We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

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What to remember about St. Patrick on March 17?

Today is March 17, St. Patrick’s day. Among all the saints, St. Patrick’s day is easily remembered. You can’t forget it with all the celebrations. In our time it is connected with parades, wearing green, and drinking green beer among others.

Many things may be surprising about his life. No, he didn’t wear green. He wasn’t Irish but British. His original name wasn’t Patrick. Plus there may be parts of his original story made up by him to promote his cause. British professor Philip Freeman, author of a biography on St. Patrick has tried to strip away the legends – That he was “kidnapped from Britain, forced to work as a slave, but managed to escape and reclaim his status, is likely to be fiction.” Were the stories a way to escape his place in England?

So what is left and what’s in it for us in 2023? Plenty! Subtitle – how to succeed in the world? First, you must have a mission. Then you must pursue it with all of your talents. You must have a unique angle, different from others. Call it creativity and add in some luck. Let’s take each one.

1. He succeeded in his mission which is his objective and also includes his methods. He was determined to convert Ireland to Christianity from the Druids. In 431, St. Patrick was consecrated Bishop of the Irish and went to Ireland to spread “the Good news” there. He baptized thousands and ordained many priests to lead new communities of Christians. Patrick made his headquarters at Armagh in the North, where he built a school, and had the protection of the local monarch. He had a stable base! From this base, he made extensive missionary journeys, with considerable success.

2. He was known for his passion and zeal and was creative at the same time. He was totally dedicated as a priest for 40 years. Patrick is said to have used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, demonstrating that God is both three (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), yet one, as the shamrock is both three-leafed, yet a single plant. Shamrocks were sacred plants for the Druids, symbolizing eternal life. So he re-interpreted known symbols.

3. He is considered the first writer in Irish history. He has left us an autobiography (called the Confessio), a Letter to Coroticus (cruel ruler who persecuted Christians) in which he denounces the slave trade and rebukes the British chieftain Coroticus for taking part in it, and the Lorica (or “Breastplate” a poem of disputed authorship traditionally attributed to Patrick), a work that has been called “part prayer, part anthem, and part incantation.”Breastplate” is in the Episcopal Hymnbook. The version tune we sing was written by Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander, for St. Patrick’s Day, 1889, and sung generally throughout Ireland on that day

“Christ be within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ inquired, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.”

A possible 4. Tell your own story which he did!

Remembering Harriet Tubman, March 10, 2025

Today March 10, 2023 the Episcopal Church recognizes Harriet Tubman on her own day from the day she died in 1913

Links
  1. Cleo Coleman as Harriet Tubman video
  1. Catherine’s sermon on Harriet Tubman and St. Patrick

St. Peter’s Episcopal in Port Royal, VA has a unique connection to Tubman through Port Royal resident Cleo Coleman. Coleman is a Baptist but visits our church and is a member of our Wed. Bible study

Cleo has also dramatized Harriet Tubman for years. We have a video of a performance on July 4, 2018. The video is introduced by Cookie Davis who has worked with Coleman. Coleman talks about her dramatization. We have selections of her performance only edited by a malfunctioning camera.

Then there is a sermon Catherine did on March 17, 2019, which pays tribute to both Harriet Tubman and St. Patrick. March 17 is St. Peter’s Day. From the sermon

“In today’s gospel Luke 13:31-35, Jesus is standing firm in the Lord as he heads toward Jerusalem. The Pharisees say to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

“Not bad advice—Jesus has been healing and teaching on his way to Jerusalem. So many people have benefited from his presence and his ministry with them. Certainly, a spiritual comfort zone for Jesus, and his disciples, would be to continue his work not so close to Herod’s interference. He could go back to Galilee and do his thing, and probably worry less about being killed.

“But Jesus knows that God wants him to press on, to Jerusalem, and Jesus knows that Jerusalem will be full of danger for him, because after all, Jerusalem is the city that kills the prophets and kills those who are sent to it!

“When she was about 24, Harriet (Tubman) managed to make it to Canada and escaped slavery. Finally, she was free!

“But like Patrick, Harriet could not rest in this spiritual comfort zone. She could not forget her parents and others who were still enslaved. She had a deep love for her people, so deep that she could not rest in her own freedom and forget them.

“So with the help of the Quakers, she made at least 19 trips back to Maryland, at the risk of her own life, to lead others to freedom.

“Harriet Tubman, saint, stood firm in the Lord, and pressed on, throughout her life, in pursuit of freedom not just for herself, but for her people.

At the conclusion of the sermon, Catherine asks the congregation “How is God calling us, the people of God, St Peter’s, out of our own spiritual comfort zone as this church? Where does God want us to stand firm, with love, and in that strength borne of love to press on? “

Conversion of Paul, Jan 25

On January 25 we remember how Saul (or Paul) of Tarsus, formerly a persecutor of the early Christian Church, was led by God’s grace to become one of its chief spokesmen. Here are two art works that depict the event :

“The Conversion on the Way to Damascus; ” (1601)   “ The Conversion of St. Paul ” Nicolas-Bernard Lepicie, 1767

 "and suddenly a light from heaven shined round about him. And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Who said: Who art thou, Lord? And he: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. " Acts 9: 3-5

Italian painter Caravaggio painted the one on the left in 1601 for the Cerasi Chapel of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome. The painting depicts the moment recounted in Chapter 9 of Acts of the Apostles when Saul, soon to be the apostle Paul, fell on the road to Damascus.

Caravaggio is close to the Bible. The horse is there and, to hold him, a groom, but the drama is internalized within the mind of Saul. There is no heavenly apparition. He lies on the ground stunned, his eyes closed as if dazzled by the light.

Caravaggio’s style featured a dark background with usually one point of breaking light. Paul is flung off of his horse and is seen on his back on the ground. Although Paul reflects the most light out of all the characters, the attention is given to him in a strange way. Because Paul is on the ground, he is much smaller than the horse, which is also at the center of the painting but he is pictured closer to the viewer.

The second painting constrast with Caravaggio in the use of color and light. This one has some of the most vibrant colors.  Heaven’s light is shown coming dynamically from left to right.  The painting is like the key frame in a movie on the conversion.  At the time Lepicie was a professor at the  Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris

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Remembering Martin Luther King on his birthday, Jan 15

It was 57 years ago. Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old.

In the months before his assassination, Martin Luther King became increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign to focus on the issue, including an interracial poor people’s march on Washington, and in March 1968 traveled to Memphis in support of poorly treated African-American sanitation workers. On March 28, a workers’ protest march led by King ended in violence and the death of an African-American teenager. King left the city but vowed to return in early April to lead another demonstration.

On April 3, back in Memphis, King gave his last sermon, saying, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

King was no stranger to controversy. Though he had little experience in activism, King with a doctorate in theology was known for his speaches.  In 1955, community leaders recruited him to be the spokesperson for the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the first major protests of the civil rights era. The boycott lasted for more than a year and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court declaring racial segregation on public buses unconstitutional.

King’s role in that boycott transformed him into a national figure. In 1957, he co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to help encourage other communities to take up the crusade for civil rights.

5 years before his asssassination, he was focusing on desegregation before the landmark 1964 Civil Rights act. He was in Birmingham on a campaign of coordinated marches and sit-ins against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.

At the time, in parts of the country—especially in the South—blacks couldn’t eat at certain restaurants, continued to attend segregated schools (though the practice had been outlawed years earlier), and were unemployed at a rate nearly twice that of whites.

The non-violent campaign was coordinated by Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. On April 10, a blanket injunction was issued against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing”. Leaders of the campaign announced they would disobey the ruling. On Good Friday, April 12, King was roughly arrested with others.

King was not always popular with clergy due to his tactics. The day of his arrest, eight Birmingham clergy members wrote a criticism of the campaign that was published in the Birmingham News, calling its direct action strategy “unwise and untimely.”

LINKS

1 King wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail in response. King’s Letter has been called one of the most significant works of the Civil Right movement. The Letter

2 Audio from Dr. King

3 Forum in Feb., 1964 on the letter 

4 King and the Book of Amos as reflected in the letter. King used the book of Amos throughout his career.

5 King’s Philosophy of Non-Violence

6 King Sermon – Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

7 Multimedia production of the “I have a Dream” speech

3 saints after Christmas Day

1. St. Stephen Dec. 26

Stephen was among the earliest Christian martyrs, stoned to death for his beliefs. St. Paul not only witnessed the event but held the garments of those stoning Stephen which he regretted later on and carried a lasting sense of guilt.

2. John the Apostle Dec. 27

John, one of the Apostles, possibly lived the longest life associated with the Gospel, an author in that time and Evangelist spreading the Gospel to many in the Mediterranean area who were not of Jewish background. He is believed to be the only Apostle not martyred for the cause. He is associated with the Gospel that bears his name, 3 Epistles and possible authorship of the Book of Revelation.

3. Holy Innocents Dec. 28

The term “Holy Innocents” comes from Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 2. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, King Herod, fearing for his throne, ordered that all the male infants of Bethlehem two years and younger be killed. These children are regarded as martyrs for the Gospel — “martyrs in fact though not in will.” This can be compared to the conduct of Pharoah in Exodus 1:16. “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”

Looking to the New Year

By Br. Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE

“Each of us can light a candle in the darkness and bring good news to a world in so much need. Is there someone I need to change the way I look at; to see them with God’s eyes? Or is there something bold and courageous I can do, to bring God’s Good News into this broken world which God so loves? Make good news this coming year.”

Mary’s Song – the “Magnificat”

From Songs in Waiting

The Song of Mary – The Magnificat

Luke 1:46-55
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
“my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; * for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
“From this day all generations will call me blessed: * the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
“He has mercy on those who fear him * in every generation.
“He has shown the strength of his arm, * he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
“He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, * and has lifted up the lowly.
“He has filled the hungry with good things, * and the rich he has sent away empty.
“He has come to the help of his servant Israel, * for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
“The promise he made to our fathers, * to Abraham and his children for ever.”

It is a song that speaks profoundly about being “childlike.” Luke focuses his entire Christmas narrative around the person of Mary, who was probably just a child, a young girl who was per­haps twelve to fourteen years old, as it was customary for Jewish girls to marry just after puberty. 

In this light, the Christmas story is of a child hav­ing The Child. 

When people begin to bring their children to Jesus for his blessing, the disciples send them away, seeing the children as a waste of his precious time. But Jesus rebukes them, saying, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14), He is saying that the deep­est spiritual knowledge, while hidden from the wise and learned, is revealed to children. He even goes so far as to say that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must become like children: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Jesus often refers to us all as “children of God” 

The name Magnificat comes from the first word in the Latin Vulgate translation of this song, “magnify” or “glorify.” Most probably a compilation of phrases from the Psalms, various Old Testament prophetic books, and Hannah’s Song in 1 Samuel, the Magnifi­cat has been part of Christian liturgy at least since the time of Saint Benedict in the fifth and sixth centuries. 

The Magnificat has been recited every day for cen­turies by Christians, chanted by monks, and set to music by composers of every age, perhaps the most famous being Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition, which he wrote for Christmas Day 1725 

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