February 2022
Spirit of the Eagle
St. John the Evangelist ACC
Spiritual Tidbits & Rector’s Reflections for
February 2022 from Father Tim
February has arrived and we see the end of Epiphanytide and the beginning of the ‘Gesima’ days. Other days of note are the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Candlemas (2nd), the feast of S. Matthias, Apostle and Martyr (24th), and an Anglican ‘worthy’ Blessed George Herbert, Confessor (24th). It was New Year’s Day, and Magdalen Newport Herbert had received two sonnets from her son, George. They referred not to his mother’s kindness, her beauty, or any other characteristic. Instead, George wrote that the love of God is a fitter subject for verse than the love of woman. It foreshadowed the aesthetic and vocational bent of a man who was to become one of England’s finest metaphysical poets. Herbert’s was a noble Welsh family. His father died when George was only three and his mother was left to raise ten children. She homeschooled George’s siblings and then enrolled George in Westminster School, where he studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. From there he attended Trinity College at Cambridge, and in 1620, he became the university’s “public orator,” a position he described as “the finest place in the university”, and considered a launching point to high office. Herbert’s career continued to climb, as did his prestige—Sir Francis Bacon dedicated his Translation of Certain Psalmes to him, and he was elected to Parliament—but then came a series of tragedies: King James died, as did many of Herbert’s sponsors; Bacon died; his mother died (John Donne delivered the funeral sermon); the plague broke out. After his marriage in 1629, George gave up his secular ambitions and prepared to enter holy orders. When his friends expressed shock at his taking a job so “beneath” him, Herbert brushed them off: “It hath been formerly judged that the domestic servants of the King of Heaven should be the noblest families on earth. And though the iniquity of the late times have made clergymen meanly valued … I will labor to make it honorable, by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor abilities, to advance the glory of that God that gave them.” Herbert moved to the rural countryside and became Rector at Bremerton. He rebuilt the church with his own money, visited the poor, consoled the sick and dying, reconciled neighbors. He became known as “Holy Mr. Herbert.” I pray your February finds you always among the noblest families on earth. ~ Father Tim
✠✠✠
Is there someone you know who is caught up, body and soul, in worldly ambitions? Are they in need of serving the King of Heaven? February is a perfect month to advance the glory of God. Please invite someone into the Holy Church to experience the coming Gesima days, the Kingdom of God, and His church family. ~ Father Tim
✠✠✠
On his deathbed in 1633, Blessed George Herbert sent a “little book of poems” to his friend Deacon Nicholas Ferrar (another Anglican worthy!), founder of a religious community at Little Gidding. “If he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul,” he wrote in his instructions, “let it be made public; if not, let him burn it, for I and it are the least of God’s mercies.” The book, published about a year after his death in 1633 with the title The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, contains some of the most memorable poetry in the English language. ~ Father Tim
✠✠✠
Did you know?
Did you know that Saint John’s recently made charitable gifts to Holly Hill Child & Family Solutions in January? Did you know that Heritage Window Solutions have begun restoration and repair for nine of our stained glass windows?
✠✠✠
St. John February Ordo Kalendar
Wednesday, the 2nd of February at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Sunday, the 6th of February at 10:30 AM, Epiphany V
Wednesday, the 9th of February at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Sunday, the 13th of February at 10:30 AM, Septuagesima
Wednesday, the 16th of February at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Sunday, the 20th of February at 10:30 AM, Sexagesima, Vestry Meeting
Wednesday, the 23rd of February at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Sunday, the 27th of February at 10:30 AM, Quinquagesima
✠✠✠
He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass. ~ Blessed George Herbert
✠✠✠
Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. ~ Blessed George Herbert
✠✠✠
February Birthdays & Anniversaries
Helena “Lennie” Fisher – Birthday – February 11
Brian Miller – Birthday – February 13
Ruth & Mike Lenz – Anniversary – February 16
Carrie Moore – Birthday – February 18
Donna Davis – Birthday – February 21
Bob Petrie – Birthday – February 23
Sarah Miller – Birthday – February 26
Sheila Myers–Birthday–February 27
✠✠✠
Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night. Thou who hast given so much to me, give me one more thing… a grateful heart! ~ Blessed George Herbert
✠✠✠
‘Church-Monuments’ is one of the greatest poems by Blessed George Herbert (1593-1633). The poem is a memento mori – a reminder that we will die – but one with an altogether more stoic and positive outlook on death than many such poems.
Church-Monuments
While that my soul repairs to her devotion,
Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust;
To which the blast of death’s incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust
My body to this school, that it may learn
To spell his elements, and find his birth
Written in dusty heraldry and lines;
Which dissolution sure doth best discern,
Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth.
These laugh at jet, and marble put for signs,
To sever the good fellowship of dust,
And spoil the meeting. What shall point out them,
When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat
To kiss those heaps, which now they have in trust?
Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem
And true descent: that when thou shalt grow fat,
And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know,
That flesh is but the glass, which holds the dust
That measures all our time; which also shall
Be crumbled into dust. Mark, here below,
How tame these ashes are, how free from lust,
That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.
✠✠✠
Summe up at night what thou hast done by day; And in the morning what thou hast to do. Dresse and undresse thy soul; mark the decay And growth of it; if, with thy watch, that too Be down then winde up both; since we shall be Most surely judg’d, make thy accounts agree. ~ Blessed George Herbert, 1593 – 1633, Anglican Priest & Poet
✠✠✠
The seeking of Jesus Christ, and the quest for chivalry combined, lead directly to one place only: Anglican-Catholicism. Courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help and defend the weak and the poor. Welcome to the Anglican Catholic Church. ~ Father Timothy Butler