What Kind of Soil Are You?

The appointed Gospel reading for the Daily Prayer of the Church comes from the Gospel according to Matthew where we read the familiar story of the sower and the seed:

 

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!’ (Mt. 13:1-9).

 

At different points in our lives, we can be different recipients of the sower’s seed.  Sometimes we are not inclined to listen and the seed fall of the pathway of our deaf ears.  At other times, we are rocky ground where nothing can take root, and whatever tries to grow is scorched. There are other times when we are so concerned with how we will survive during difficult times that our worries and concerns are like thorns which kill anything that tries to grow.  There are those other times, and perhaps they are rare, but we are receptive to God’s Word, and it takes root in us and it grows and we are able, through God’s good grace, to be productive bearer’s of God’s Good News bringing forth the healing that restores the world as God intended it to be.

 

Let us pray: Gracious God, we have nothing good in our lives except that which comes from you.  May Your Word take root among us that we may be faithful witnesses to the Good News of Jesus Christ, your Son, who makes all things a new creation through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Turn your clocks back one hour this Saturday evening. We all get an extra hour of blessed sleep.

 

The All Hallow’s Eve Children’s Party this Friday, 30 October from 6 to 9 PM at Sutton Hall at St. Augustine.  We are expecting 100 children, so please bring candy, hot dogs, buns, chip and fruit drinks! 

 

This Sunday is the Feast of All Saints.  We will read the names of all those from St. Augustine’s who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially the ill, young and old, the families of those who have recently died, especially, the Rev. Dr. Rhoda Montgomery, the rector of St. Thomas in College Station, who died from cancer this week, everyone suffering from Hurricane Patricia in Mexico, and all of those celebrating birthdays, especially Wanda Makowski.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

The Body Does Not Consist of One Member but of Many.

The Epistle reading for the Daily Prayer of the Church continues from where we left off yesterday, and it carries the same theme, sameness is not equality:

 

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

 

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.  (1 Cor. 12:12-26).

 

The inspired Word of God spoken through Paul is this: “the body does not consist of one member but of many.”  Diversity, different viewpoints, is the key; sameness is not.  Strength comes from diversity, not uniformity.  If everyone were the same, there would be no spice in life.  Paul knew this well.  The body is composed of many members, many parts, each serving its own function.  God save us from collective sameness.

 

Let us pray: Gracious God and Father, we are your creation.  Some of us are male and others female, some are black and other white, some are short and others tall, some thin and others plump, some blond and other red headed and some with no hair at all, some are physically strong and others weak.  Each of us in an integral part of Your world.  Give us the grace to appreciate the other as a reflection of You since we are made in Your likeness and image, and give us the grace to respect each other in our differences.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

The funeral service for Ernest Lemons, Jr. will be Saturday, 17 October at 11 AM, at E.L. Johnson Funeral Home in Galveston.

 

The Art Show is going on this week in Sutton Hall.  Please come and see the wonderful art work, each as unique as its creator.

 

Adult Christian Education: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis at 11 AM on Sundays.

 

The Seaside Seniors will meet on the third Thursday of this month, 15 October at 11 AM, and the theme will be All Hallows Eve.

 

All Hallows’ Eve children’s party on Friday, 30 October in Sutton Hall from 6 PM to 9 PM.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

We Are Not Called to Be Cogs in a Machine: Equality Is Not Sameness

The appointed Epistle reading for the Daily Prayer of the Church is taken from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth:

 

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.

 

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (1 Cor. 12:1-11).

 

There are so many in our society who think that equality is making everyone the same.  That is not equality; rather, that is homogenization, uniformity, amalgamation, destruction of uniqueness. We have a lot of that going around these days.  People who shout down the other person because they have a difference of opinion.  The mantra is, “If you don’t think the way I do, then you and you are either stupid or bigoted.  You must conform to my way of thinking, to my way of being.”  Equality then consists of being interchangeable like a cog in a machine.

 

Today’s Epistle reading from St. Paul tells us that in our different personalities and gifts we find equality.  We are equal because each of us is indispensible; we are all equally needed. Within the same Lord, some heal, some prophecy, some teach, some discern, some do miracles, but each is different, and each is equal because each is indispensible to the Body of Christ.  If everyone was a prophet, or a teacher, or a miracle worker, or a healer, or able to discern, or if everyone was a bishop, or a priest, or a deacon, or a layperson, or an atheist, or a theologian, pick your sameness, it simply would not work.

 

Let us pray:  Open our eyes and ears, O Lord, to see that in our uniqueness we are equal because we are all indispensible.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

The funeral service for Ernest Lemons, Jr. will be Saturday, 17 October at 11 AM, at E.L. Johnson Funeral Home in Galveston.

 

The Art Show is going on this week in Sutton Hall.  Please come and see the wonderful art work, each as unique as its creator.

 

Adult Christian Education: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis at 11 AM on Sundays.

 

All Hallows’ Eve children’s party on Friday, 30 October in Sutton Hall from 6 PM to 9 PM.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

St. Jerome: Scholar & Priest

Today the Church celebrates a scholar and priest, St. Jerome, who was born around 342 and who died around 420.  Jerome was known as a Biblical scholar who translated Scripture in the common language of the day, Latin, and his translation is known as The Vulgate (meaning, in the vernacular, the language of the people). 

 

Jerome was known for his temper, and he and our own St. Augustine exchanged some quite fiery correspondence.  There was the exchange of letters between Augustine (Bishop of Hippo) and Jerome,about  Jerome's new Latin translation of the Old Testament. Up to that time all Latin versions had been based upon the Greek version (called the translation of "the Seventy" or the Septuagint). But Augustine had learned that Jerome was now making a translation from the Hebrew, which differed in many places from the Septuagint.

 

Here is one such exchange:

 

Augustine to Jerome written about 394: “... I beseech you not to devote your labor to the work of translating into Latin the sacred canonical books, unless you follow the method in which you have translated Job, viz. with the addition of notes, to let it be seen plainly what differences there are between this version of yours and that of the Septuagint, whose authority is worthy of highest esteem. For my own part, I cannot sufficiently express my wonder that anything should at this date be found in the Hebrew manuscripts which escaped so many translators perfectly acquainted with the language.”

 

Jerome to Augustine in response: “You ask why a former translation which I made of some of the canonical books was carefully marked with asterisks and obelisks, whereas I afterwards published a translation without these. You must pardon my saying that you seem to me not to understand the matter: for the former translation is from the Septuagint; and wherever obelisks are placed, they are designed to indicate that the Seventy have said more than is found in the Hebrew. But the asterisks indicate what has been added by Origen from the version of Theodotion. In that version I was translating from the Greek: but in the later version, translating from the Hebrew itself, I have expressed what I understood it to mean, being careful to preserve rather the exact sense than the order of the words. I am surprised that you do not read the books of the Seventy translators in the genuine form in which they were originally given to the world, but as they have been corrected, or rather corrupted, by Origen, with his obelisks and asterisks; and that you refuse to follow the translation, however feeble, which has been given by a Christian man, especially seeing that Origen borrowed the things which he has added from the edition of a man who, after the passion of Christ, was a Jew and a blasphemer. Do you wish to be a true admirer and partisan of the Seventy translators? Then do not read what you find under the asterisks; rather erase them from the volumes, that you may approve yourself indeed a follower of the ancients. If, however, you do this, you will be compelled to find fault with all the libraries of the Churches; for you will scarcely find more than one manuscript here and there which has not these interpolations.”

 

Even the greatest saints have disagreed on things, even the translation of Scripture.  Some things among God’s people seem to never change!

 

Let us pray: O Lord, O God of truth, your Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give you thanks for your servant Jerome, and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we pray that your Holy Spirit will overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, the living Word, will transform us according to your righteous will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

St. Francis’ Day and the Blessing of the Animals.  Bring your pets to Church on Sunday at 12 Noon to be blessed.

 

This Sunday, we will begin our new Adult Christian Education series, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

 

The 7^th Annual Art Show is right around the corner!  This year our theme is “HOPE& COMPASSION” Entries are accepted 26 to 29 September from 10 am - 6 pm and judging will be on Wednesday, 30 September. The juror is artist Karen Calhoun.  The show is displayed 3 to 11 October from 10 am- 6 pm.  We have 2 receptions OPENING NIGHT AWARDS OCT. 3, 6 PM and ARTWALK NIGHT OCT. 10TH UNTIL 9 PM.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

St. Michael & All the Angels

It has been a while since I have posted on the City of God, but today seems an appropriate day to get back to it after neglecting it for about two weeks. 

 

Today, the Church celebrates the feast day of entities unlike ourselves, angels, namely, St. Michael and all of the Angels.  In England, today is commonly known as Michaelmas.

 

The word “angel” comes from the Greek word ανγελώσ meaning “messenger.”  James Kiefer writes: “The Holy Scriptures often speak of created intelligences other than humans who worship God in heaven and act as His messengers and agents on earth. We are not told much about them, and it is not clear how much of what we are told is figurative. Jesus speaks of them as rejoicing over penitent sinners (Lk. 15:10).”

 

I can remember as a child a framed picture that was over my bed of an angel guiding 2 children, a boy and a girl, as they walked over a wooden slatted bridge that had one slat missing.  The angel was there to protect the children as they walked into danger.  (See the picture above.)

 

James Kiefer goes on to write:

 

By the time of Christ, Jewish popular belief included many specifics about angels, with names for many of them. There were thought to be four archangels, named Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. An alternative tradition has seven archangels (see Tobit 12:15 and 1 Enoch 20). Sometimes each archangel is associated with one of the seven planets of the Ptolemaic system (the moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). Michael is associated with Saturn and Uriel with the Sun. The other pairings I forget, but I believe that you will find a list in the long narrative poem called "The Golden Legend," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

 

St. Michael (“Who is Like God”) is said to be the captain of the heavenly armies. He is mentioned in the Scriptures in Daniel 10:13, 31; 12:1 (where he is said to be the prince of the people of Israel); in Jude 9 (where he is said to have disputed with the devil about the body of Moses); and in Revelation 12:7 (where he is said to have led the heavenly armies against those of the great dragon). He is generally pictured in full armor, carrying a lance, and with his foot on the neck of a dragon. (Pictures of the Martyr George are often similar, but only Michael has wings.)

 

Gabriel (the name means "God is my champion") is thought of as the special bearer of messages from God to men. He appears in Daniel 8:16; 9:21 as an explainer of some of Daniel's visions. According to the first chapter of Luke, he announced the forthcoming births of John the Baptist and of our Lord to Zachariah and the Virgin Mary respectively.

 

Raphael (the name means "God heals") is mentioned in the Apocrypha, in the book of Tobit, where, disguised as a man, he accompanies the young man Tobias on a quest, enables him to accomplish it, and gives him a remedy for the blindness of his aged father.

 

It is thought by many scholars that the seven lamps of Revelation 4:5 are an image suggested by (among many other things) the idea of seven archangels.

 

What is the value to us of remembering the Holy Angels? Well, since they appear to excel us in both knowledge and power, they remind us that, even among created things, we humans are not the top of the heap. Since it is the common belief that demons are angels who have chosen to disobey God and to be His enemies rather than His willing servants, they remind us that the higher we are the lower we can fall. The greater our natural gifts and talents, the greater the damage if we turn them to bad ends. The more we have been given, the more will be expected of us. And, in the picture of God sending His angels to help and defend us, we are reminded that apparently God, instead of doing good things directly, often prefers to do them through His willing servants, enabling those who have accepted His love to show their love for one another.

 

Let us pray: Everlasting God, who have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS:

 

St. Francis’ Day and the Blessing of the Animals.  Bring your pets to Church on Sunday at 12 Noon to be blessed.

 

This Sunday, we will begin our new Adult Christian Education series, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

 

The 7^th Annual Art Show is right around the corner!  This year our theme is “HOPE & COMPASSION” Entries are accepted 26 to 29 September from 10 am - 6 pm and judging will be on Wednesday, 30 September. The juror is artist Karen Calhoun.  The show is displayed 3 to 11 October from 10 am- 6 pm.  We have 2 receptions OPENING NIGHT AWARDS OCT. 3, 6 PM and ARTWALK NIGHT OCT. 10TH UNTIL 9 PM.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Constance & Her Companions

Reaching out during a time of crisis and giving of one’s self is what the Church remembers today in the life and ministry of a group of women who devoted their lives in service of others, Constance and her companions. 

 

It was the summer of summer of 1878, and Memphis was in the midst of an epidemic of yellow fever.  Many fled the town; others could not leave because they were so ill.  Constance, an Episcopal nun of the Order of St. Mary, and her companions stayed behind to nurse the sick.  A group of Roman Catholic nuns stayed as well to look after the ill. 

 

Sister Constance had arrived just a few years before, in May of 1873.  She was a mere 28 years old, and sent as Mother Superior. With her came Sisters Amelia, Thecla and the Novice Sister Hughetta to set up a school.

 

Bishop Quintard had given the original bishop’s residence near St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis for a new school.

 

In August of 1878, yellow fever broke out, and panic spread. Half the population of Memphis had fled, and rigid quarantines were imposed.  Nevertheless, the death rates mounted.  The sisters stayed behind to nurse the sick, but on 25 August, Sister Frances came down with fever. On Monday night the 26th, Sister Hughetta became ill, many of them orphans.

 

Fr. Charles Parsons, the last Episcopal priest in Memphis and their chaplain, came down with the fever and died on 6 September. Now the Sisters had no priest. Epidemic deaths now exceeded 80 a day. They whole ethos of the city was insane: death wagons passed in the streets, looting and murders were commonplace.

 

Sister Constance wrote in her diary: Yesterday I found two young girls, who had spent two days in a two-room cottage, with the unburied bodies of their parents, their uncle in the utmost suffering and delirium and no one nearer them but a Black man who held the sick man in his bed. It was 24 hours before I could get those two fearful corpses buried, and then I had to send for a police officer to the Board of Health before any undertaker would enter the room. One grows perfectly hardened to these things—carts with 8 or 9 corpses in rough boxes are ordinary sights. I saw a nurse stop 1 day and ask for a certain man’s residence—the driver pointed over his shoulder with his whip at the heap of coffins behind him and answered, “I’ve got him here in his coffin.”

 

With no one else willing or able to take charge, the Sisters agreed to take over management of the city’s Canfield Asylum that had served mainly as an orphanage for Black children and was as yet free of the pestilence. But famine had arrived, and all that the Sisters had to eat were crackers and water.

 

When the news of the deaths of the local priests got out, over 30 priests from all over the country came to Memphis. Father W.T. Dickinson Dalzell came from Shreveport, La., since he had already survived the disease and was immune—he was also a trained physician. With his arrival, daily Eucharist resumed and the Sacrament was carried to the dying Sisters. The next day Father Louis Schuyler arrived from New Jersey.

 

But the deaths followed. On 9 September, Sister Constance died at the age of 33; on 11 September, Sister Ruth and Sister Clare; on 12 September Sister Thecla died and Fr. Schuyler became ill; on 17 September Fr. Schuyler died; on the 18^th, Sister Ruth died. Sister Helen, Sister Hughetta and Sister Clare became ill but survived.

 

By the time fall came, over 5,000 people were dead, and the city of Memphis itself had gone bankrupt.  Excerpted from Stars in a Dark World: Stories of the Saints and Holy Days of the Liturgy by Fr. John-Julian, OJN.

 

Let us pray: We give you thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and the dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death. Inspire in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

 

Please remember everyone on our prayer list, especially the families of those who have recently lost loved ones, the Stevens and McCraw families.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550