Worship on the
Web |
 |
ON THIS DAY: NOVEMBER
This month we remember, among others, those fallen
in conflicts around the world, poets and authors, a
'difficult' saint, a celebrated Russian author and social
reformer, a leader of the Scottish Reformation, and
a fisherman turned disciple.
NOVEMBER |
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|
|
7 |
| |
9 |
10 |
|
|
|
14 |
| |
|
17 |
|
19 |
|
21 |
| |
|
|
|
26 |
|
28 |
| 29 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| <<previous |
|
|
5 November: James Clerk Maxwell
| James Clerk Maxwell, was an elder
and physicist, whose deep and lifelong Christian
faith is said to have informed his science, most
notably in his well known 'demon', the hypothetical
'finite being' used to illustrate his work on kinetic
(movement) theory. He held chairs in natural philosophy
at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and King’s
College, London, before returning to Scotland to
take up the lairdship of Glenlair in 1865 after
the death of his father, from whence he continued
his scientific research. His work on electromagnetism
was cornerstone to the development of the modern
radio, and he is also repudiated as being responsible
for the first colour photograph. His Electromagnetism
Theory recently came first in a poll by Physics
World Magazine, beating both Einstein and
Newton. |
James Clerk Maxwell: 'father' of modern radio
and colour photographs
|
There is a mountain range on Venus named after him (Maxwell
Montes). He is renowned for saying: "Men of science
as well as other men need to learn from Christ."
He died in 1879.
6 November: Leonard
Leonard was a sixth century French nobleman who became
a hermit in the Limoges area, whose austere yet genuine
lifestyle attracted others to join him.
Leonard: patron saint of prisoners
|
Regarded as the patron saint of prisoners,
after a special affection for them evident from
an early age, in art he is usually portrayed holding
chains or manacles. He is also the patron saint
of midwives and expectant mothers, after a hunting
incident involving King Theodebart and his pregnant
Queen Misigard. His reward was enough land on which
to expand the future Benedictine monastery of Noblat.
Returning crusaders, bringing with them experience
of imprisonment, illness and setback, brought also
knowledge of the cult of Leonard who had become
associated with the care and healing of those in
extreme ned and his name became attached to hospitalsand
hostels for pilgrims. |
8 November: Duns Scotus
Duns Scotus was born at Duns in the Scottish Borders,
became a Franciscan friar and was ultimately ordained
as a priest. He studied and taught at Paris, Oxford and
Cologne.
Duns Scotus
|
He attacked the basis of mediaeval
theology, based on Aquinas' idea of abstract knowledge,
and insisted that we could know truth from what
we could see and experience. He further insisted
that we could only know God because God has willed
it that he should be known. This he saw as leading
to a response of obedience and prayer. These insights,
and his account of the Trinity, deeply influenced
Calvin (through the Scottish scholar John Major)
and the Reformation. He died in 1308. |
Also on this day: we
remember Gerardine who
seems to have been a refugee in the uncertain times
when Danes and Norsemen were disrupting communities
in Ireland (where he may have come from). He finally
came to rest near what was to become Lossiemouth in
the north east of Scotland where the name of a headland
(Holyman’s Head) and a named cave testify to his
presence. Incorporated in the town’s coat of arms
is the depiction of the saint patrolling the beach on
stormy nights, ready to help those who had been ship-wrecked.
He is said to have died in 934.
| We
also remember:
John Milton, a poet whose themes frequently
drew from Christian religion, and Christian controversy
too, since he was much embroiled in the politics
of the times. For some time he was a presbyterian,
but later, after a dispute, favoured the Independents.
Initially a supporter of Oliver Cromwell –
at one time he held a government post - he later
took the contrary position that all Churches should
be disestablished from the State. He remained an
anti-royalist and as a result served |
John Milton, poet
|
some time in prison. In later years he wrote the great
Paradise Lost which tackled
the causes of evil and injustice in the world. He died
in 1674.
11 November: Martin of Tours
Martin of Tours is known by the name of the French diocese
of which he became bishop in 372, but his earlier life
was spent in the Roman army. It was in that context that
he is said to have given half of his cloak to a beggar
and subsequently had a vision of Christ. He founded the
first monastery in Gaul and set about spreading the Gospel
to the surrounding countryside. He strongly opposed the
Church establishment’s way of dealing with heretics
(those who don't believe in traditional religious doctrine)
by violence. His monastery seems to have been a stopping-off
point for missionary travellers to and from Scotland and
there are many place names which incorporate his name.
Indeed Martinmas was one of the Scottish quarter days
(similar to religious festivals). He died in 397.
Also on this day: we
remember Soren Kierkegaard who
was born in 1813 and spent most of his life in Copenhagen.
After a shaky start in childhood, adolescence and young
adulthood, he became established as an innovative philosopher.
He was the subject of a sustained attack by the satirical
magazine of his day but this did not prevent him from
taking his attacks to the heart of the establishment,
criticising the Church for preaching a comfortable and
compromised version of the Christian faith. In due course,
however, he came to a Christian position, but one which
was less based in the discussion of doctrine than in
the personal encounter with God. Both the original quality
of his thought and the devotional value of his writings
were of great influence on later thinkers such as Barth
and Heidegger.
| 11 November
is also Remembrance Day. On the eleventh
hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in
1918 the guns of Europe fell silent after four years
of the most bitter and devastating fighting. The
First World War armistice was signed at 5am in a
railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne, France.
Six hours later, at 11am, the war ended. |
Poppies have come
to symbolise Remembrance Day
|
Remembrance Day has now come to provide an annual opportunity
to remember those who have died in conflicts across the
world.
12 November: Machar
Machar lives in legend rather than history: sharing a
coracle (small boat) with Columba on the crossing from
Ireland, ejected by jealous fellow monks, finally establishing
a new religious community at the point in a river shaped
like a bishop’s crozier – the Don at what
is now Aberdeen and where the cathedral bears his name.
13 November: Bryce
Bryce was not everybody’s idea of a saint. "A
real menace," said some, "well intentioned but
difficult." His boss, St Martin of
Tours, whom he succeeded as bishop in 397, let slip
the remark: "If Christ endured Judas must not I endure
Bryce." His zeal as a missionary carried him through
and drew admiration and support from the common people.
There is not much to link him with the Scottish town of
Kirkcaldy, whose patron saint he is. His name is probably
hidden too in Kirkmabreck in Galloway.
Also on this day: Devenick
is another about whom not much is known but
there is enough to believe that he was a missionary
in the North East of Scotland in the valleys of the
Don and the Dee, in the fifth or sixth centuries. His
name lives in the town of Banchory-Devenick ('bancories'
or 'bangors' meant missionary centres) and Methleck
has a Devenick’s Well, where formerly there was
an annual fair in his honour.
15 November: John Witherspoon
John Witherspoon was born in 1723 in Yester manse near
Haddington, perhaps a descendant of John
Knox. He was prominent in the controversies of his
day, taking the evangelical position.
| He was the hand behind
the anonymous satire, Ecclesiastical
Characteristics, which set the 'moderates'
in the Church of Scotland about their ears and was
the talk of the clubs, coffee houses and presbyteries
of the time. In 1768 he was appointed president
of what is now Princeton Seminary where he was innovative
in both teaching methods and in the content of his
courses in philosophy and politics – his students
containing one future US president, 10 cabinet ministers,
12 state governors, 60 congressmen and three Supreme
Court justices. Ultimately he entered politics himself
and was the only minister to sign the American Declaration
of Independence. He died in 1794. |
John Witherspoon
|
16 November: Margaret of Scotland
Margaret was of the royal Anglo-Saxon family who grew
up at the pious court of Stephen of Hungary. Noted for
her beauty she married Malcolm Canmore and proved herself
a saint – helping to assimilate the Celtic church
and Scotland into the mainstream of Western Christianity,
re-founding Iona, introducing the Benedictines, and establishing
Dunfermline as an ecclesiastical and royal centre. She
personally ministered to the poor, promoted Sabbath observance,
gave herself to much prayer and fasting and reading of
the Scriptures.
Image of Margaret as featured in St Margaret's
Chapel, Edinburgh Castle
|
Her Life
by Turgot, her confessor, paints a realistic and
attractive picture of this great queen who did much
to civilise the court and country. While she is
credited with church foundations e.g. Dunfermline
Abbey, St Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle,
etc., such enterprise with diocesan episcopacy largely
took place in the reigns of her three sons: Edgar,
Alexander, and especially David. One of her daughters
married Henry I of England and thus gave the Norman
royal house both Scoto-Celtic and Anglo-Saxon blood.
Though applauded for her conventional piety - or
deeply religious way of life - Margaret has been
criticised for her over-anglicisation of Scotland
that led to the by-passing of Malcolm’s brother,
Donald Ban, and also to the by-passing of his son
by his first marriage, Duncan, as rightful rulers.
She died in 1093. |
18 November: Hilda of Whitby
Hilda was the great-niece of Edwin, king of Northumbria.
After some time in various East Anglia monasteries she
returned to her home territory to found and become abbess
of the mixed abbey of Streaneshaich (now Whitby) –
men and women housed separately but worshipping together.
This Celtic abbey became the foremost in what is now northern
England and hosted the famous Synod of Whitby in 663/664
when under King Oswain the dating of Easter, etc., were
decided. Hilda, renowned for her holiness, wisdom and
scholarship, drew people from high and low to seek her
advice. "All that knew her called her mother,"
wrote Bede, the main source about her life. Five of her
monks became bishops and Hilda encouraged the poetic gifts
of Caedmon, the cowherd turned monk. In painful illness
in her last years she was an example of her instruction:
"To serve God rightly when in health, and to render
thanks faithfully to Him when in trouble or bodily weakness."
Her final counsel to her community was: "Maintain
the gospel peace among yourselves and with others."
She died in 608.
Also on this day: Catherine
Anderson Charteris was described at her well
known husband’s death as "his true yolk-fellow
and loving helpmeet" but her own contribution to
church and society was equally remarkable. Born in 1837
to the Lord Provost of Aberdeen, she shared with her
husband in the battle to establish a voice for women.
She worked tirelessly in charity and social work and
in the establishment of Sunday schools. Her social club
for working folk must have been the first in Edinburgh.
First president of the newly-formed Women’s Guild,
she also edited their supplement in the Kirk magazine
Life & Work, which
provided a rallying call for volunteers across a wide
variety of work with the less advantaged both at home
and abroad. She died in 1918.
20 November: Henry Francis Lyte
Henry Francis Lyte was born near Kelso but educated in
Ireland. After Trinity College, Dublin he took holy orders
serving first in Wexford and then as curate in many places
in England ending in Lower Brixham, Devon, where his poor
health was further undermined by relentless work among
sailors and fisherfolk. It was at the dying bed of a fellow
clergyman that he underwent a vital spiritual experience
which gave a special quality to the hymns for which he
has become renowned, like Abide
with me, Praise my soul
the King of Heaven, and God
of glory, God of grace.
He died in 1847.
| Also
on this day: Leo
Tolstoy was a wealthy aristocratic Russian,
a sometime army officer, and one of the world’s
great novelists, including the best sellers even
today of War and Peace
and Anna
Karenina. An educational and social reformer,
he turned his back on ‘vain’ novels.
Though he was later to write Resurrection,
sensing an emptiness despite his fame and fortune,
Tolstoy underwent a spiritual crisis which led him
to try and live in line with the Sermon on the Mount
and with a belief that the Kingdom of God could
be found within each person. He became convinced
that the essence of Christianity had been overlaid
with dogmatism, ritual and subservience to |
Leo Tolstoy: celebrated author and social reformer
|
secular authority, and he came to emphasise the importance
of physical labour - becoming something of a peasant in
the process. His writing largely focussed on spiritual
matters and on the philosophy of non-violence and civil
disobedience, which was to exert great influence on Gandhi.
He died in 1910.
22 November: C. S. Lewis
 |
C. S. Lewis held the Medieval and
Renaissance Chair of English at Cambridge. Born
in Belfast, after the trauma of the First World
War he regained his lost Christian faith and became
an influential advocate of it. As an author, his
science fiction trilogy, Out
of the Silent Planet, and his seven books
for children under the title, The
Chronicles of Narnia are all characterised
by Christian allegory and ethics. |
His Mere Christianity, based on radio talks during the
Second World War, and his The
Screwtape Letters are the most notable and popular
of his direct Christian output. Many of his books, characterised
by winsome writing and eminent common sense, and with
not a little humour, remain on best seller lists. His
autobiography Surprised by Joy
and the notable film Shadowlands
reveal more of this sensitive man with a love of life
and the adventure of Christianity. He died in 1963.
Also on this day: Cecilia
was an early martyr (second or third century) about
whom not much is known. However, she is frequently represented
in art as playing on the organ, and is regarded with
great respect as the patron saint of music.
23 November: Clement of Rome
Clement was a very early bishop of Rome, and is possibly
referred to in Philippians 4:3. In his First Epistle to
the Corinthians (possibly the earliest Christian work
in Latin) Clement throws considerable light on the early
Church. In this letter, he affirms the importance of repentance
and of good order, refers indiscriminately to bishops
as either episkopos or
presbuteros (elder) and
writes of their role as those 'offering the gifts' (celebrating
communion?) and bearing rule in the church. The Second
Epistle of Clement, possibly wrongly attributed to him,
is the first extra-scriptural sermon on record and sets
out the character of the Christian life and the duty of
repentance.
24 November: John
Knox
John Knox
|
John Knox was the pre-eminent leader
of the Scottish Reformation. A former priest and
notary, he became a tutor and converted to reform
under George Wishart. Over four years he played
a significant part in the English Reformation as
royal chaplain, assisting in the Second
Prayer Book, and was officially appointed
preacher, in Berwick, Newcastle and elsewhere. Fleeing
under 'Bloody' Mary, he ministered in Frankfurt
and in Geneva where he was very happy under John
Calvin to whom he owed friendship, support, and
theology. |
Returning to Scotland he was the man for the hour and
applied the spark that effectively ignited the relatively
peaceful revolution that was the Reformation in Scotland.
He was a main contributor to the
Confession of Faith, the First
Book of Discipline with its vision of a godly and
educated and caring nation, and the
Book of Common Order, that dealt not only with
worship but set out a Presbyterian basis for the Church.
With his experience as a French galley slave and of the
persecution of Protestantism in that country, he was vehemently
opposed to Mary, Queen of Scots and her Roman Catholicism.
Often extreme, even mischievous in language with a sardonic
wit, his actions were gentler than his words as his letters
show. An often controversial figure who feared the face
of no man and who easily made enemies, he was enormously
influential as with spiritual and moral integrity he was
ever ambitious to promote God’s glory and to strive
to establish Christ’s Kingdom in the land he loved.
He died in 1572.
25 November: Catherine of
Alexandria
Catherine of Alexandria was one of those upon whose life
and existence Vatican II placed doubt. That said, this
supposed virgin martyr tortured on the 'Catherine Wheel'
because of her protest against the persecution of Christians
served for centuries as the patroness of maidens and women
students, of philosophers, preachers and apologists, of
wheelwrights, millers and others. Her light is akin to
that of a remote star which no longer exists. Traditionally,
she was believed to have lived in the early fourth century.
Also on this day: Isaac
Watts is often described as 'the father of English
Hymnody'. He became an Independent (i.e. congregational)
pastor and it was during his ministry at Mark Lane Chapel,
London, that he wrote many of his hymns and where his
health suffered by his labours. He became a semi-invalid,
spending his time writing and publishing. One of his
books, on logic, became a standard textbook at Oxford
for many years. His renowned hymns among the 600 he
wrote include When I survey
the wondrous Cross, To
Him who sits upon the throne, Jesus
shall reign where’re the sun, and O
God our help in ages past. His hymns helped heal
the relations between the Church of England and Nonconformists.
Johnson includes Watts in his Lives
of the Poets and when Edinburgh University bestowed
a Doctor of Divinity (DD) honour in 1728, he remarked;
"Academical honours would have more value if they
were always bestowed with equal judgment." He died
in 1748.
27 November: Fergus
Fergus was either of Pictish or Irish origin. The village
of St Fergus and the depiction of the saint on the coat
of arms of the town of Wick in the very far north east
of Scotland confirm that he is remembered as a missionary
in the area. His name appears also in Angus and Kincardineshire,
and the fact that a loch in Wigtownshire bears his name
might suggest he was educated at Candida Casa (Whithorn).
The Scottish Episcopal Church commemorate him on 15 November.
30 November: Andrew
Andrew was a fisherman, the first of the 12 called
by Jesus to be a disciple. According to the fourth gospel
it was he who, recognising the 'Lamb of God' from John
the Baptist’s description, immediately came to
meet Jesus and then went to fetch his brother, saying:
"We have found the Messiah." By this act,
Andrew may be said to be the first Christian missionary.
Tradition has it that, like many of the early Christians,
he was martyred, possibly in Patras, Achaia, in the
year 60. Since c750, Andrew has been regarded as Scotland’s
patron saint.
Also this month
Sunday 30 November is
the First Sunday of Advent.
Click here to find out more about Advent and other key
festivals and dates in the Christian calendar.
[back to On this day introduction]
[top of page]
|
