on the other hand, finds God in Nature. The Hindu mystic believes that God and Nature are one and the same; the Christian mystic knows that there must be a Creator to account for the universe.
  • One day after a long journey, I rested in front of a house. Suddenly a sparrow came towards me blown helplessly by a strong wind. From another direction, an eagle dived to catch the panicky sparrow. Threatened from different directions, the sparrow flew into my lap. By choice, it would not normally do that. However, the little bird was seeking for a refuge from a great danger. Likewise, the violent winds of suffering and trouble blow us into the Lord’s protective hands.
  • Should I worship Him from fear of hell, may I be cast into it. Should I serve Him from desire of gaining heaven, may He keep me out. But should I worship Him from love alone, He reveals Himself to me, that my whole heart may be filled with His love and presence
  • From my many years experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.
  • “In a Tibetan village I noticed a crowd of people standing under a burning tree and looking up into the branches. I came near and discovered in the branches a bird which was anxiously flying round a nest full of young ones. The mother bird wanted to save her little ones, but she could not. When the fire reached the nest the people waited breathlessly to see what she would do. No one could climb the tree, no one could help her. Now she could easily have saved her own life by flight, but instead of fleeing she sat down on the nest, covering the little ones carefully with her wings. The fire seized her and burnt her to ashes. She showed her love to her little ones by giving her life for them. If then, this little insignificant creature had such love, how much more must our Heavenly Father love His children, the Creator love His creatures!”

More

  • Biography by Phyllis Thompson
  • Nine minutes of reading with nice music.
  • A Ken Anderson (1917-2006) film from 1969. (Liam Neeson’s first role was as “Evangelist” in Anderson’s Pilgrim’s Progress. )

What do we do with this?

Sundar Singh is still misunderstood. Westerners have combed his writings for flaws and syncretism. He may have veered toward Swedenborgian ideas and back. He may have turned the gospel in Hindu and Buddhist directions. He has been called a Universalist. He was an evangelist in Sadhu clothing. You’ll have to decide what orthodoxy means to you. Singh was less interested in orthodoxy than in getting the gospel to Indians, who knew more about Western culture than they did about Jesus.

What is your evangelism like? Do you have a strategy (or just a criticism about the strategies of others)?

Ask God for a vision of his presence and a call that is worth giving your life to completely.

Martin de Porres — November 3

South America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Icon by Robert Lentz

Bible Connection

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.  — 2 Corinthians 8:9

All about Martin de Porres (1579-1639)

Martin de Porres could have grown into a bitter man. In his day people of “mixed blood” were called “half-breed” or “war souvenir” by those of “pure” blood. He did not grow bitter. It was said that even as a child he gave his heart and his goods to the poor and despised.

He was the son of a freed woman from Panama (probably black but also possibly indigenous) and a Spanish aristocrat from Lima, Peru. His parents never married each other. Martin inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother. That disturbed his father, who finally acknowledged his son after eight years. After the birth of a sister, the father abandoned the family. Martin was reared in poverty, locked into a low level of Lima’s society.

When he was 12, his mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon. Martin learned how to cut hair and also how to draw blood, a standard medical treatment then; to care for wounds; and to prepare and administer medicines.

After a few years in this medical role, Martin applied to the Dominicans to be a “lay helper.” He did not feel worthy to be a religious brother. After nine years, the example of his prayer and penance, charity and humility, led the community to ask him to make full religious profession. Many of his nights were spent in prayer and penitential practices. His days were filled with nursing the sick and caring for the poor.

People noted how he cared for all people equally, regardless of their color, race, or status. He was instrumental in founding an orphanage, took care of slaves brought from Africa, and managed the daily alms of the priory with practicality, as well as generosity. He became the financial manager for both his priory and the city of Lima, whether it was a matter of “blankets, shirts, candles, candy, miracles or prayers!” When his priory was in debt, he said, “I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am the property of the order. Sell me.”

His main work was in the kitchen, laundry, and infirmary. But in every situation, Martin’s life was filled with the Spirit. Stories tell how ecstasies lifted him into the air, how light filled the room where he prayed, how he could be in two places at once, how he had miraculous knowledge, how he effected instantaneous cures, and how he had a remarkable rapport with animals. Many people in his religious order took Martin as their spiritual director, but he continued to call himself a “poor slave.”

More

What do we do with this?

Racism is a sin that too few confess. Like pollution, it is a “sin of the world” that is everybody’s responsibility but apparently nobody’s fault. One could hardly imagine a more fitting patron of Christian forgiveness -– on the part of those discriminated against — and Christian justice — on the part of reformed racists — than Martin de Porres.

The symbols that reflect his character and work are represented in the icon above. As you gaze at the image, relate to the man. What might be painted in an icon of you? Who is an influential person in relation to your spiritual development? What would be pictured in their icon?

Keep your attention on Martin de Porres until God gives you the message he would like to deliver through Martin or deliver through your experience of his icon.

All Saints Day — October 31-November 2

Holy Days, ,

Bible Connection

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. — Hebrews 11-12:3

All about All Saints Day

All Saints Day is one of the major festivals of the Christian Year. November 1 is a feast  day when we remember and celebrate all the Jesus followers who have departed this time in faith. It is a celebration of the transhistorical body of Christ, who was and is and is to come.  It is a time to remember our place in eternity with Jesus.

When we say “saint” we mean it like the Bible writers meant it. A “holy one” in the New Testament designates anyone who is a faithful Jesus follower, living or dead.  In Revelation 2:10 Jesus says, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” So the symbols of the crown of thorns and a crown of victory often mark the day and remind us of our own victory over death. As we enter the “dying” season of the year, we soberly set off on our own pilgrimage through death to life, which will come to full bloom next Easter.

Of all days, we are sure to assert with Paul on All Saints Day:

I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. — Philippians 3:8-11

The triduum

“Triduum” is a Latin word the church still uses to denote a three-day observance. All Saints Day is central to what became a triduum that used to commonly be called “Hallowmas,” (the short form of All Hallows Mass). It is preceded by Hallowe’en (short for All Hallows Eve) and is followed by All Souls Day. The whole triduum is mainly a “memorial day” for remembering the people of faith who have died. Not only are we inspired by them to triumph over our own troubles, we use the day to encourage one another to keep faith in the face of death.

Commemorating the martyrs of the faith with a regular holy-day began as early as the 4th Century. All Hallows Day used to be celebrated in the spring. But in the eighth century it was transferred to November (in places connected to Rome), where it became the climax of the autumn season, a harvest festival celebrating everyone planted with faith and now gone to seed. The celebration was contrary to European traditions of communing with the dead and supplanted or incorporated those observances. As Christianity expanded from its original territories, the church confronted pagan rites that appeased the “gods” of death and evil spirits. They did not simply speak out; they asserted alternatives. All Saints Day was placed on November 1 in 835; All Souls Day on November 2 in 998.

Over the centuries this celebration has been overlaid with the church’s imagination about the “immortality of the soul” and how a person satisfies the requirements for “going to heaven.” It has also been overlaid with all sorts of pre-Christian and non-Christian observances of death and the afterlife. In the United States, there is, at present, a renewed interest in Hallowe’en and the Day of the Dead, which are the days of the three-day observance that are most prone to abuse. They have become major holidays filled with lights and parades. So the whole holiday is worth studying, so we don’t fall into nonsense (or just swallow it whole) and don’t allow the church to lose honor because it is tied to falsity we can’t explain.

Here are some of the problems:

  • All Saints Day (Nov. 1): Some people considered this celebration of all the saints, known and unknown, to be a very powerful day against the forces of evil, since all the intercession of the company of heroes could be called upon at once.

The concept of All Saints Day is connected to the doctrine of The Communion of Saints. This is the Catholic teaching that all of God’s people, on heaven, earth, and in the state of purification (Purgatory), are spiritually connected and united. They are just as alive as those on earth (their body dead, but their immortal souls alive), and are constantly interceding on our behalf.

Jesus has introduced his followers into an eternal now, but our full experience of that union awaits the final day when the dead are raised. We will always be embodied spirits, as we were created to be.

  • Hallowe’en (October 31): Many customs of Hallowe’en reflect the Christian belief that during the vigil before the feast of all saints we mock evil, because as Christians it has no real power over us. Various customs developed related to Hallowe’en in the Middle Ages. For instance, poor people in the community begged for “soul cakes,” and upon receiving these doughnuts, they would agree to pray for departed souls. Some say this is the root of our modern day “trick-or-treat.” The custom of masks and costumes developed to mock evil and perhaps confuse the evil spirits by dressing as one of their own.
Witch costumes 1910

In what became the “British Isles” (and Great Britain’s colonies) Hallowe’en incorporated some of the characteristics of the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (saa-win), since All Saints Day occurs at the same time of the year. The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season, and is sometimes regarded as the “Celtic New Year.” Traditionally, the festival was a time to take stock of supplies and to slaughter livestock for winter storage. People believed that on October 31, the boundary between the alive (summer) and the deceased (winter) was so thin it dissolved, and the dead became dangerous to the living by causing problems such as sickness or crop damage. The observance frequently involved bonfires, into which bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.

For the Druid priests, October 31 was New Year’s Eve, a night of evil and terror when all hell broke loose. Goblins and ghosts were abroad that night, while witches celebrated their black rites as the spirits and souls of the dead roamed the earth — especially dead children and babies. To frighten the evil spirits and to bolster their own sagging spirits, people created a din with bells, horns, pots and pans (just as many still do at midnight on December 31st) and kept the bonfires burning to frighten the witches or perhaps burn them if they were caught. On the afternoon of October 31st, village boys would go from house to house collecting fuel for the midnight fires. Everyone was expected to contribute some peat or “coal pieces” to help burn the witches. Those who did not contribute received dire warnings of the evil consequences that might follow.

In 2 Corinthians 5:8 Paul says, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” This at least implies that there is no interim place where disembodied souls are left waiting to enter heaven or hell. The Bible says many times that our death is like falling asleep and our resurrection is like waking up. The interim is is of no matter to our timeless God; it is like an instant, even if, according to our earthbound understanding, it is a thousand years.

  • All Souls Day (November 2): This day is also called the Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos. Most people use it as a day to remember and offer prayers up on behalf of all of the faithful departed they have known, as in creating an “altar” with a picture of your sainted mother. People may go to the cemetery for a picnic or have a party featuring the favorite foods of the departed, placed as offerings on the altar. Mexico has an especially rich tradition for this day, so you may be familiar with pan deMy personal review of Pixar's newest movie: 'Coco'. — Karina Mora muerto (traditional pastries), and cempasuchitl (marigold flowers: used for the vibrant color that can guide the dead to the right place and for their traditional healing powers in Aztec medicine). Or you may be familiar with the Disney movie. Officially, this is a day to pray for the departed who haven’t made it to Paradise, who are awaiting their purification in purgatory, which, in itself, is a problem.

Unofficially, people think the Day of the Dead is the day when adult ghosts are loosened to roam the earth. People take to the streets to mock them. The fiesta is full of humor calling death la calaca (skeleton) or la flaca (skinny). Paintings and figurines depict skeletons in everyday life. Stories and cartoons show how humans have cheated or defeated death.

The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and brought them out during a month long ritual that became associated with November 2. The skulls were used to symbolize death and rebirth and to honor the dead, whom the Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations believed came back to visit during this part of the year. Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake.

In the Bible we are warned not to go to spirits and soothsayers in Isaiah 8:19: “Should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” The Bible warns us not to consult with (or make inquiries of) the dead, as is often done on the Day of the Dead.

More

Share Faith sums it up with another description.

Eddie G explains the Day of the Dead.

Allan Parr gives a Bible study about celebrating Halloween for Christians.

Some Mennonites celebrate Eternity Sunday adjacent to All Saints Day. Try this pray with them. [link]

What do we do with this?

Ralph Vaughn Williams hymn For All the Saints is the classic hymn for All Saints Day. Spend a few minutes meditating with it and praising Jesus giving us life and courage to face death, especially death because of our faith.

We have a chance on All Saints Day, not only to remember those heroes of the faith (like in Hebrews 11), but to remember beloved saints we have lost personally. It is a good day to look back and show honor and respect as well as to mourn.

  • We remember all the saints who don’t have a specific feast day.
  • We remember the spiritual ancestors who inspire us on our journey.
  • We remember the partners in our church as well as members of our extended Christian family who have died.

What’s more, we can ponder our own deaths and what spiritual legacy we would like to leave. We are one of all the saints, too!

Many groups, especially Asian Americans, use All Saints Day as an opportunity to remember and respect family members who are elderly or who have lived in other generations. The day is a good time for tell stories about where our families came from and lived, what their lives were like, and what values they have passed on to us.

Pray this prayer with the UMC brothers and sisters: [link]

Christophe Munzihirwa — October 29

Africa, This century (1937-2024)

Bible connection

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this:

‘Blessed are the dead,
those who die in the Lord from this moment on!’”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “so they can rest from their hard work, because their deeds will follow them.” — Revelation 14:13

All about Christophe Munzihirwa (1926-1996)

Christophe Munzihirwa was born in Sud-Kivu Province, in the Belgian Congo.  In 1958 he was ordained as a priest. In 1968 he joined the Jesuit Order, from whom the first Catholic missionaries were sent to the Congo. He studied social science and economics in Belgium, but returned to his country in 1969, nine years after independence, to become the formation director for Jesuits in the Kinshasha province (now home to one of the largest and youngest cities in Africa)

Munzihirwa’s prophetic streak surfaced in 1971, when the government of CIA-backed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko responded to a youth protest movement by forcibly enrolling university-age persons, including seminarians, in the military for two years. Munzihirwa insisted on being enlisted alongside his novices, much to the embarrassment of the regime.

Munzihirwa became the Jesuit provincial superior for Central Africa in 1980. In 1986 he was made a coadjutor bishop in Kasongo, and in 1993 he became archbishop of Bukavu.

Munzihirwa earned fame for his refusal to accept patronage from Mobutu. That occasionally created obstacles for him, as in 1995 when a Catholic missionary and members of an international solidarity movement were arrested in Kasongo. When Munzihirwa demanded their release, military officials taunted him for not being a “friend” of Mobutu. Munzihirwa solved the problem by saying that until the group was let go, he would sleep outside their cell. They were freed that evening.

Munzihirwa was unafraid to denounce what he considered military misconduct. During a mid-1990s mass to install a new bishop in Kasongo, in a time in which Mobutu had ordered the city sacked because he believed it was harboring dissenters, Munzihirwa said: “Here before me I see these soldiers. I see the colonel. Stop troubling the people! I ask you, I order you: Stop it!” The commander wanted Munzihirwa taken into custody, and he replied: “I am ready. Arrest me.” Other bishops present, however, intervened and prevented the arrest.

That intervention notwithstanding, Munzihirwa’s criticisms of Mobutu often left him isolated within Zaire’s bishops’ conference. In 1995, a missionary asked him why the bishops were not more outspoken, and he replied: “Father, you can’t imagine. We are just a short distance removed from being part of the presidential mouvance,” a French term meaning “inner circle” or “movement.”

After the genocide began in Rwanda in 1994, Munzihirwa became an outspoken protector of the Hutu refugees who flooded his diocese. He recognized that a few had committed atrocities against Tutsis, but regarded most as innocent victims. He called for healing across ethnic boundaries.

In these days, when we continue to dig common graves, where misery and sickness appear along thousands of kilometers, on routes, along pathways and in fields … we are particularly challenged by the cry of Christ on the Cross: “Father, forgive them.”

Munzihirwa said in an August 1994 homily.

God’s mercy, which breaks the chain of vengeance, is hurtful to militants on every side. But in reality, that is the only thing that can definitively shatter the infernal circle of vengeance.

Final days

As Rwandan troops poured into the eastern part of what was then Zaire in the fall of 1996, Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa issued a final, fervent plea for help. “We hope that God will not abandon us and that from some part of the world will rise for us a small flare of hope,” he said in his Oct. 28 message, broadcast to anyone, anywhere, who might have been listening. As it turned out, few were.

The civil and military leaders of the region, representing the last shreds of the crumbling autocratic regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, had fled weeks before, knowing that Mobutu was doomed and the Rwandans were unstoppable. Those Rwandans were largely members of the country’s Tutsi minority who blamed Mobutu for harboring Hutu militants, and as their armed bands moved east they were killing anyone who got in their way.

Munzihirwa, bishop of the diocese of Bukavu in eastern Zaire since 1993, was the only authority that stood between hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees and potential annihilation. He had long criticized all parties which were part of the region’s violence. His last hope, shared with the handful of missionaries and diocesan personnel who stayed behind with him to shelter the refugees, was for rapid intervention by the international community. It was not to be. Less than 24 hours later, in the afternoon of Oct. 29, death came for the archbishop.

Munzihirwa, a Jesuit who called himself a “sentinel of the people,” was shot and killed by a group of Rwandan soldiers, his body left to decay in the deserted streets of Bukavu. It was more than 24 hours before a small group of Xaverian seminarians was able to recover the body and prepare it for burial. Munzihirwa had surrendered himself in the hope that two companions might be able to get away in his car; however, they, too, were caught and executed. At his Nov. 29 funeral, someone recalled Munzihirwa’s favorite saying: “There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried.”

In Munzihirwa’s region of Africa millions of people have since died in a continental war, involving the armies of eight nations and an ever-shifting constellation of rebel groups. Other conflicts in the Sudan, in Algeria, in Angola, in Sierra Leone — in a bewildering series of trouble spots scattered across the continent — have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Inevitably, killing on such a vast scale creates martyrs, people of faith who lose their lives because they refuse to turn away from danger.

Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa has become a symbol of hope and resistance in his country, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo. His martyrdom was not unexpected, at least not to him. Munzihirwa had written in an Easter meditation:

Despite anguish and suffering, the Christian who is persecuted for the cause of justice finds spiritual peace in total and profound assent to God, in accord with a vocation that can lead even to death.

More

Hutu/Tutsi conflict [3-minute video]

Long but great video on the Congo Conflict(s), conflict resolution and Munzihirwa

The music video below is in Swahili subtitled in French, but it still might be the most inspiring five minutes of your day. It is a tribute to Monsignor Christophe Munzihirwa the “elder of the council,” or “the wise one,” the one who provides advice to members of the community, sets the tone for what is acceptable behavior, and leads the community, especially the youth, by example.

What do we do with this?

See where Bukavu is on Google Maps.

Conflict resolution is sometimes a lost cause, especially if the church is not committed to it. Consider where the church is today — what are we doing to stay reconciled? What is the responsibility of Jesus followers when society breaks down?

Operation World’s prayers for the DRC.

Thomas Keating — October 25

North America, This century (1937-2024)

Bible connection

Now when the Lamb opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. — Revelation 8:1 (NET)

All about Thomas Keating (1923–2018)

Thomas Keating, was an American, Roman Catholic monk and priest of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists). He was born into affluence and privilege in Manhattan, walked away from it all when he entered an austere monastic community in Rhode Island, and was rewarded with spiritual riches. As he told the story:

“At 5, I had a serious illness. I heard adults in the next room wondering whether I’d live. I took this very seriously, and at my first Mass bargained with God: ‘If you’ll let me live to 21, I’ll become a priest.’ After that, I’d skip out early in the morning before school and go to Mass. I knew my parents wouldn’t approve, so I never told them.”

Keating was known as one of the principal developers of a contemporary method of contemplative prayer called centering prayer that emerged from St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Over the years, his thoughts crystallized into what friends said became one of his favorite sayings: “Silence is God’s first language. Everything else is a poor translation.”

Keating went to the Buckley School, a private school on the Upper East Side, and Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts before entering Yale. As he studied Christianity, he was drawn to the mystics and came to believe the Scriptures call people into a personal relationship with God. Eager to explore his spirituality, he transferred from Yale to an accelerated program at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in the Bronx. He graduated in 1943. He expected to be drafted in World War II but received a deferment to enter the seminary. In 1944, at the age of 20, he entered the strict Cistercian Monastery Our Lady of the Valley in Valley Falls, R.I. He was ordained a priest in 1949.

“I felt the more austere the life, the sooner I would achieve the contemplative life I sought,” he continued. “I spent the next five to six years observing almost total silence.” In 1950, while Father Keating was in Rhode Island, the monastery burned down and the monks moved to St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, in central Massachusetts. He left Spencer in 1958 to help start a new monastic community, St. Benedict’s, in Snowmass, Colo., not far from Aspen. In 1961 he was elected abbot at St. Joseph’s and returned to Massachusetts, where he served in that capacity for the next two decades.

In 1971, after the Second Vatican Council, at which Pope Paul VI encouraged priests and religious scholars to renew the Christian contemplative tradition, Father Keating was invited to Rome. This led him, along with William Meninger and Basil Pennington, to develop the practice of centering prayer.

But his enthusiasm for this approach led to tensions within the abbey, and a vote on whether he should remain as abbot was evenly split. He decided he did not want to remain in a house so divided and moved back to Snowmass. It was a liberating move for him. He began organizing conferences with representatives of other religions, including the Dalai Lama, imams and rabbis.

During this period he focused more on centering prayer, holding workshops and retreats to promote it to clergy and lay people. In 1984, He helped found Contemplative Outreach, a network of people who practice centering prayer, and was its president from 1985 to 1999. “Centering prayer is all about heartfulness, which is a little different from mindfulness,” the Rev. Carl Arico, a co-founder of Contemplative Outreach. “It goes to the relationship with God, who is already there. It’s not sitting in a void.”

Father Keating wrote more than 30 books and created various multimedia projects; one of his most popular is “Centering Prayer: A Training Course for Opening to the Presence of God,” which consists of a workbook, DVDs and audio CDs. One reviewer called it “a monastery in a box.”

More

“A Big Experiment“: A brief history of the beginnings of the Snowmass Conference and the Eight Points of Agreement that came out of the initial years of dialogue.

“Father Thomas Keating is a Rebel With a Cause,” March 2018.  A look back at the history and evolution of Thomas Keating.

Books by Thomas Keating, listing in Goodreads.

Video: Thomas Keating: from the mind to the heart.

Video: Thomas Keating: A rising tide of silence  Amazon • iTunes • Google • Vimeo

What do we do with this?

Check out the work of Thomas Keating preserved in the work of Contemplative Outreach. Here is a link to their guides for contemplative practice.

Prayer Keating’s “Welcoming Prayer:”

Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and God’s action within.
Amen.

Jackie Robinson — October 24

North America, This century (1937-2024)
Robinson with Duke Snider and Pee Wee Reese on a TOPS card.

Bible connection


Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also….

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. — Matthew 5:38-9, 43-45 (KJV)

All about Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)

The movie 42 and celebrations of the centennial of Jackie Robinson’s birth allowed Americans to remember his great achievements on the baseball diamond — including helping the Dodgers win the 1955 World Series and having his number retired by every Major League Baseball team in 1997. But mostly it helped everyone focus on the impact he had on ending segregation and helping to spur the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s.

Robinson died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 53. His famous quote is etched on his tombstone at his Brooklyn gravesite: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

Robinson’s impact on others continues to this day. His .311 lifetime batting average and 1962 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame rank him among the best ballplayers in history. But of even greater impact was his historic integration of the Great American Pastime. His courageous, faith-driven acceptance of this role made him the target of racist taunts from spectators and by many unwilling to accept that a Black man should play alongside white players.

While growing up in Pasadena, California, Robinson was influenced by a minister named Karl Everitt Downs, of Scott Methodist Church where Robinson’s mother, Mallie, attended. Mallie believed in God, and she instilled in the importance of faith in her son. She also taught him to be proud of his God-given blackness. When telling the Genesis creation story to her children, Mallie depicted Adam and Eve as black-skinned, explaining that their skin turned pale after they sinned. “Karl was the father that Jack didn’t have,” Rachel Robinson (Jackie’s wife) said. “Jack was so close to him. He kept saying that Karl changed his life.” We know that Robinson’s passionate sense of justice had gotten him into trouble earlier in life. But the patient mentoring of Karl Downs convinced him that Christ’s command to “resist not evil” wasn’t a cowardly way out but a profoundly heroic stance. Those relationships led him to Christ and made him a believer.

Historians and academics have pointed out how pop culture, sports journalism and Hollywood have often left Robinson’s religion out of his life story. For example, the movie 42 spends very little time exploring it. A four-hour Robinson documentary directed by Ken Burns barely mentions faith. Here’s the main mention in 42:

The Brooklyn Dodgers owner, Branch Rickey, was a “Bible-thumping Methodist” who refused to attend games on Sunday. Robinson was also a Methodist. They both on faith to overcome threats when they decided to end racial segregation in baseball. Rickey sincerely believed it was God’s will that he integrate baseball and saw it as an opportunity to intervene in the moral history of the nation, as Lincoln had done. A deep-rooted bond formed between the men. Robinson and Rickey were genuine Christians, muscular Christians certainly, but fully Christian in their concern for their fellow human beings. It was no act when Rickey read the passage from Giovanni Papini’s The Life of Christ to a skeptical Robinson at their historic first meeting in Brooklyn on August 28, 1945 (see today’s Bible reading).

“When I came to believe that God was working with and guiding Mr. Rickey,” Robinson wrote, “I began to also believe that he was guiding me.” And Rickey chose Robinson because of the young man’s faith and moral character. There were numerous other Negro Leagues players to consider, but Rickey knew integrating the racist world of professional sports would take more than athletic ability. The attacks would be ugly, and the press would fuel the fire. If the player chosen were goaded into retaliating, the grand experiment would be set back a decade or more.

Following his retirement, Robinson became more public about his faith. In 1962, during a speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Robinson said, “As the first Negro in the majors, I needed the support and backing of my own people. I’ll never forget what ministers like you who lead [the] SCLC did for me.”  There’s little doubt that faith played a significant role in this success.

More

Michael G. Long’s and Chris Lamb’s Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography

Ed Henry’s 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

The Jackie Robinson Story featuring Jackie Robinson  (and Ruby Dee!) from 1950.

Prophetic interview shortly before he died:

What do we do with this?

Jackie Robinson had a habit of kneeling for nightly prayers. The self-discipline he maintained changed the world in significant ways. Check your own.

Robinson grew up with a personal moral code taught by most white and black Protestants in the early 20th century—no smoking, no drinking, no premarital sex. But he was also shaped by the social witness distinct to the black church, believing that Christians had a responsibility to combat racism in American society, that anti-racism was a mark of true Christianity, and that many white Christians were failing to practice what they preached. How do you relate to those elements of his faith?

Rosa Parks — October 24

North America, This century (1937-2024)
Parks, Rosa | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Bob Fitch photography archive (1970), © Stanford University Libraries

Bible connection

Read Exodus 9:13-35

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now.

All about Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. She died on October 24, 2005, at the age of 92 in Detroit, Michigan. Her death was marked by several memorial services, among them lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., where an estimated 50,000 people viewed her casket.

Most people know the story of the seamstress who helped ignite the civil-rights movement, but many people don’t know that Rosa Parks was a devout Christian, and that it was her faith that gave her the strength to do what she did that day in 1955.

In her book, Quiet Strength, Parks says her belief in God developed early in life. “Every day before supper and before we went to services on Sundays,” Parks says, “my grandmother would read the Bible to me, and my grandfather would pray. We even had devotions before going to pick cotton in the fields. Prayer and the Bible became a part of my everyday thoughts and beliefs. I learned to put my trust in God and to seek Him as my strength.”

Parks’ husband, Raymond, had been an early activist in the fight for civil rights, and Rosa joined him in his work. But she says she never planned to be arrested for breaking a racist law. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting on a bus in the front row of the section reserved for blacks. But when a white man got on, there were no more seats in the white section, so the bus driver told Parks to move back.

Parks was convinced that to move would be wrong—and she refused to get up. “Since I have always been a strong believer in God,” she says, “I knew that He was with me, and only He could get me through that next step.”

Parks was not the first black person to refuse to move to the back of the bus. Earlier that year, a woman had been carried off the bus clawing and kicking. Another woman had used profanity during her arrest. But the local NAACP declined to rally behind these women.

Parks’ behavior throughout her arrest was above reproach. Because of this, and because of her well-known exemplary character, Alabama civil-rights leaders thought Park’s arrest signaled the right time to act. They launched the famous year-long Montgomery bus boycott, and the rest is history.

Rosa Parks is another example of how faith in Jesus played a major role in the civil-rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. turned the other cheek in the face of violence. Jackie Robinson’s Christian faith was what led Branch Rickey—another devout Christian—to choose him as the man to break the color barrier in baseball.

Although she had become a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks suffered hardship in the months following her arrest in Montgomery and the subsequent boycott. She lost her department store job and her husband was fired after his boss forbade him to talk about his wife or their legal case. Unable to find work, they eventually left Montgomery and moved to Detroit, Michigan. There, Rosa made a new life for herself, working as a secretary and receptionist in U.S. Representative John Conyer’s congressional office. She also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

In 1987, with longtime friend Elaine Eason Steele, Rosa founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The organization runs “Pathways to Freedom” bus tours, introducing young people to important civil rights and Underground Railroad sites throughout the country.

In 1992, Rosa published Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography recounting her life in the segregated South. In 1995, she published Quiet Strength which includes her memoirs and focuses on the role that religious faith played throughout her life.

“From my upbringing and the Bible,” Parks wrote, “I learned people should stand up for rights just as the children of Israel stood up to the Pharaoh.”

Despite all she endured at the hands of some whites, Rosa Parks never fell to judging the whole race by the behavior of a few of its members, however appalling. In later years she would tell of the kindness of an old woman near her grandparents farm who used to take her bass fishing with crawfish tails as bait—an old white woman who treated her grandparents as equals. Even as a girl she appreciated that it was northern white industrialists with names like Carnegie, Huntington, and Rockefeller who were responsible for financing many of the Tuskegee Institute’s exquisite redbrick buildings. And she never forgot the white World War I Yankee doughboy who came to town and patted her kindly on the head in passing, an unheard-of gesture in the South. Her Christian faith only made her feel sorry for the white tormentors who called her “nigger” or threw rocks at her as she walked to school. Reading Psalms 23 and 27 early on had given Rosa McCauley the strength to love her enemy.

Rosa Parks received many accolades during her lifetime, including the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest award, and the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Award. On September 9, 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded Parks the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given by the United States’ executive branch. The following year, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given by the U.S. legislative branch. In 1999, TIME magazine named Rosa Parks on its list of “The 20 most influential People of the 20th Century.”

More

Interview from 1995.

Angela Basset plays Rose Parks in the 2002 movie. 

What do we do with this?

There is always a new Pharaoh clawing for dominance, isn’t there? Consider the oppressors of today and how Jesus might be calling you, or us, to respond.

Pray, in particular, for all the people simply saying, “black lives matter.” In a world so deformed by racism this obvious truth is still a rallying cry and a hope, a way to oppose the powers that be.