Anglican Notables at St. John's - Teaching Note for November 2, 2025

        The Roman Catholic Church has a very detailed system for discerning whether someone should be declared and venerated as a saint of the church, someone who has led a life of heroic virtue and whose manner of life is worth emulating, and whose intercession for us is efficacious.

      The Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion does not have such a thorough system.  The closest we have in the Episcopal Church in the USA is those added to the calendar and recorded for us in what is known as the book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.  People are proposed for inclusion in the list to a committee of the Triennial General Convention and if recommended they have a three year trial use while feedback is solicited from the wider church.  Some recent additions are noteworthy for what they have done to glorify God in their lives: CS Lewis, and the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, to name just two.  Others have been proposed and removed.

    There are three members of that august list that have a connection to St. John’s!  Bishop Jackson Kemper was the great missionary bishop to the Midwest and founder of Nashotah House Seminary.  He preached here in 1860, and returned again in 1866 to consecrate our first Rector as his successor in the Diocese of Wisconsin.  Fr. James Lloyd Breck was the first dean of Nashotah House, founder of two more seminaries/schools, and missionary to California.  He preached here in the 1860s to raise money for his seminary in Minnesota.  Fr. James DeKoven preached here twice.  The first time was to raise money for Racine College, an Episcopal school in Wisconsin where he was Dean after being on faculty at Nashotah House.  He returned in 1873 to preach the funeral sermon for our first Rector/second Bishop of Wisconsin William Armitage.  DeKoven was elected Bishop Armitage’s successor in Wisconsin but his election blocked by the larger church because of his promotion of the doctrines of the ancient universal church as found in the Anglo-catholic movement.    

    Bishop Kemper is commemorated the church calendar on May 24, Fr. Breck on April 2, and Fr. DeKoven on March 22.    Their hagiography (holy biography) is read at the weekday Masses on those days at the Holy Communion Service. 

 

To be saints! - Rector's Rambling for November 2, 2025

“There’s not any reason, - no, not the least -  why I shouldn’t be one too”

 We are reminded in today’s hymn I sing a song of the saints of God that we all should be striving to be saints.  I love this hymn, and it is a favorite not only of your rector but on our YouTube channel it is the most popularly played video by a large margin! 

Although the 1940 Hymnal places it among Hymns for Children, it has become popular not only for the children but among adults as well. 

It is easy enough for us to admire The Saints.  We hear the stories, perhaps read deeply a biography, or even dive deeper by reading materials written by them.   But are we doing this like we might read a biography of Teddy Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln?  “Sure is an interesting person who accomplished great things in their time” we might think.

But when it comes to the saints, we study them because we need to figure out how God’s grace was working in them, and how they cooperated with it, to make them into the saints that they became!.

The saints, those men and women of heroic virtue that we admire, all start out in the same condition.  Affected by original sin, they are separated from God.  But by His Grace they are born again of water and the Holy Spirit, and they make strides in avoiding falling into those occasions of actual sin and begin to mould their lives according to God’s will and purpose for them. 

The key is trying to find out how God will have you serve Him and in what way will you become holier.  “What is God’s will for me?” is an important question that we should be asking in prayer regularly.

A wonderful thing about the lives of the saints is that they are not cookie-cutter alike.  Some start out rich, some poor.  Some have earthly gifts and physical advantages, and others do not.  The starting point isn’t the same for everyone, and the finishing point isn’t either!  Some saints start religious orders with many followers, others lead countries, and yet some others great leaders in the Church.  Others live lives of quiet sanctity.  They glorify God in simple every day ways that affect others for the better through their prayers, love, and selflessness.

Perhaps most importantly we remember today that it isn’t about what we do and accomplish in a worldly way, but who we are becoming in Christ.  We are becoming more humble and loving and open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to change our lives as He sees fit..