This week: Meskel (Ge'ez) in the Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, is an annual religious holiday commemorating the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Helena (Saint Helena) in the fourth century. Meskel occurs on 17 Meskerem in the Ethiopian calendar (September 27, Gregorian calendar, or September 28 in leap years).The festival is known as Feast of the exaltation of the holy cross in other Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant churches. (Thursday September 29th) is the feast day of St. Michael and all the Angels. It is the most ancient of all the angel festivals. The Anglican church celebrates all angels, both named and unnamed on one day. On the Feast of Michael and all Angels, popularly called Michaelmas, we give thanks for the many ways in which God's loving care watches over us, both directly and indirectly, and we are reminded that the richness and variety of God's creation far exceeds our knowledge of it. Rosh Hashanah (1st day)is also one of many holidays that falls near the autumn equinox.
St. Maurice and his Theban Legion (from Egypt) Sept 22
Saint Maurice was the captain of the Theban Legion, a unit in the Roman army that had been recruited from Upper Egypt and consisted entirely of Christians. Although loyal to the Empire (ruled over by Maximinus Daia and Diocletian), they still remembered the words of Jesus to render to Caesar the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God. During the Bagaude, an uprising of the Gauls, Maximinus marched against them with the Theban Legion as a part of his army. The revolt was quelled, and upon their return to Aguanum (now Saint-Moritz or Saint Maurice en Valais) in Switzerland, Maximinus gave the order that the whole army should give sacrifices to the Roman gods in thanks for the success of their campaign. As part of the celebration, Maximinus ordered the execution of a number of Christian prisoners. The Theban Legion refused to comply with the order and withdrew from the rites, even going so far as to camp away from the rest of the army so as not to be drawn into what they saw as horrifyingly against their beliefs.
Maximinus repeatedly ordered the Theban Legion to comply with his orders, and when they continued to refuse, he ordered the unit "decimated," a practice in which every tenth man was put to death. The Legion was not shaken at all, despite threats of a second decimation, which was performed. Maximinus told those remaining that they would all be killed, but their captain, Maurice, inspired them with the example of the soldiers already martyred, and told them that they were all assured of a place in Heaven for holding fast to their faith. Every last man was beheaded by other soldiers, without resistance. Maximinus even went so far as to carry the executions out against every member of the Theban Legion stationed elsewhere in the Empire from Gaul down to Rome itself.
A number of miracles are attributed to these holy soldiers. In Zurich, it is said that the beheaded Saints Felix, Regula, and Exuperantius rose up, and carrying their heads in their hands, walked to the top of a hill, knelt down and prayed, and finally lay down in final death. On this spot, a great cathedral was built and the image of the three saints carrying their heads appears on the coat of arms of Zurich today.
Saint Maurice is one of the most popular saints in western Europe. There are over 650 sacred places bearing his name in France alone. Over seventy towns bear his name. In the Middle Ages, Saint Maurice was the patron saint of a number of the dynasties of Europe and later of the Holy Roman emperors, many of whom were anointed before the Altar of Saint Maurice at Saint Peter's Cathedral in Rome. King Sigismund of Burgundy donated land for a monastery in his honor in 515. Henry I (919-936) ceded the Swiss province of Aargua in exchange for the Lance of the Saints; and the sacred relic, the Sword of Saint Maurice, was last used in the coronation of Emperor Charles of Austria as king of Hungary in 1916. Saint Maurice's feast day is September 22.
John Coltrane - Equinox
This Friday, September 23, there will be the convergence of two stellar events: the birth of Saint John Coltrane and the autumnal equinox. Saint John was born on September 23, 1926 had he lived Friday would have been his 85th birthday.
It was recorded at Atlantic Studios during the sessions for My Favorite Things.
Easter Sunday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, according to Christian belief. The Easter date depends on the ecclesiastical approximation of the March equinox. Pope St. Victor (the first of the Church’s three Black African Popes) fixed the Feast of Easter to the Sunday after Vernal equinox and close to the Passover feast.
The last of the three main feasts of ancient Israel is called the Feast of Tabernacles and represented the final restoration. It occurred six months after the Passover feast that celebrated redemption. Passover and Tabernacles commemorate both the beginning and the end of the historical journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan and also the inauguration and consummation of our spiritual journey from Calvary to the world to come. It closed not only the sacred cycle, but also the agricultural or working year. It also marked the change of season, the autumnal equinox, and determined alike the commencement and close of a sabbatical year (Deut 31:10).
While September 11 will forever conjure up images of the terrorist attacks of 2001, that date has another association for the congregation of St. Barnabas’ Church in Newark. For on September 11, 1961, an interracial group of 27 Episcopal priests boarded a bus in New Orleans, and headed north to General Convention held in Detroit. En route this group, known as the “Prayer Pilgrimage,” made history by ending segregation in all bus and train terminals
throughout the South.
Fifty years ago, when the Prayer Pilgrimage made its way to Detroit, the priests were prepared to face arrest, physical abuse, and possibly death. Their journey began without incident until they arrived in Jackson, MS, where an integrated group of 15 priests entered the segregated bus terminal.
Local police ordered them to “move on,” but the priests, all in clerical collars, stood their ground and prayed for the people of Mississippi. When
the prayer was over they were immediately arrested.
While in custody one of the priests, the Rev. Robert Pierson, celebrated High Mass. He became the spokesperson for the group, and was the lead petitioner in the appearance of their conviction on “breach of peace” charges. The group was released on September 19, and the Interstate Commerce Commission issued new regulations, mandating an end to segregation in all bus and train stations and ordered the removal of “whites only” signs from interstate bus terminals by November 1.
What is significant to the congregation at St. Barnabas’, Newark is that Pierson went on to become priest-in-charge at St. Barnabas’ throughout most of the turbulent 1960’s. He and his wife, Ann Clark Rockefeller, a daughter of Nelson Rockefeller, shared an interest in social causes, which included racial equality, women’s rights, and the welfare of migrant workers. They supported a black dance group in Brooklyn, subsidized James Baldwin’s “Blues for Mister Charlie’’ at the American National Theater and Academy (ANTA) Theater, and flew to Moscow in 1965 in a citizens exchange project to thaw the Cold War.
While in Newark, Pierson continued his social protests, and criticized then-Governor Hughes for calling the National Guard during the 1967 Newark riots. That civil disturbance, marked by six days of rioting, looting and destruction, left 26 dead and hundreds injured. According to Pierson, the rioting might have been avoided if the city’s anti-poverty program had been given sufficient funds. Pierson died in 1997.
The Voice The official print periodical of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark September 2011
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
Between 1947 and 1965, over fifty bombings occurred in Birmingham, resulting in the city becoming known as "Bombingham"; Perhaps the most famous of these blasts was the September 15, 1963 racially motivated bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which resulted in the death of four innocent black girls.
Dr. King wired Wallace that "the blood of four little children ... is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder." At the funeral for three of the girls (one family preferred a separate, private funeral), Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke about life being "as hard as crucible steel." More than 8,000 mourners, including 800 clergymen of both races, attended the service.
Eulogy For The Young Victims Of The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
The Blessed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
[Delivered at funeral service for three of the children - Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Diane Wesley - September 18, 1963.]
This afternoon we gather in the quiet of this sanctuary to pay our last tribute of respect to these beautiful children of God. They entered the stage of history just a few years ago, and in the brief years that they were privileged to act on this mortal stage, they played their parts exceedingly well. Now the curtain falls; they move through the exit; the drama of their earthly life comes to a close. They are now committed back to that eternity from which they came.
These children-unoffending, innocent, and beautiful-were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.
And yet they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak) They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.
And so my friends, they did not die in vain. (Yeah) God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. (Oh yes) And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force (Yeah) that will bring new light to this dark city. (Yeah) The holy Scripture says, "A little child shall lead them." (Oh yeah) The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland (Yeah) from the low road of man's inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. (Yeah, Yes) These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The spilled blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry of Birmingham (Yeah) to transform the negative extremes of a dark past into the positive extremes of a bright future. Indeed this tragic event may cause the white South to come to terms with its conscience. (Yeah)
And so I stand here to say this afternoon to all assembled here, that in spite of the darkness of this hour (Yeah Well), we must not despair. (Yeah, Well) We must not become bitter (Yeah, That's right), nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. No, we must not lose faith in our white brothers. (Yeah, Yes) Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.
May I now say a word to you, the members of the bereaved families? It is almost impossible to say anything that can console you at this difficult hour and remove the deep clouds of disappointment which are floating in your mental skies. But I hope you can find a little consolation from the universality of this experience. Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men and poor men die; old people die and young people die. Death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.
I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity's affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.
Now I say to you in conclusion, life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. (Yeah, Yes) Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters. (Yeah) And if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him (Yeah, Well), and that God is able (Yeah, Yes) to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.
And so today, you do not walk alone. You gave to this world wonderful children. [moans] They didn't live long lives, but they lived meaningful lives. (Well) Their lives were distressingly small in quantity, but glowingly large in quality. (Yeah) And no greater tribute can be paid to you as parents, and no greater epitaph can come to them as children, than where they died and what they were doing when they died. (Yeah) They did not die
in the dives and dens of Birmingham (Yeah, Well), nor did they die discussing and listening to filthy jokes. (Yeah) They died between the sacred walls of the church of God (Yeah, Yes), and they were discussing the eternal meaning (Yes) of love. This stands out as a beautiful, beautiful thing for all generations. (Yes) Shakespeare had Horatio to say some beautiful words as he stood over the dead body of Hamlet. And today, as I stand over the remains of these beautiful, darling girls, I paraphrase the words of Shakespeare: (Yeah, Well): Good night, sweet princesses. Good night, those who symbolize a new day. (Yeah, Yes) And may the flight of angels (That's right) take thee to thy eternal rest. God bless you.
Saint John Coltrane wrote the song 'Alabama' in response to the bombing. He patterned his saxophone playing on Martin Luther King's funeral speech.
(recorded November 18, 1963)
National Colored Union Convention Harpers Weekly 1869
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28
The first Labor Day celebration was held on September 5, 1882, and was organized by the Knights of Labor. The Knights of Labor founded in Philadelphia in 1869 by Uriah Stephens, was also known as Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. The Knights of Labor allowed membership by Women and Blacks. Following the collapse of Reconstruction, African Americans mobilized their own Colored Farmers' Alliance and Knights of Labor chapters Stewart M. Lewis, a colored Knight from Washington, D. C., traveled giving lectures to his people on the advantages offered by the order. In the wake of a strike against the Pullman Company by its employees and the harsh ending of the strike by President Grover Cleveland the official holiday was created. President Cleveland seized the chance at conciliation offered by Congressional legislation establishing a day to honor labor, especially labor unions, and in 1894 Labor Day was born. The Lectionary provides a Labor Day Service. According to a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement
