Jerome, Monk of Bethlehem and Translator of the Bible, 420

Eusebius Hieronymus Sophonius, more commonly called Jerome (the Anglicized form of Hieronymus), was born about the year 345 in Strido, a village near the city of Aquilea in northeastern Italy. He came from a moderately well-to-do Christian family. Educated at home by his father and by a tutor until the age of twelve, he was then sent to Rome to study under the renowned grammarian Donatus. He thereafter studied rhetoric with a success that acquired him a considerable reputation, and that is evident in his later writings. During his student days in Rome, he visited the churches and catacombs of the city. While his moral life was far from blameless, he remained close to Christianity, and was baptized in late adolescence or early adulthood, sometime before 366.

Jerome thereafter traveled in Gaul, Dalmatia, and Italy, finally arriving at Trier, the seat of the Gallic prefecture of the Western Roman Empire and, since 367 under the emperor Valentinian the First, the site of an imperial residence and thus of the imperial court when the emperor was there. While at Trier he had a religious experience that is referred to as his conversion, and he decided to become a monk. In 370 he arrived in Aquileia, where lived for several years, acquiring a circle of friends who also decided to enter the monastic life. After a quarrel caused by some real or supposed scandal, Jerome left for the East, where the greater part of his life was to be spent. In 374 he reached the city of Antioch, then one of the greatest cities of the Roman world, whose bishop was the Patriarch “of all the East.” While there he continued his studies, but when he succumbed to a serious illness from which two of his companions had died, he had a dream in which God condemned him for being “a Ciceronian, not a Christian,” too concerned with the pagan classics.

Jerome then withdrew to the desert of Chalcis, near Antioch, to live as a hermit, where he gave up the classics he had hitherto studied and knew and loved so well, learning Hebrew in order to study the Old Testament in its original language. Having already learned Greek in his earlier studies, with his mastery of style and rhetoric he was now equipped for his future labors as a translator, commentator, and homilist. In 378 he reluctantly agreed to be ordained a presbyter, though he apparently never celebrated the eucharist. The following year he was in Constantinople as a student of Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the greatest theologians of the Eastern Church. While at Constantinople, he attended the second ecumenical council of the Church, the Council of Constantinople (381), which promulgated the final form of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan (or Nicene) Creed. He translated Eusebius’ historical Chronicle from Greek into Latin along with a number of the third-century Alexandrian theologian Origen’s homilies, and to these he added his first original scriptural commentary on the vision of Isaiah (Isaiah 6). The following year (382) he left for Rome, where he became secretary to Damasus, the aged bishop of the city, at whose request he completed a revision of the Latin version of the Gospels in accordance with the Greek text and completed a first revision of the Latin Psalter. He also wrote a number of influential commentaries on the Prophets and the Epistles, as well as a commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew that became a standard work.

During his three-year stay in Rome, Jerome harshly criticized the luxurious and scandalous life of some members of the Christian upper class and even of some of the clergy, thus forfeiting any chances of succeeding Damasus as bishop. He fostered the growing ascetic movement among the upper class women of Rome and began his close association with Paula and her daughters, who were to become his staunch friends and supporters. Jerome left Rome in 385 for the East. After being joined by Paula and her companions in Antioch six months later, he visited Palestine and Egypt, thus acquiring experience of all four of the greatest cities of the Roman empire: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria.

In 386 Jerome established himself in a monastery near the basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, while Paula became the abbess of a nearby community of nuns. He lived and worked in a large cell hewn from rock for the rest of his life. He opened a school for boys in Bethlehem; translated a number of historical, philosophical, and theological works into Latin; and produced several books of his own, including his collection of Christian biographies, De Viris Illustribus (Illustrious Men). He kept up a voluminous correspondence, including with Augustine, who was later to become bishop of Hippo and the most influential theologian of the Western Church, but whom Jerome at first regarded as something of a young upstart. Jerome engaged in long and bitter theological controversies, including one with Rufinus, an old friend from his days in Aquileia, over the teachings of Origen.

The greatest work of Jerome’s life during this time was his completion of his Latin translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek texts. This translation was known as the Vulgate (having been translated into the “vulgar,” or common language, viz. Latin) and remained the standard Latin version for the next sixteen centuries.

Paula died in 404, and the remaining years of Jerome’s life were full of troubles, including incursions of refugees from the Visigothic sack of Rome (410), a Vandal invasion (410-412), and violence of the part of religious opponents. The monastery in which he lived was burned to the ground by marauders in 416.

Jerome died on September 30, 420, and was buried next to Paula in the Church of the Nativity. His body was later translated to the basilica of St. Mary Major (S. Maria Maggiore) in Rome.

The primary cause for which Jerome labored was the provision of as accurate a translation as possible of the Bible through recourse to the original languages and previous translations, which along with the Vulgate is his most enduring contribution to the Christian Church. This has for centuries been the fundamental principle guiding Bible translators, flowering particularly in the translation efforts of Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars in the last five hundred years.

Jerome’s immense learning was unmatched by other Christian writers of the time save Augustine of Hippo, and his passionate commitment and the asceticism he believed necessary to following Christ are plainly evident in his life. His works in favor of Christian monasticism and and his works against heretical teachings were widely influential, and his Letters are some of the finest of Christian antiquity.

However, Jerome also was possessed of a difficult, cantankerous temperament and a sarcastic wit that easily made enemies. His achievement as a scholar and and controversialist was marred by his jealousy and self-centeredness. One Renaissance pope, regarding a painting of Jerome in which he was holding a stone, a sign of his voluntary penance, remarked that it was as well the he held the stone, for without it he could scarcely be considered a saint. Jerome reminds us that those whom the Church commemorates as saints because of their examples to us of holiness of life, of courage in proclaiming the Gospel, and of compassion in ministering to the least of Christ’s brethren are examples of these things only because of the transforming grace of God in Jesus Christ. They (and we) possess no holiness, no faithfulness, no compassion that is not Christ’s. As simul justus et peccator, a Latin phrase used by Martin Luther to emphasize the paradoxical existence of Christians as both righteous and sinners at the same time, as both sinful people and as saints—righteous ones—through the merits of Jesus Christ, the saints, including Jerome, are examples to us of faithfulness in living out the Gospel.

prepared from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980), The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (1979), and the New Book of Festivals and Commemorations (Philip H. Pfatteicher)

The Collect (Of a Monastic or Religious)

O God, your blessed Son became poor for our sake, and chose the Cross over the kingdoms of this world: Deliver us from an inordinate love of worldly things, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Jerome, may seek you with singleness of heart, behold your glory by faith, and attain to the riches of your everlasting kingdom, where we shall be united with our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Collect (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980)

O Lord, O God of truth, your Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give you thanks for your servant Jerome and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we pray that your Holy Spirit with overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, that living Word, will transform us according to your righteous will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Saint Michael and All Angels

The scriptural word “angel” (Greek, angelos) means, literally, a messenger. According to the biblical witness, angels, messengers from God, can be visible or invisible, and may assume human or nonhuman forms. In his Church Dogmatics, the great Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth summarizes the section of the text on angels (“the ambassadors of God”) in this way:

God’s action in Jesus Christ, and therefore his lordship over his creature, is called “the kingdom of heaven” because first and supremely it claims for itself the upper world. From this God selects and sends his messengers, the angels, who precede the revelation and doing of his will on earth as objective and authentic witnesses, who accompany it as faithful servants of God and man, and who victoriously ward off the opposing forms and forces of chaos.

Of the angels who appear in the biblical narrative, only four are given names: Michael (Hebrew, “Who is like God?”) and Gabriel (“God is my strength”) are named in the canonical Scriptures; Raphael (“God heals”) in the deuterocanonical book of Tobit; and Uriel (“God is my light”) in 2 Esdras and in the apocryphal Book of Enoch and the Testament of Solomon. Michael appears in the Book of Daniel as “one of the chief princes” of the heavenly host and as the special guardian or protector of Israel (Daniel 10 and 12). In the Book of Revelation he is the principal warrior of the heavenly host against the dragon, who was “thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelation 12). In the Epistle of Jude, Michael disputes with Satan over the body of Moses and declares, “The Lord rebuke you.” (The epistle may be citing a lost passage in the Assumption of Moses, an apocryphal Jewish book.) The second-century Christian text Shepherd of Hermas depicts Michael as an angel of majestic aspect, who has authority over “this people and governs them, for it was he who gave them the law…and superintends those to whom he gave it to see if they have kept it.” In the second-century Testament of Abraham Michael’s intercession is so powerful that souls can be rescued even from hell, a passage that may have inspired the offertory antiphon in the former Roman Liturgy for the Dead: “May Michael the standard-bearer lead them into the holy light, which you promised of old to Abraham and his seed.”

The formal veneration of Michael began in the Christian East, where he was invoked particularly for the care of the sick. A famous appearance of Michael at Mount Garganus (Monte Gargano) in Italy in the late fifth century was important in the spread of his veneration to the West. The feast of Saint Michael on September 29 commemorates the dedication of his basilica on the Salarian Way near Rome. From early times his veneration was strong in the British Isles, such that by the end of the Middle Ages in England, almost seven hundred churches were dedicated to him. He is the patron of the monastery fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel off the coast of Normandy and of Coventry Cathedral, England’s most famous modern cathedral, which was built out of the ashes of the devastation of that city during the Second World War.

prepared in part from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980)
and The Oxford Dictionary of Saints

The Collect

Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The First Lesson
Genesis 28:10-17

Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Psalm 103
Benedic anima mea

Praise the Lord, O my soul, * and all that is within me, praise his holy Name.

Praise the Lord, O my soul, * and forget not all his benefits:

Who forgives all your sin * and heals all your infirmities,

Who saves your life from the pit * and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness,

Who satisfies you with good things, * renewing your youth like an eagle’s.

The Lord executes righteousness and judgment * for all those who are oppressed with wrong.

He showed his ways to Moses, * his works to the children of Israel.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, * long-suffering and of great goodness.

He will not always chide us, * neither will he keep his anger for ever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins, * nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

For as the heavens are high above the earth, * so great is his mercy also toward those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, * so far has he set our sins from us.

As a father pities his own children, * so is the Lord merciful to those who fear him.

For he knows whereof we are made; * he remembers that we are but dust.

The days of man are as grass; * he flourishes as a flower of the field.

For as soon as the wind goes over it, it is gone, * and its place shall know it no more.

But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever and ever upon those who fear him, * and his righteousness upon children’s children,

Even upon those who keep his covenant * and think upon his commandments to do them.

The Lord has prepared his throne in heaven, * and his kingdom rules over all.

O praise the Lord, you angels of his, you that excel in strength, * you that fulfill his commandment, and hearken unto the voice of his words.

O praise the Lord, all you his hosts, * you servants of his that do his pleasure.

O speak good of the Lord, all you works of his, in all places of his dominion; * praise the Lord, O my soul.

The Second Lesson
Revelation 12:7-12

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

The Gospel
John1:47-51

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

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The Lesson, Epistle, and Gospel are taken from the English Standard Bible. The Collect and Psalm are taken from the Book of Common Prayer (2019).

Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester and Teacher of the Faith, 1626

A devoted scholar, hard-working and accurate, and a master of fifteen languages, Lancelot Andrewes was renowned for his learning and for his preaching, and was a seminal influence on the development of a distinctive reformed Catholic theology in the Church of England. Born in the parish of All Hallows, Barking, Andrewes was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he was elected Fellow in 1576 and Catechist in 1580. In 1589 he became Vicar of St Giles, Cripplegate, and Master of Pembroke Hall. His incumbency at Cripplegate was attached to a prebend at St Paul’s Cathedral, where his remarkable preaching abilities first attracted notice. In 1601 he became Dean of Westminster. Under James the First (reigned 1603-1625), who held Andrewes in high esteem, he was made Bishop of Chichester in 1605, of Ely in 1609, and of Winchester in 1619.

A distinguished biblical scholar proficient in both Hebrew and Greek, in 1604 Andrewes attended the Hampton Court Conference and was appointed one of the translators of the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible. He was largely responsible for the translation of the Pentateuch (the Books of Moses) and the historical Books (including the Chronicles and Kings). Andrewes was involved in vigorous correspondence with Roman Catholic controversialists and critics of the Church of England, including Cardinal Bellarmine, and in this correspondence he gave a robust defense of the catholicity of the Church of England.

Andrewes died at Winchester House, Southwark, in 1626, on either the twenty-fifth or the twenty-sixth of September (the uncertainty of the date accounts for the variance among Anglican Churches in the date of his commemoration). He was buried in the parish church which later became Southwark Cathedral.

Andrewes was one of the principal influences in the formation of a distinctly reformed catholic English theology, which in reaction to the rigidity of the puritanism of his time, he insisted should be moderate in tone and catholic in content and perspective. Convinced that true theology must be built on sound learning, he cultivated the friendship of such divines as Richard Hooker and George Herbert, as well as of scholars from abroad, including the French Reformed pastor-theologians Isaac Casaubon and Pierre du Moulin. His aversion to Calvinism (despite the friendships with French Reformed divines) probably explains his absence from the Church of England’s delegation to the Synod of Dort in 1618. Andrewes held a high doctrine of the Eucharist, emphasizing that in the sacrament we receive the true Body and Blood of Christ, and he consistently used sacrificial language of the rite. He desired the Church of England to express its liturgy in ordered ceremonial and in his own chapel used the mixed chalice (wine and water), incense, and altar-lights (candles).

In his lifetime Andrewes’ fame rested particularly on his preaching. He regularly preached at court on the greater Church festivals, being the favorite preacher of the King. His “Ninety-Six Sermons”, first published in 1629, remain a classic of Anglican homiletical works. The sermons are characterized by sophisticated verbal conceits, a minute (and to modern sensibilities overworked) analysis of the text, and constant Greek and Latin quotations. The noted Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky has written perceptively of the deeply patristic character of Andrewe’s theology in these sermons.

Andrewes was also a deeply devout man, and one of his most admired works is his Preces Privatae (“Private Devotions”), a collection of devotions, mainly in Greek, drawn from the Scriptures and from ancient liturgies, compiled for his personal use. The Preces were translated in partial versions from 1630 onwards, and the first comprehensive edition was published in 1675. The Preces illustrate Andrewes’ piety and throw light on the sources of his theology.

Andrewes was respected by many as the model of a bishop at a time when the episcopate was held in low esteem. His student, John Hacket, later Bishop of Lichfield, wrote of him:

“Indeed he was the most Apostolical and Primitive-like Divine, in my Opinion, that wore a Rochet in his Age; of a most venerable Gravity, and yet most sweet in all Commerce; the most Devout that I ever saw, when he appeared before God; of such a Growth in all kind of Learning that very able Clerks were of a low Stature to him.”

prepared from The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
and Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980)

The Collect (Of a Teacher of the Faith)

Almighty God, you gave your servant Lancelot Andrewes special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth revealed in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Collect (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980)

Lord and Father, our King and God, by your grace the Church was enriched by the great learning and eloquent preaching of your servant Lancelot Andrewes, but even more by his example of biblical and liturgical prayer: Conform our lives, like his, to the image of Christ, that our hearts may love you, our minds serve you, and our lips proclaim the greatness of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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A number of Andrewes’ sermons and some other of his writings are published online at Project Canterbury.

Sergius of Radonezh, Monk and Reformer of the Church in Russia, 1392

Sergius was born at Rostov about 1314, but civil war in Muscovy forced his family to leave the city and to live by farming at Radonezh, near Moscow. At the age of twenty, he and his older brother Stephen established a hermitage in a nearby forest and built a chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity. When Stephen moved to a monastery, Sergius remained at the hermitage alone until his reputation attracted a community around him. This community grew to become the monastery of the Holy Trinity, of which Sergius was abbot. Impressed by his humility, the metropolitan archbishop of Moscow wanted to make Sergius his successor, but Sergius preferred to remain at his hermitage, declining this and any other ecclesiastical advancement, for the rest of his life.

Sergius carried out several peace embassies for the metropolitan, and Prince Dimitri Donskoi consulted him before defeating the Tatars at Kulikovo in 1380. Sergius’ support of the prince helped rally the Russian people to his cause, and the victory against the Tatars laid the foundation for the independent life of the nation of Russia.

Sergius’s was simple and gentle in nature, mystical in temperament, and eager to ensure that his monks should serve the needs of their neighbors. Some thirty-five monasteries were founded by his disciples during his lifetime, and the revitalization of Russian monasticism in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries owes much to his promotion of hesychasm as a way of prayer and mystical encounter with God. Sergius died in 1392, and pilgrims still visit his shrine at the monastery of Zagorsk, which he founded in 1340.

The Russian Church venerates Sergius’ memory on this day. His name is familiar to Anglicans from the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, a society established to promote closer relations between the Anglican and Russian Churches.

adapted from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980)
and The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity

The Collect (Of a Reformer of the Church)

O God, by your grace your servant Sergius, kindled by the flame of your love, became a burning and shining light in your Church, turning pride into humility and error into truth: Grant that we may be set aflame with the same spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Collect (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980)

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Sergius of Moscow, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Matthew appears in the Gospels as a tax collector for the Roman government in the city of Capernaum.  He was probably born in Galilee of a Jewish family, although the Jews of the day despised tax collectors as traitors and collaborators with the Roman oppressors and generally excluded them from the activities of the Jewish community.  Pious Pharisees refused to marry into a family who had a tax collector as a member.  Yet in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus notes that it was the tax collector rather than the prideful Pharisee who prayed an acceptable prayer, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner”, and went home justified.

In the Gospels of Mark and Luke, Levi, not Matthew, is called to discipleship, but Matthew always appears in the lists of the twelve disciples.  In Mark and Luke, Matthew and Levi do not seem to be regarded as the same person; Origen and others distinguished between them as well.  However, it is sometimes suggested the Levi was his original name and that Matthew, which in Hebrew means “gift from God”, was given to him after he joined the followers of Jesus.  Mark calls him the son of Alphaeus, a man otherwise unknown and apparently not the Alphaeus who was the father of James the Less.

Since the second century the authorship of the first Gospel has been attributed to Saint Matthew.  The name Levi does not appear in this Gospel, and in the list of the twelve disciples the name Matthew, who is identified as “the tax collector” (“publican” in older translations), comes after that of Thomas, which it precedes in the other New Testament lists.

Little is known of Saint Matthew’s life beyond the story of his call, when at the word of Jesus he left his desk and devoted himself to following Jesus.  Tradition suggests that he was the oldest of the twelve disciples (and of the later Twelve Apostles).  The fourth-century bishop and historian Eusebius writes that after the Ascension Matthew preached for fifteen years in Judaea and then went to foreign nations.  Socrates Scholasticus writes that he labored in Ethiopia.  Ambrose of Milan sends him to Persia and Isidore of Seville to the Macedonians, while others hold that he preached among the Medes and the Persians.  Heracleon writes that Matthew died a natural death, but later tradition makes him a martyr, dramatizing his death by fire or the sword.

prepared from The New Book of Festivals and Commemoration
and Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980)

The Collect

Lord Jesus, you called Matthew from collecting taxes to become your apostle and evangelist: Grant us the grace to forsake all covetous desires and inordinate love of riches, that we may follow you as he did and proclaim to the world around us the good news of your salvation; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Lesson
Proverbs 3:1-12

My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.

So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your flesh
    and refreshment^[c] to your bones.

Honor the Lord with your wealth
    and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
then your barns will be filled with plenty,
    and your vats will be bursting with wine.

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
    or be weary of his reproof,
for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
    as a father the son in whom he delights.

Psalm 119:33-40
Legem pone

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, * and I shall keep it to the end.

Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law; * indeed, I shall keep it with my whole heart.

Make me go in the path of your commandments, * for therein is my desire.

Incline my heart to your testimonies, * and not to covetous desires.

O turn away my eyes, lest they behold vanity, * and revive me in your ways.

Confirm your word to your servant, * and to all those who fear you.

Take away the reproach that I am afraid of, * for your judgments are good.

Behold, my delight is in your precepts; * O revive me in your righteousness.

The Epistle
2 Timothy 3:1-17

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom1 you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

The Gospel
Matthew 9:9-13

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
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The Lesson, Epistle, and Gospel are taken from the English Standard Bible. The Collect and Psalm are taken from the Book of Common Prayer (2019).

The image of Saint Matthew is a copy of the depiction found in the Ebbo Gospels.

John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, and his Companions, Martyrs, 1871

John Coleridge Patteson was born in London in 1827 of a Devonshire family. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1849. After travel in Europe and a study of languages, at which he was adept, he became a Fellow of Merton College in 1852 and was ordained the following year.

While serving as a curate of Alphington, Devonshire, near his family home, he responded to Bishop George Augustus Selwyn’s call in 1855 for helpers in New Zealand. For five years, he toured the islands on the Southern Cross, visiting the indigenous peoples and teaching them the Christian faith. He administered the Melanesian Mission’s summer school at Kohimarama, Auckland, and founded St. Barnabas College on Norfolk Island to serve as a school for native Melanesian youths, training them as Christian workers and missionaries. Patteson never tried to make the Melanesians British but thought he was equipping them for the contemporary world. “East and west could not be made to think after the same fashion,” he wrote, “nor could Melanesians and Englishmen; the Church of Christ has room for both.” Employing his facility of languages, he learned to speak some twenty-three of the languages of the Melanesian people, having learned the Maori language as well. Patteson’s most brilliant native scholar, Edward Wogala, later wrote that “He did not live apart, he was always friends with us and did not despise in the least a single one of us.”

On February 24, 1861, at Auckland, he was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia. His diocese was vast, encompassing islands scattered across over nearly two thousand miles of ocean. His missionary endeavors were made more difficult by the abuses that the native people suffered at the hands of blackbirders, who captured Melanesian youths, transporting them elsewhere as slave laborers. (These slave traders would sometimes impersonate missionaries in order to kidnap the youth.) The Melanesians were usually reassured by Patteson’s gentle and quiet manner, but not always.

Bishop Patteson spent the middle months of 1871 at Mota, where he had had the joy of baptizing 298 of the people and seeing one island at least become Christian. From Mota he sailed to the Solomon Islands, and thence to the Santa Cruz islands, where he arrived on the island of Nakapu on September 20, 1871 and befriended the chief, exchanging names with him. Later that day, Patteson was clubbed to death while sleeping on shore by Teadule, the uncle of a kidnapped youth, one of five who had been taken in a raid by slavers and carried off to Fiji. Four of Patteson’s companions, who were just offshore in a boat, were fired upon by men on the shore who mistook them for slaver traders. The chief of the island pursued the murderer, who fled to the island of Santa Cruz, where the islanders killed him. The women of Nakapu, who knew and loved Patteson, were horrified by his murder, and one of the women, Liufai, together with her friends washed and prepared him for burial. The men of Nakapu made five wounds on Patteson’s body and placed a palm leaf with five fronds knotted on his breast to show that one life had been taken for five of theirs, and then Liufai wrapped it in a mat (which is still kept in the Anglican cathedral in the Solomon Islands) and placed the body in a canoe to take it to their cemetery. However, Patteson’s companions retrieved the body from the Nakapu islanders and buried him at sea.

In all five of Patteson’s companions, in the boat and from the ship, were wounded in the attack, two of them dying of their wounds. Joe Atkin, an English-born priest who was Patteson’s close friend and was expected to succeed him in the episcopate, and Solomon Taroaniara, a native of San Cristoval whom Patteson intended to ordain once they returned to Norfolk Island and who would have been the first Solomon Islander to be ordained to Christian ministry, both died of tetanus from the arrow wounds they received. John Ngongono, the third of the four companions in the boat, recovered from his wounds and later became the first missionary to Meralava Island. Joe Wate and Charles Sapi, both of whom were wounded when they left the ship and took a boat ashore to retrieve the bishop’s body, survived to later become the first natives of the islands of Mala and of Gela, respectively, to be ordained.

The death of Bishop Patteson and his companions at the hands of Melanesian islanders, whom Patteson had sought to protect from slave-traders, aroused the British government to take serious measures to prevent piratical manhunting in the South Seas. Bishop Selwyn later reconciled the natives of Melanesia to the memory of one who came to help and not to hurt, and the martyrdom of Patteson and his companions was the seed that produced the strong and vigorous Church which flourishes in Melanesia today.

A memorial to Bishop Patteson was erected in the chapel at Merton College, Oxford. He is also memorialized in the Martyr’s Pulpit of Exeter Cathedral. But Patteson’s greatest and most enduring memorial is the Church in Melanesia. In 1960 in a Melanesian newspaper a woman of Meralava wrote: “Every year we remember this day [September 20] because he died for the Melanesian people, as our Lord Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world. John Patteson put down his life for his friends of Melanesia.”

from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980), with additions

The Collect (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980)

Almighty God, you called your faithful servant John Coleridge Patteson and his companions to be witnesses and martyrs in the islands of Melanesia, and by their labors and sufferings raised up a people for your own possession: Pour out your Holy Spirit upon your Church in every land, that by the service and sacrifice of many, your holy Name may be glorified and your kingdom enlarged; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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The homepage of the Anglican Church of Melanesia is currently offline for maintenance. See the Wikipedia page for information on this Global South Anglican Church.

A Sermon by Canon Dr. Charles Elliot Fox on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Consecration of Bishop John Coleridge Patteson (February 24, 1961) is published online at the Project Canterbury website.

John Coleridge Patteson Memorial, Merton College Chapel, Oxford University

Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690

Theodore was born of Greek parents in 602 in Tarsus, the Apostle Paul’s home city in Cilicia, in Asia Minor. A learned monk of the East, educated in Athens, he was residing in Rome when Pope Vitalian was searching for a candidate for the archbishopric of Canterbury at a time when the English Church, decimated by plague and torn by strife over rival Celtic and Roman customs, was in need of strong leadership. Vitalian ordained Theodore to the episcopate on March 26, 668.

Theodore reached England in 669, having consulted first with Agilbert, bishop of Paris and sometime bishop of Wessex, on the way. On his arrival, he made a visitation of most of the country, filled vacant sees, and established an important school at Canterbury which soon gained a reputation for excellence in all branches of learning, and where many bishops and other leaders of the English and Irish Churches were trained. This school taught not only Latin and Greek (unusual for the time), but also Roman law, the rules of meter, arithmetic, music, and biblical exegesis in the literal school of Antioch. At the Synod of Hertford in 672, whose ten decrees were based on the canons approved by the Council of Chalcedon, Theodore dealt admirably with the legacy of division in the English Church between bishops in the separate Roman and Irish traditions. bringing the two traditions to unity. For example, he recognized Chad’s worthiness as a bishop and regularized his episcopal ordination. (In keeping with Irish practice, Chad had previously been ordained a bishop by the laying on of hands of only one bishop, rather than the three that were usual and canonically required in the rest of the Western Church.) The synod also dealt with the respective rights of bishops and monasteries.

Theodore gave definitive boundaries to English dioceses, so that their bishops could better give pastoral attention to their people and laid the foundations of the parochial organization that still obtains in the English Church. Theodore’s second synod, at Hatfield, produced a declaration of orthodoxy by the Church in England during the Monothelite controversy. The synods later held at Clovesho were the result of Theodore’s inaugurating the series of synods at Hertford, which decreed that such yearly synods should be held.

According to Bede the Venerable, Theodore was the first archbishop whom all the English willingly obeyed. Possibly to no other leader does English Christianity owe so much. His great achievement was to give unity, organization, and scholarship to a divided Church on the edge of the civilized world at an age when most men had reached retirement or infirmity. Theodore died in his eighty-eighth year, September 19, 690, and was buried, with Augustine and the other early English archbishops, in the monastic Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Canterbury.

prepared from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980)
and The Oxford Dictionary of Saints

The Collect (Of a Bishop)

O God, our heavenly Father, you raised up your faithful servant Theodore of Tarsus to be a Bishop and pastor in your Church and to feed your flock: Give abundantly to all pastors the gifts of your Holy Spirit, that they may minister in your household as true servants of Christ and stewards of your divine mysteries; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Collect (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980)

Almighty God, you called your servant Theodore of Tarsus from Rome to the see of Canterbury, and gave him gifts of grace and wisdom to establish unity where there had been division, and order where there had been chaos: Create in your Church, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, such godly union and concord that it may proclaim, both by word and example, the Gospel of the Prince of Peace; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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The icon of Saint Theodore of Tarsus was written by and is © Aidan Hart, and is reproduced here with his generous permission.

Edward Bouverie Pusey, Presbyter and Teacher of the Faith, 1882

Growing out of a revival of High Church teachings and practices in the Church of England, the Oxford Movement found its acknowledged leader in Edward Bouverie Pusey. Born near Oxford, August 22, 1800, Pusey was educated at Christ Church College in that city’s University and was elected a Fellow of Oriel College in 1823. Not long afterwards he studied in Göttingen and Berlin, where he became acquainted with many leading German biblical scholars. During the next years he devoted himself t the study of Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic languages both at Oxford and in Germany. In 1828 he was ordained deacon and priest and was also appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, offices he held for the rest of his life. At the end of 1833 he joined John Keble and John Henry Newman in producing the Tracts for the Times, which gave the Oxford Movement its popular name of Tractarianism.

His most influential activity, however, was his preaching—catholic in content, evangelical in his zeal for souls. He drew on the Greek Fathers and the Christian mystical tradition, and his sermons, while stressing the heinousness of sin and the nothingness of the world, rise to contemplative rapture in their emphasis on the indwelling of Christ, salvation as participation in God, and the blessedness of heaven. But to many of his more influential contemporaries these teachings seemed dangerously innovative. A sermon preached before the University in 1843 on “The Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent” was condemned by the vice-chancellor and six doctors of divinity as teaching error, and Pusey was suspended from his university pulpit for two years, a judgment he bore patiently. However, the condemnation secured a wider publicity for the sermon in printed form and drew attention to the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which Pusey defended with devotion. In another university sermon, preached in 1846 on “The Entire Absolution of the Penitent”, he claimed for the Church of England the power of the keys and the reality of priestly absolution. The sermon encouraged the revival of private confession in modern Anglicanism.

The death of his wife in 1839 left an indelible mark on Pusey, and from that time he practiced many austerities. His foundation of St. Saviour’s, Leeds, in memory of his wife and daughter, created a model Tractarian slum parish. In 1845 he assisted in the foundation of the first Anglican sisterhood, and throughout his life he continued to encourage the establishment of Anglican religious foundations, giving generously from his own substantial private income.

When in 1841 Newman withdrew from the Tractarians, leadership of the movement largely devolved on Pusey. As the principal champion of the nascent Anglo-Catholic movement he had frequently to defend its doctrines, e.g. baptismal regeneration in the Gorham Case. When Newman was received into the Church of Rome in 1845, Pusey’s adherence to the Church of England kept many from following, and he defended them in their teachings and practices.

Pusey died on September 16, 1882, at Ascot Priory in Berkshire, the convent of the sisterhood he had helped found. His body was brought back to Christ Church, Oxford, and buried in the nave. Pusey House, a house of studies founded after his death, perpetuates his name at the University he served throughout his life. His own erudition and integrity gave stability to the Oxford Movement that eventually spread throughout the Anglican Churches, and won many to Anglo-Catholic principles.

from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980) with amendments
and additions from The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

The Collect (Of a Teacher of the Faith)

Almighty God, you gave your servant Edward Bouverie Pusey special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth revealed in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Collect (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980)

Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know your presence and obey your will; that, following the example of your servant Edward Bouverie Pusey, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what you give us to do, and endure what you give us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Ninian, Bishop in Galloway and Missionary to the Picts

The dates of Ninian’s life, and the exact extent of his missionary work are uncertain and disputed. The earliest extant, and possibly the best, account is the brief one given by the Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People:

“The southern Picts, who live on this side of the mountains, are said to have abandoned the errors of idolatry long before this date [the arrival of Columba among the northern Picts in 565] and accepted the true Faith through the preaching of Bishop Ninian, a most reverend and holy man of British race, who had been regularly instructed in the mysteries of the Christian Faith in Rome. Ninian’s own episcopal see, named after Saint Martin and famous for its stately church, is now held by the English, and it is here that his body and those of many saints lie at rest. The place belongs to the province of Bernicia and is commonly known as Candida Casa, the White House, because he built the church of stone, which was unusual among the Britons.”

Ninian was a Romanized Briton, born in the latter half of the fourth century. He died about the year 430, less than a decade after the departure of the last of the Roman legions from Britain. Bede writes that he was educated in Rome, where he is supposed to have been ordained to the episcopate. But the main influence on his life was Martin of Tours, with whom he spent some time, and from whom he gained his ideals of an episcopal-monastic structure designed for missionary work.

About the time of Martin’s death in 397, Ninian established his episcopal see and missionary base at a place called Candida Casa (the White House, or Whithorn) in what is now Galloway, in southern Scotland. This region would in time become part of the northern British kingdom of Rheged, whose most famous king, Urien, figures in Arthurian tales. Sometime after 600, the region became part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Berenicia and by Bede’s time was part of the kingdom of Northumbria. Ninian dedicated the church at Candida Casa to Martin. Traces of place names and church dedications suggest that his work covered the Solway Plain and the Lake District of England (also regions of the kingdom of Rheged). According to Bede, Ninian also converted many of the Picts of what is now central Scotland and by tradition may have evangelized as far north as the Moray Firth, among the northern Picts.

Ninian, together with Patrick, is one of the links of continuity between the ancient Romano-British Church and the developing Church in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

prepared from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980), with additions

The Collect (Of a Missionary or Evangelist)

Almighty and everlasting God, you called your servant Ninian to preach the Gospel to the peoples of northern Britain: Raise up in this land and every land evangelists and heralds of your kingdom, that your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Collect (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1980)

O God, by the preaching of your blessed servant and bishop Ninian you caused the light of the Gospel to shine in the land of Britain: Grant, we pray, that having his life and labors in remembrance we may show our thankfulness by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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The icon of Saint Ninian was written by and is © Aidan Hart, and is reproduced here with his generous permission.

Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage and Martyr, 258

Thasius Cecilianus Cyprianus was an aristocratic and cultivated orator and teacher of rhetoric in Carthage who was born about the year 200. He was converted to the Christian faith about the year 246, and his conversion was thoroughgoing. He gave up all pagan writings and concentrated his studies thenceforth on the Scriptures and Christian commentaries, including those of Tertullian, a compatriot whom he regarded as his master. Shortly after his conversion he became a presbyter, and in 248 he was chosen bishop of Carthage by the people and clergy of Carthage with the consent of the neighboring bishops. A year later the persecution under the emperor Decius began, forcing Cyprian to flee to safety. He kept in touch with his Church by letters and through this means directed them with wisdom and compassion. During the persecution a number of Christians had apostatized by sacrificing to idols or had lapsed by buying certificates which stated falsely that they had sacrificed. Cyprian reconciled these lapsi after a suitable time of penance. One of his presbyters, Novatus, readmitted them without any penance at all, while the rigorist bishop of Rome, Novatian, taught that the Church could not absolve an apostate at all, leading a group into schism at Rome and Antioch over this vexing question. In time this group came to be called the Novatians, and they would continue as a schismatic church for some time to come. Throughout the controversy, Cyprian insisted on discreet compassion, the unity of the Church, and the need for obedience and loyalty.

From this controversy there arose another concerning the validity of baptism administered by schimatics, heretics, and apostates. Cyprian’s view conflicted with that of Pope Stephen the Second, bishop of Rome, but Cyprian was supported by other African bishops in rejecting the validity of these baptisms. The controversy became acrimonious and was settled only after the deaths of the two protagonists by the Church’s acceptance of the Roman tradition in favor of their validity. Augustine of Hippo tells us that Cyprian atoned for his passion in the controversy by his glorious martyrdom. Under the persecution of the emperor Valerian, which specifically required bishops, presbyters, and deacons to sacrifice to idols, Cyprian was exiled in 257 and condemned to death and beheaded on the fourteenth day of September, 258.

Many of Cyprian’s writings have been preserved. In his treatise, On the Lord’s Prayer, he writes: “We say ‘Hallowed be thy Name’ not that we want God to be made holy by our prayers but because we seek from the Lord that his Name may be made holy in us…so that we who have been made holy in Baptism may persevere in what we have begun to be.”

His book, On the Unity of the Catholic Church strongly affirms the unity of the episcopate and the sinfulness of schism: “The episcopate is a single whole,” he writes, “in which each bishop’s share gives him a right to, and a responsibility for, the whole. So is the Church a single whole, though she spreads far and wide into a multitude of churches…If you leave the Church of Christ you will not come to Christ’s rewards, you will be an alien, an outcast, an enemy. You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the Church for your Mother.”

prepared from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980)
and The Oxford Dictionary of Saints

The Collect

Almighty God, you gave your servant Cyprian boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.