October 2025
Spirit of the Eagle
St. John the Evangelist ACC
Spiritual Tidbits & Rector’s Reflections for
October 2025 from Father Tim
It’s October already! The 2025 Fall Season has arrived. In addition to the three Trinity Sundays (5th, 12th, & 19th) the feast of Christ the King is celebrated on the 26th. S. Luke, Evangelist & Martyr is celebrated on the 18th and Ss. Simon & Jude, Apostles & Martyrs on the 28th. This month it is also worth noting the Martyrs of New Guinea on the 22nd. These Christian martyrs included clergy, nuns, teachers, and medical staff serving in New Guinea who were executed during the Japanese invasion during World War II in 1942 and 1943. With the Japanese invasion approaching European citizens were evacuated, but the Christian Missionaries remained. In January 1942 the Anglican Bishop of New Guinea, Philip Strong, advised clergy and staff to faithfully remain working in New Guinea: “One thing only I can guarantee is that if we do not forsake Christ here in Papua in His Body, the Church, He will not forsake us. He will uphold us; He will strengthen us and He will guide us and keep us through the days that lie ahead. If we all left, it would take years for the Church to recover from our betrayal of our trust. If we remain—and even if the worst came to the worst and we were all to perish in remaining—the Church would not perish, for there would have been no breach of trust in its walls, but its foundations and structure would have received added strength for the future building by our faithfulness unto death.” During the war and Japanese occupation, 333 Christians were martyred by the Japanese and collaborating Papuans. After the war, in 1950, the Right Rev’d Dr Light Maekawa, Anglican Bishop of South Tokyo, sent a bamboo cross to the parishes of all the Martyrs as an act of reconciliation and repentance. A statue of one of the Martyrs was installed over the west door of Westminster Abbey in London. His killer later converted to Christianity, and built a church on the island at Higatury dedicated to the memory of his victim, which grew to a diocesan center. Clean hands, and a penitent heart, putting right everything that we can put right by our own action, and making acts of restitution and of reconciliation which may cost us a great deal. God forgives us not only for what we have done, but for what we are. And when He forgives, He does it royally and freely, and He wills that we should be at peace. For ‘He who has travelled so far to find us, will not refuse us when we are found; and to be received of that Love is to be saved.’ ~ Father Tim
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Do you know someone who has a penitent heart and is seeking peace? If yes, please invite them to church this October, where they can contemplate being found, and be received and saved by Love unbound. ~ Father Tim
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May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint! I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the fainthearted, the feeble and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins. ~ Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German Priest, Theologian, Author, Hymnwriter, Professor, and former Augustinian Friar
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Do you know?
Do you know Saint John’s may be eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places? Do you know our Book of Life Club will begin Revelation of Love, by Julian of Norwich in October? Do you know that Saint John’s made a September charitable donation for the Dayton KY Senior Citizens Luncheon and to the Emergency Shelter of Northern KY?
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Saint John October Ordo Kalendar
Wednesday, the 1st of October, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Sun., the 5th of Sept., at 10:30 AM, Trinity XVI Mass, Chancery Baby Shower
Wed., the 8th of October, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Sunday, the 12th of October, at 10:30 AM, Trinity XVII Mass
Wednesday, the 15th of October, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Saturday, the 18th of October, at 8:00 AM, Rule of Faith Meeting
Sun., the 19th of October, at 10:30 AM, S. Trinity XVIII Mass
Wednesday, the 22nd of October, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Saturday, the 25th of October, at 9:00 AM, Morning Prayer
Sat., the 25th of Oct., at 9:45 AM, Book of Life Club, Revelation of Love
Sun., the 26th of October, at 10:30 AM, Christ the King Mass, Vestry Mtg
Wednesday, the 29th of October, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
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Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God… When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God. ~ Oswald Chambers, 1874-1917, Scottish Evangelist & Teacher
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October Birthdays & Anniversaries
Cas & Judy Denton – Anniversary – October 4
Michael Griswold – Birthday – October 13
Jackson Bock – Birthday – October 14
Virginia Jackson – Birthday – October 16
Katie Craft – Birthday – October 17
Leslee Shelton – Birthday – October 24
Sheila & Ben Myers – Anniversary – October 28
Rick & Eileen Hanson – Anniversary – October 31
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Why should we want to worship Jesus well?
[Our Lord] is ready to receive all who [come] to Him, however unworthy they may feel themselves. None who repent and believe are too bad to be enrolled in the ranks of Christ’s army. All who come to Him by faith are admitted, clothed, armed, trained, and finally led on to complete victory. Fear not to begin this very day. There is yet room for you. ~ J.C. Ryle, 1816-1900, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool
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The unchangeableness of the Lord’s love, and the riches of His mercy, are likewise more illustrated by the multiplied pardons He bestows upon His people, than if they needed no forgiveness at all. ~ John Newton, 1725-1807, Anglican Priest & Slavery Abolitionist.
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Faith vs Reason
Last month I wrote about some slogans that may be barriers to someone seriously considering faith. Here’s another: “the point of faith is that there aren’t reasons for it”, which I hear quite a lot. In the words of Mark Twain, which many an atheist website has shared: “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” It’s an attempt to show that Christianity cannot, even in principle, compete in the marketplace of ideas. The thrust of it is that faith is the kind of thing that has nothing to do with reason or evidence. This one even many Christians may fall for; don’t buy into it. Our Enemy would love for us to think there are no reasons for our faith as he spurs on objections to it in much the same way as any military would love it if the enemy would drop their defenses. There is some conceptual confusion afoot here.
There’s a couple points in this conversation that I am regularly baffled at: for starters, attempts by non-Christians to tell Christians what faith is. As people of faith ourselves, we are something of an authority on the topic. Second, the topic of faith has gotten the attention of a good many philosophers. And yet, to my surprise and chagrin, I don’t see them (even Christian ones) appealing to how the Bible actually uses “faith” in its historical context in crafting their definitions. To spill the beans on where I’m going here, the Bible nowhere uses “pistis” (and cognates), the Greek word translated as “faith”, in a way that is opposed to reason. This is because faith is not an epistemology (a way of knowing). Not in the same way as reason, that is.
To be clear, there are some things that we know by faith rather than reason, such as God’s grace in the sacraments. There, we do not mean “know” in the same way as in, for example, “I know that Jesus rose from the dead”. That is propositional knowledge; knowledge about the world, not knowledge of a person such as Christ whom we encounter at the altar rail. But notice, even with sacraments, while it is knowledge by faith rather than reason, it is not by faith in what is unreasonable. I happen to think the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, while not something I could have logic’d my way to, is nonetheless a rational position to hold given other positions we have as Christians.
So, what actually is “faith”? Well, let’s see how the word “pistis” was used in the ancient world: 3 Maccabees 3:3 describes Jews who had “unswerving faith” towards the throne. The historian Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews 6.11.1 describes King Saul entrusting the killing of David to “his most faithful servants”, and Ant. 15.6.5 describes Herod entrusting the defense of a fortress to two men who had been “faithful to him from the beginning”. The sense that faith/faithfulness carries is that of loyalty to a royal figure. And in the New Testament? There are a great many cases where the word “trust” is perfectly adequate to capture what’s going on. As, for example, in Mark 2:5 and Acts 14:9, among others; trust that someone can do something for you. But even “trust” doesn’t do full justice to the New Testament’s use of “pistis”. If we remember that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father as Lord (kyrios in Greek, a position that was claimed to be held by Caesar), I submit to you that we see a similar usage of the term to other ancient sources. For example: Romans 1:5 speaks of the “obedience of faith”, and Acts 6:7 describes priests who had become “obedient to the faith”. Faith as mere mental assent, or wishful thinking, or even trust, is inadequate to understand “pistis” as something that includes obedience. Remember: the earliest Christians claimed that Jesus is seated as a King at the right hand of the Father, to whom “every knee should bow” (Phil. 2:10). For more on this point, I recommend a book that we read in the Book of Life club a while back by Matthew Bates called “Gospel Allegiance”.
Thus, if one has the view that “faith” is better construed as a trusting loyalty to a King, then a view that sees it as opposed to reason or evidence does not get off the ground. For one’s allegiances can be reasonable or unreasonable. We can be shown evidence, such as miracles, and arguments for the historicity of Jesus or existence of God, and respond to them as one should to a ruling King Jesus: with allegiance to him. ~ Chris Stockman
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A Christian Martyr is one who: Chooses to suffer death rather than to deny Christ, or His work… Sacrifices something very important to further the Kingdom of God…Endures great suffering for Christian Witness. ~ Unknown Author
Stained glass window dedicated to Sister May Hayman, Anglican Nurse, Martyr of New Guinea
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No one makes us afraid or leads us into captivity as we have set our faith on Jesus. For though we are beheaded, and crucified, and exposed to beasts and chains and fire and all other forms of torture, it is plain that we do not forsake the confession of our faith, but the more things of this kind which happen to us the more are there others who become believers and truly religious through the name of Jesus . . . You can kill us, but you cannot harm us. ~ Justin Martyr, 100-165 AD, Christian Apologist & Philosopher
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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