​Elizabeth of Hungary, whose feast day we celebrate today, was born into royalty in
Bratislava. Married at 14 years of age, she bore three children to her
husband Ludwig. Drawn to the plight of the poor, she wanted to use her
dowry, and sell her jewels, to provide for them during a famine and an epidemic. Her
husband approved, and she founded a hospital near their home. She took it upon
herself to visit the sick every day, helping them to regain their health.
A legend about Elizabeth is that she was once carrying bread in her apron to
give to the poor. Stopped by authorities, she was challenged to display what
she was carrying. When she opened her apron, it was full of red and white
roses. Her husband took that as a sign that God was at work.
Her husband died when she was twenty years old. Elizabeth fell out of
political favor, and spent some years in straightened circumstances. Then the
Franciscans came to town. She was attracted to Francis’ ideals, and began practicing
them, including caring for the sickest patients. She is revered as a patron saint of
The Third Order of Franciscans. She is also the patron saint of hospitals. Many across
the world are named after her.
Deacon Mary

​Reflection
November 10, 2020
 
Charles Simeon
Preacher, Evangelist 
 
Charles Simeon, whose feast day is today, was celebrated for his gifts as a preacher 
and supporter of missionaries. English historian William E.H. Lecky wrote that he and
his friends and colleagues “gradually changed the whole spirit of the English church. 
They infused into it a new force and passion of devotion, kindness, a spirit of fervent
philanthropy that raised the standard of clerical duty and completely altered the 
whole tone… of the preaching of its ministers.”
His start in the church was inauspicious. Educated at Cambridge, he was placed as a 
deacon in Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge.
He was highly unpopular at first. Perhaps that was because his influential father 
intervened to get his position raised to curate in charge for the Bishop. At first, services 
were disrupted, and he was insulted in the streets. 
By the time he ended his ministry at Holy Trinity 54 years later, his church was 
crowded. And Charles Simeon was noted for his sermons, which were Biblical, simple
and passionate. He also founded the London Society for Promoting Christianity
Among the Jews (now the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People). He also helped 
choose chaplains for the British East India Company, prompting historian Thomas 
Macauley to write that he exerted “authority and influence from Cambridge to the 
most remote corners of the England.  His real sway in the Church was far greater than 
that of any primate.” (India was part of the British Empire then.) 
By the time he died in November 1836, he was a recognized leader in evangelism in 
England. Charles Simeon is buried at King’s Chapel, Cambridge. 
 
Deacon Mary 

Justice is the virtue by which we give to others what is due to them. 
 
Three kinds of justice are commonly recognized.  (1)  The relations of individuals to each other are addressed by reciprocal justice.  (2)  The relations of the social whole to the individual are addressed by distributive justice.  (3) The relations of individuals to the social whole are addressed by legal justice. 
 
Distributive justice deals with the distribution of the common good, the total product of community life shared by all community members.  The common good extends far beyond material resources.  It is not simply utilitarian.  Because humanity cannot be exhaustively defined, its common good cannot be either.  Distributive justice enables community members to share in the realization of a common good that inevitably exceeds concrete definition.
 
Distributive justice is violated by any exclusive standard for societal development incapable of recognizing goods that resist quantification.  Thus the contemporary tendency to overlook intangibles and assess a society solely in terms of its gross national product is a violation of distributive justice.  Human potentialities always exceed our ability to account for them.

Charles Hoffacker

Prudence requires a certain open-mindedness.  We must respect the true variety of things and experiences that life presents to us.  In particular, we must be willing to take advice, for reality always exceeds our perspective.  As St. Thomas Aquinas notes, “No one is altogether sufficient in matters of prudence.”  In contrast, a know-it-all attitude demonstrates resistance to the truth of what is real.
 
Closely related to prudence is solertia.  This nimbleness appears when a sudden event confronts people and they do not close their eyes and blindly take random action, but instead decide for what is good and act swiftly, avoiding injustice, cowardice, and intemperance.  Their sudden action is not blameworthy,
for changing circumstances may demand swift responses.
 
One of the false forms of prudence is astutia, the cunning practiced by people who avoid reality and are concerned only with tactics.  This cunning can even be practiced in pursuit of a good end.  Genuine prudence, however, requires that both the means we use and the purposes we pursue be good.  It demands that we be consistently loyal to reality.  Thus prudence is essential to right action.

​Charles Hoffacker

​Selections from the Book of Common Prayer (pages 838 and 822)
 
For the Nation
 
Almighty God, giver of all good things:
We thank you for the natural majesty and beauty of this land.
They restore us, though we often destroy them.
Heal us.
 
We thank you for the great resources of this nation.
They make us rich, though we often exploit them.
Forgive us.
 
We thank you for the men and women who have made this country strong.
They are models for us, though we often fall short of them.
Inspire us.
 
We thank you for the torch of liberty which has been lit in this land.
It has drawn people from every nation, though we have often hidden from its light.
Enlighten us.
 
We thank you for the faith we have inherited in all its rich variety.
It sustains our life, though we have been faithless again and again.
Renew us.
 
Help us, O Lord, to finish the good work here begun.
Strengthen our efforts to blot out ignorance and prejudice, and to abolish poverty and crime.
And hasten the day when all our people, with many voices in one united chorus, will glorify your holy Name.
Amen.
 
For an Election
 
Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States in the lection of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
 

Today’s Kalendar commemorates Alfred, Saxon king of what is now southern England in the 9th C.. He helped to preserve Christianity throughout Britain by vanquishing the armies of pagan Danish invaders in the northeast part of the island, forcing the conversion and baptism of their king. (Today we might question that as a method of evangelism.)  But even more importantly Alfred influenced the future by encouraging learning.  Literate in Latin and possessing a scholarly turn of mind,  he brought to his court distinguished scholars from monasteries in England and the Continent. As a layman, together with his clerical colleagues, Alfred helped in translating a number of theological works from Latin into the Anglo-Saxon vernacular,  which is the foundation of our English language today. Moreover, the court school that Alfred established for educating clergy along with lay members of the nobility led to a gradual increase in literacy in Church and society across ensuing years.  His court school was a precursor of later cathedral schools and even after that, of the beginnings of what became our modern universities.  

Alfred’s example reminds us that the Church, with support from lay benefactors, far from opposing scholarly inquiry has been across the centuries a primary sponsor of learning and careful thinking.  I recall a clever advertising poster in a series of such that were circulated nationally in the 1970’s by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis.  Beneath a picture of Jesus are printed the following words:  “He died to take away your sins, not your mind.”  

We give thanks on this day for King Alfred, especially for his commitment and support for learning.

​Frederick Erickson

If we were reading the Old Testament on Sundays, our reading this Sunday would be from Deuteronomy. The book, the fifth in the Jewish Torah, sets forth the history of Israel, and prescribes codes of conducts for its people.
 
Most scholars divide the book by speeches of Moses. The first section is Chapters 1 to 30. It includes the Law of Moses, the need and ways to follow Yahweh and the redemptive quality of repentance.  Chapters 12 to 26 contain the Deuteronomic Code, the law by which Israel should be governed. Laws of religious observance, appointment of judges and civil and criminal law are within the Code, including the Ten Commandments (twice, after Moses smashed the first version). The final four chapters are the Song of Moses, the Blessing of Moses, the change in leadership from Moses to Joshua and the death of Moses.
 
Deuteronomy also contains the Shema Yisrael (Deuteronomy 6:4): Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. This established a monotheistic standard for the Jewish people, and is still the definitive statement of Israel’s identity.
 
Our reading for Sunday is Deuteronomy 34: 1-12. Verses 11 and 12 say, “He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of Israel.”
It is a legacy that we can ponder.

Mary McCue