Holy God, who didst bless Elizabeth Seton with thy grace as wife, mother, educator and founder, that she might spend her life in service to thy people: Help us, by her example, to express our love for thee in love of others; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
I’ve lost track of all the provisional additions to Lesser Feasts and Fasts (now [i]Holy Women, Holy Men[/i]) from recent General Conventions, but I’m struck by how many of them are former Anglicans who became Roman Catholics: Cardinal Newman, and, I think, GK Chesterton, and maybe Thomas Merton. (Not Bede Griffiths, yet, but just wait.) Interesting timing, too, after all the New Year’s Day publicity about the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.
Pax Christi!
Chuck Bradshaw
Hulls Cove, Maine
Seriously, when Episcopalians commemorate Catholic converts, it begins to feel like Micheal Corleone: “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.”
Can anyone say for sure ‘I am not an Episcopalian’?
That’s something I love about Anglicanism — it recognizes holy men and women, regardless of denomination. That’s as it should be, IMO.
Thanks Pastor Chuckie, my thoughts exactly.
Not to comment at all on the merits of Elizabeth Seton’s Feast Day, but I wonder if the proliferation of honorees of feast days offers a chance for a husband who is in ‘the doghouse’ to offer a (highly-provisional and pretty unlikely) Feast Day prayer to his wife, rather than flowers and/or chocolate…. 🙂
#6: I think such a Feast Day would have to be pretty literal to have any (propitiatory) effect. & don’t forget the flowers either.
#7 – clarin – yes, I’m sure you’re right. A feast day (in a fine restaurant, maybe) with flowers on the altar (table), preceded by sackcloth and ashes.