Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Saints' Days

Happy birthday to Fr Greg Bourke, a Melbourne priest who was born on this day and was named for St Gregory the Wonderworker, whose feast it then was. St Gregory it was who actually did move a mountain (hence his name), who received revelation from St John the Evangelist of a very Catholic creed, and who, upon his deathbed, gave thanks to God that through his ministry, the Christians in his city had so multiplied in number that, where there had been but ten when he arrived, by his departure there remained but ten pagans.
To-day the Anglican Use keeps the memory of St Elizabeth of Hungary; and, yesterday, of St Gertrude the Great (who crops up one day earlier in the Traditional Calendar) and of St Margaret of Scotland - the latter always reminds me of a nice old lady who told me that she was a Scottish Episcopalian (once quite a decent High lot, who've gone to the dogs), and that "Our church was founded by St Margaret of Scotland". (Yeah, right.) I forbore to tell her that my Church was founded by Jesus Christ.

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