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Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page i Saints on Earth Let saints on earth in concert sing With those whose work is done For all the servants of our king In heaven and earth are one. Charles Wesley Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page ii Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page iii Saints on Earth A biographical companion to Common Worship John H Darch Stuart K Burns Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page iv Church House Publishing Church House Great Smith Street London SW1P 3NZ Tel:020 7898 1451 Fax: 020 7898 1449 ISBN 0 7151 4036 1 Published 2004 by Church House Publishing Copyright © John H. Darch and Stuart K. Burns 2004 The Common Worship Calendar is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council, 2000 – 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored or transmitted by any means or in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without written permission which should be sought from the Copyright Administrator, Church House Publishing, Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3NZ email: [email protected]. Printed in England by iv Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page v Contents Introduction vii Calendar of Saints 1 The Common Worship Calendar – Holy Days 214 Index of Names 226 v Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page vi To the staff and students of St John’s College, Nottingham – past, present and future Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page vii Introduction In using the word ‘saint’ to described those commemorated in the Holy Days of the Common Worship calendar we are, of course, using it as a shorthand term. From a biblical perspective there is no difficulty in the use of the word, since it simply signifies those who are ‘in Christ’ – being dead is not a necessary part of the equation! In his epistles Paul uses the word extensively to refer to his fellow believers. But in common understanding ‘saints’ are exceptionally holy individuals who have been officially canonized by the Church.Yet, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England has no machinery for doing this. Indeed, the very idea of the Church taking it upon itself to bestow ‘sainthood’ on some of its departed members is one that many Anglicans would find very difficult to accept. Even King Charles I, the only post-Reformation ‘saint’ to get into the 1662 Prayer Book (until removed in the nineteenth century), was never referred to as such, merely as a ‘martyr’. The increased profile given to the commemoration of the saints by the Oxford Movement created a difficulty in the nineteenth century. Since the 1662 provision was so inadequate, saints were borrowed from Roman Catholic and other sources. Responding to this need, the proposed Prayer Book of 1928 contained an Alternative Calendar with a much-improved selection of saints. Nevertheless these all came from the early days of Church history – the most modern being Catherine of Siena who died in 1380.The impression given was that ‘saints’ were those from the far distant past in the days when there were ‘giants in the land’.We should not expect to see their like in the contemporary world! The unhelpful implication was that Christian holiness was an ancient, not a modern, phenomenon. The Alternative Service Book1980 introduced the concept of ‘Lesser Festivals and Commemorations’ as a means of commemorating individuals who had not been formally canonized by the Western Church before the Reformation.This enabled the commemoration of exemplary Christians from comparatively modern times and so, for the first time Anglican evangelicals, who had generally avoided all but the biblical saints’ days (and sometimes not even those) began to relate to their own spiritual heroes from the Reformation onwards. A small but varied selection of ‘saints’ from all periods of church history and from differing Christian traditions made a welcome appearance. Saintliness, it seemed, was becoming both more modern and more relevant. Common Worship incorporated many of the saints listed in Celebrating Common Prayer (published 1992 by the Franciscans and widely used by those of all traditions) along with a number of others. And the classification in ASB was further refined. After Principal Feasts (Christmas, Easter, etc.) and Principal Holy Days (Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday) came the Festivals, containing the biblical saints.Two new categories, the Lesser Festivals and the Commemorations were created (though the precise difference between the two is rather difficult to fathom) and these were vii Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page viii concerned with heroes and heroines of faith from across the centuries of Church history, many comparatively modern (the most recent was martyred in 1980). It is those contained in these two latter categories with which this book is largely concerned. Already Brother Tristam’s Exciting Holiness (Norwich: Canterbury Press, second edition, 2003) has provided exhaustive liturgical provision for the saints’ days and Robert Atwell’s Celebrating the Saints (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1998) is a most useful collection of additional readings. But the biographical information in these two volumes is, of necessity, very limited, and those in the latter ‘largely reproduced’ from the first edition of the former. Our focus is purely biographical, seeking to aid those wishing to use the lives of these exemplary Christians for preaching and teaching purposes; indeed one of the proposed titles for this book was Preaching the Saints.We eventually settled on a more neutral title, however, since we did not want to give the misleading impression of providing a set of sermon outlines! It is for our readers to use the factual material in the way that God leads them. But it is designed to be used more widely than just for preaching and we hope that it will help to spark ideas for those leading intercessions on saints’ days. Also, since collective worship in church (and other) schools often focuses on the lives and achievements of inspiring individuals, our hope is that it will also prove a helpful source of material for teachers.With these purposes in the forefront of our minds we have tried to make the book as user-friendly as possible and to adopt narrative approaches to the brief biographies contained in this volume. Our purpose is to make these men and women better known, for the Common Worship list of Holy Days includes, notably among the Lesser Festivals and Commemorations, many significant Christians whose stories are not widely known in the Church of England. Indeed, some are hardly known at all, for some it has been difficult to obtain information, and for some all that remains, like the smile of a long-faded Cheshire cat is the legend. But though we are both historians we certainly do not despise myth and legend, conveying as they do truths in different forms and from different ages. Nevertheless we attempt to offer not hagiography but history and biography. In some cases historically accurate information has revealed the hagiographical character of earlier biographies and the authors have had to face the choice of perpetuating a legend, or presenting verifiable history. For the most part we have chosen to rest with facts. Here are no plaster saints, but real flesh and blood human beings, warts and all, who despite the frailties of their humanity have much to teach us about the Christian life and the service and worship of God. A word needs to be said on our choice of biographies since this book does not claim to be totally comprehensive.The major biblical saints are already very well known and with such a vast amount of easily accessible material available about them it would be superfluous to try to sum them up in short compass. On the other hand, some commemorations like the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18–25 January) viii Saints on Earth final text 21/9/04 3:39 pm Page ix and O Sapientia (17 December) defy biographical treatment altogether. Because of their largely non-biographical nature we initially decided to by-pass group commemorations, though we eventually modified this in the majority of cases – namely Japan, Uganda, and Papua New Guinea – since they are clearly defined and contain instructive stories of faith and sacrifice which deserve to be better known. This book does not claim to be an original piece of research. All the information contained here is in the public domain – we have merely sought to collate and select that which is most helpful for the purposes of preaching and teaching. The authors have become increasingly aware while writing this book that acquiring information about all the people commemorated in Common Worship is a lengthy and time- consuming task.The major benefit of this book is that we have done the spade-work of tracking down the multiplicity of sources and presenting the information in easily accessible form under one cover. Our grateful thanks go to Dr Stephen Travis who, from the detached standpoint of a Methodist layperson, observed that the Church of England had equipped itself with a whole new pantheon of saints but without a single work of reference to assist those who wished to use them for teaching purposes.Without his original idea this book would never have been written. We are also grateful to those who have helped us in unearthing appropriate material, notably the Reverend Mother Superior CSJB for providing information on Harriet Monsell, co-founder of the Community of St John the Baptist, and Hugh Sheldon of Lea Hall, Derbyshire for information concerning Florence Nightingale.Thanks are also due to the Reverend Dr Dee Dyas of the Centre for Christianity and Culture at St John’s for her insightful comments on the medieval commemorations, and to Christine Ainsley and Evelyn Pawley of St John’s College Library for their valuable assistance.