NOTE: Websites frequently change and links may no longer work. The reference to Stephen Reynold’s book FOR ALL THE SAINTS on the Anglican Church website has changed. To access full information on each person named in the “The Calendar “ of the BAS — go to https://www.anglican.ca/about/liturgicaltexts — and scroll down for “For All The Saints”
February 2 — The Presentation of the Lord or Candlemas
This is a light to reveal God to the nations and the glory of his people Israel. Luke 2.32
The celebration of the Presentation of the Lord comes from the ancient Jewish law that every firstborn son had to be dedicated to God’s service. But the Law of Moses allowed parents to redeem their child by offering something else in his stead. In Jesus’s case, Mary and Joseph offered the redemptive substitute which the law appointed for the first-born of poor parents, “ a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” Thus, paradoxically, the Redeemer himself was redeemed. Luke also records how the Christchild was greeted by Simeon and Anna, two figures who represented Israel’s longing to see the Redeemer promised by God. Luke gave Simeon a song to sing, the Nunc dimittis, “ Lord, now let your servant go in peace” which acclaims Jesus as the saving Light of God. It is a regular Canticle in the Service of Evening Prayer. The Roman Church developed the custom of blessing candles on this Feast Day—hence its other title, Candlemas. The church and families would bring a year’s worth of candles to be blessed. In celebrating the Feast of the Presentation, the people of the Church become like Simeon, who cradled the infant Light of Salvation in the crook of his arm and knew him to be as fragile as a candleflame.
February 9 — Hannah Grier Coome, Founder of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine, 1921
Those who fear the Lord will form true judgements, and like a light they will kindle righteous deeds. Sirach 32.16
The Sisterhood of St. John the Divine is an order of Anglican nuns founded in Canada on St John’s Day in 1884 and dedicated (as its Rule states) to “personal sanctification and active charity.” We remember Hannah Grier Coome, who was its founder and first Mother Superior. Born in Ontario, to an Anglican clergyman, she married an Englishman and spent most of her married life in Britain. In 1877, her husband’s business sent him to Chicago, where he died of cancer the following year. Harriet remained in Chicago for another three years, then decided to return to England and try her vocation as an Anglican nun. On her way back, she visited her family in Toronto and discovered a group of Anglicans who wished to found a Canadian sisterhood. She accepted their invitation to take the first step and performed her novitiate at the Sisters of St. Mary’s in New York State. Mother Hannah returned to Toronto in September 1884 and launched the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine. She and her new community initially faced a good deal of harassment, but their work during the Riel Rebellion, serving in government’s field hospitals, overcame these prejudices. The Sisters eventually founded a hospital of their own — St. John’s Surgical Hospital for Women, where over half their patients received medical attention free of charge. Over time the community trained nurses, operated hospitals [From 1936 to 1949 they ran All Saints Hospital in Springhill, NS.] ministered to the elderly and ran schools and orphanages in both large cities and rural areas. Mother Hannah guided these enterprises, and the everyday life of the Sisters, with holiness, practical wisdom, and a sense of humour that pierced high-flying pretensions and unseasonable gloom. She retired from the office of Superior in 1916 and died on Ash Wednesday five years later. Their modern activities include retreats, missions, workshops, conferences, and white work embroidery at St. John’s Convent in Toronto; St. John’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto; and diocesan and parish work.
February 15 — Thomas Bray, Priest and Missionary
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace. Isaiah 52.7
Thomas Bray was an English parish priest who founded two great missionary organizations at the turn of the seventeenth century: the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge [SPCK] and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel [SPG]. Bray’s love of knowledge was first recognized and nurtured by his parish priest, who enabled him to attend Oxford University. He was ordained in the Church of England and appointed vicar of a rural parish, where he developed a comprehensive programme of Christian instruction. In 1695 he became the Bishop of London’s commissary for the colony of Maryland in North America. He realized that Anglican clergy in the colonies were too few and too poorly supported to meet the pastoral needs of the people. Over the next five years he increased the number of Anglican clergy in Maryland by more than a hundred; he also raised funds to enable thirty parishes to set up libraries. He organized the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge [SPCK] in 1698 to undertake the task of equipping libraries and churches with books, Bibles and Prayer Books both in England and especially among Anglican parishes overseas. Several Parishes in our diocese have very old large Bibles presented on behalf of the SPCK. Three years later, Bray founded the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel [SPG] in order to recruit and support Anglican missionaries and missionary work in North America, where our Diocese and others were supported. Bray envisioned a library for each parish in North America. His scheme for establishing parish libraries in England and America succeeded. Bray’s efforts would eventually lead to the founding of almost 100 libraries in North America and more than 200 libraries in England. In 1706, Bray accepted the position of Rector of St Botolph’s, Aldgate. There he devoted his energies to the needs of the urban poor, schooling for the children of black slaves, and the plight of unemployed people who were imprisoned for debt. He spent the final decades of his life serving his London parish, as well as engaging in other philanthropic and literary activities. People were impressed by his teaching religious education to charity children well into his own old age, as well as work on behalf of prisoners at Newgate prison, including weekly “beef and beer” dinners and proposals for prison reform. He died on February 15, 1730. His legacy was filled to the very end with a zeal for the communication of knowledge, a love for the Anglican way and missionary concerns.
February 27 — George Herbert Priest and Poet, 1633
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” says the Lord; “no one comes to the Father, but by me.” John 14.6
George Herbert was an English priest of the early seventeenth century… and a poet who taught his verse to “rise harmoniously” on the wings of prayer. Born in 1593, he became a young man of brilliant promise, high-minded and proud — especially in his religion. He was convinced that God had chosen him for a great purpose, to instruct kings and princes in godly rule. But in a hard inner struggle, in prayers full of lament and anger, Herbert learned to question his lofty ambitions. At the age of thirty-three he was ordained a deacon; four years later he accepted the rural parish of Bemerton, where he was made a priest and found peace in the service of God and his flock. He was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill and providing food and clothing for those in need. But his ministry was cut off all too soon, having suffered for most of his life with poor health, he died of tuberculosis in early 1633, just short of his fortieth birthday. Herbert left an anthology of poems which was later published as The Temple. These poems have nourished the spiritual life of untold generations. A number have been set to music. Four have been included in COMMON PRAISE HYMNAL 1968 – including “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” and “Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life”.
