A busy week of Feasts - Rector's Rambling for October 27, 2013

A blessed Christ the King Sunday to you and yours.  Today we celebrate Jesus’ Lordship, an otherwise unpopular concept.  After all, who wants to be in submission to someone else?  Thankfully, as God, we have one who is good and gracious, merciful, and whose yoke is easy and burden light.

Additionally this week we have some special days coming up.  Tomorrow, October 28, we have the Feast of Ss. Simon and Jude, Apostles.  It is believed that they were martyred (killed for the faith) bringing the Gospel to the Persians.  On Tuesday we remember James Hannington, Bishop of what is now Uganda, and his companions who are martyred by the then regional king who objected to Hannington’s (and others’) rebukes for his debauchery, as well concerns about foreign intervention in the region.  Those companions who were not martyred were sold into slavery to the Muslim slave traders.  As Hannington was being speared he said, “Go, tell (king) Mwanga I have purchased the road to Uganda with my blood.”

Friday is the Feast of All Saints, and we will have our primary celebration of the Feast on Sunday, November 3 (it is a “moveable” Feast).

On Saturday we have the Feast of All Souls.  There will be two celebrations of the Requiem (Remembrance) Mass that day.  At 10:00 AM we will have a service in the chapel at Historic Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit. http://www.elmwoodhistoriccemetery.org/ It is here that our founder, Henry Porter Baldwin, and first rector, Bishop William Armitage, are buried.  Also, the vast majority of our late parishioners through the 1930s are buried here as well.  At 12:15 PM we will have our second Mass of the day in the chapel at St. John’s.  It is at this second service that we will read the names of those loved ones that you have submitted.  Be sure to get that list in with your offering by Thursday.

The Lord is glorious in His Saints:  O come, let us adore Him.  Amen.