Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

Author Archive

Cecilia was a young Christian of high rank betrothed to a Roman named Valerian. Through her influence Valerian was converted, and was martyred along with his brother. The legend about Cecilia’s death says that after being struck three times on the neck with a sword, she lived for three days, and asked the bishop to convert her home into a church.

COLLECT
Almighty God, your servant Cecilia bore witness to you to her intended, and, with him and his brother, you gave her grace to stand firm in her faith even unto death. Grant us, like her, the courage to remain true to you in spite of every assault of the enemy. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Philemon was a prominent first-century Christian who owned a slave named Onesimus. Although the name “Onesimus” means “useful,” Onesimus proved himself “useless” when he ran away from his master and stole from him. Somehow Onesimus came into contact with the apostle Paul while the latter was in prison, and through Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel he became a Christian. After confessing that he was a runaway slave, he was directed to return to his master and become “useful” again. In order to help pave the way for Onesimus’ peaceful return home, Paul sent him on his way with a letter in which he urged Philemon to forgive his slave for having run away and “to receive him as you would receive me”.

COLLECT
Gracious heavenly Father, you sent Onesimus back to Philemon as a brother, freeing him from his slavery to sin through the Gospel of the Lord. Cleanse the depths of sin within our souls, cause all resentments to cease within us, and reconcile us with our brothers and sisters in fellowship and peace. We ask this through Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.. Amen.

READINGS
Genesis 50: 15-21
Psalm 103
Philemon 1-25
Matthew 16: 24-28

Hugh of Lincoln was the son of William, Lord of Avalon. He was raised and educated at a convent at Villard-Benoit after his mother died when he was eight. He was professed at fifteen, ordained a deacon at nineteen, and was made prior of a monastery at Saint Maxim. While visiting the Grande Chartreuse with his prior in 1160, he decided to become a Carthusian there and was ordained. After ten years, he was named procurator and in 1175 became Abbot of the first Carthusian monastery in England.

His reputation for holiness and sanctity spread all over England and attracted many to the monastery. He admonished the civil government for abusing ecclesiastical matters for financial gain, and soon found himself named as bishop for the See of Lincoln – a post he accepted only when ordered to do so by the prior of the Grande Chartreuse. Hugh quickly restored clerical discipline, labored to restore religion to the diocese, and became known for his wisdom and justice.

He was one of the leaders in denouncing the persecution of the Jews that swept England in the late twelfth century, repeatedly facing down armed mobs and making them release their victims. He went on a diplomatic mission to France for King John in 1199, visiting the Grande Chartreuse, Cluny, and Citeaux, and returned from the trip in poor health. A few months later, while attending a national council in London, he was stricken and died two months later at the Old Temple in London on November 16.

COLLECT
Holy God, you endowed your servant Hugh of Lincoln with wise and cheerful boldness, and taught him to commend the discipline of holy life to kings and princes. Grant that we also, rejoicing in the Good News of your mercy, and fearing nothing but the loss of you, may be bold to speak the truth in love, in the name of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Martin was born around 330 of pagan parents. His father was a soldier, who enlisted Martin in the army at the age of fifteen. One winter day he saw an ill-clad beggar at the gate of the city of Amiens. Martin had no money to give, but he cut his cloak in half and gave half to the beggar. In a dream that night, Martin saw Christ wearing the half-cloak. He had for some time considered becoming a Christian, and this ended his wavering. He was promptly baptized. He asked to be released from the army, saying: “Hitherto I have faithfully served Caesar. Let me now serve Christ.” He was accused of cowardice, and offered to stand unarmed between the contending armies. He was imprisoned, but released when peace was signed.

He became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers, a chief opponent in the West of the Arians, who denied the full deity of Christ, and who had the favor of the emperor Constantius. Returning to his parents’ home in Illyricum, he opposed the Arians with such effectiveness that he was publicly scourged and exiled. He was subsequently driven from Milan, and eventually returned to Gaul, where he founded the first monastery in the region.

In 371 he was elected bishop of Tours. His was a mainly pagan diocese, but his instruction and personal manner of life prevailed. In 384, the heretic Priscillian and six companions (all Gnostics) had been condemned to death by the emperor Maximus. The bishops who had found them guilty in the ecclesiastical court pressed for their execution. Martin contended that the secular power had no authority to punish heresy, and that the excommunication by the bishops was an adequate sentence. In this he was upheld by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. He secured a reprieve for them, but no sooner was his back turned than the bishops persuaded the emperor to break his promise. The Gnostics were executed, marking the first time that heresy was punished by death in the Christian experience.

Martin was furious, and excommunicated the bishops responsible. Afterwards, he took them back into communion in exchange for a pardon from Maximus for certain men condemned to death, and for the emperor’s promise to end the persecution of the remaining Priscillianists. He never felt easy in his mind about this concession, and thereafter avoided assemblies of bishops where he might encounter some of those concerned in this affair. He died on or about 11 November 397, and advocate for peace and justice until the end.

COLLECT
Lord God of hosts, you called the soldier Martin from service to the state, filled him with the spirit of sacrifice, and set him as a bishop in your Church to be a defender of the catholic faith. Give us grace to follow in his holy steps, that at the last we may be found clothed with righteousness in the dwellings of peace. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Willibrord was born in Northumbria in England about 658, and studied in France and Ireland. In 690 he set out with 12 companions to preach to the pagans of Frisia (a region roughly coextensive with the province of Friesland in the Netherlands, including some adjacent territories and the Frisian Islands in the North Sea). In 695 he was consecrated bishop at Rome. From there, he returned to the mission field, eventually establishing his see at Utrecht (in modern day Holland). Some of those he attempted to convert would later turn against him, destroying churches and killing missionaries. For a time, Willibrord preached to the Danes, but he returned to Frisia after the death of Radbod, and, with the help of Boniface, he rebuilt what had been destroyed. He died in 739.

COLLECT
O Lord our God, you call whom you will and send them where you choose. We thank you for sending your servant Willibrord to be an evangelist among the people of the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve you, the living God; and we entreat you to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of your service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

All Saints’ Day was originally a commemoration of the martyrs of the ancient church — the men, women, and children who were persecuted and killed for their faith in Christ. It has since become a festival on which the church remembers all the Christian faithful, both known and unknown. Originally celebrated in the spring, it came to be celebrated on November 1 in the West during the ninth century, probably as a counter-balance to the Pagan festival Samhain.

COLLECT
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son. Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

READINGS
Deuteronomy 33: 1-3 or Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18
Psalm 34 or 149
1 John 3: 1-3 or Revelation 7: 2-17 or Ephesians 1: 11-23
Matthew 5: 1-12

As the sun set on this day in 1517, the unity of the Western Church shattered as the Ninety-five Theses of Martin Luther were nailed to the door of the Collegiate Church at Wittenberg, Germany. This was not, however, the first division within the Church.

Disregarding various heretical movements, the Church was first divided in the wake of the Council of Chalcedon, giving rise to the so-called Oriental Orthodox Churches. Political and theological forces divided the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in the middle of the eleventh century, and the Church in the West has been torn asunder repeatedly, both before and after the Reformation, by many varying movements.

Nobody will deny that the Church, as an assembly of frail, fallible human beings, is imperfect, and today is a day set aside for prayer for the unity and renewal of the Church Catholic. By what means, however, is this unity and renewal to come?

If we surrender ourselves to strange doctrines which find no root in the Scriptures, then our unity is one in which we have given place to human desire instead of God’s precepts. The unity which God desires for his Church is based on the truth revealed in his Word and preserved by the Holy Spirit, who is faithful in every generation. We receive with great joy and with a deep-seeded sense of responsibility the witness, not only of the ancient Fathers, but also the leaders of the Reformation who sought to advocate for a return to the Biblical faith which, sadly, had become buried beneath the excesses of the Roman Church of the sixteenth century.

While this means that we must remain steadfast in our confession of the ‘Five Solas’ of the Reformation, we must also be vigilant against modernism which has, sadly, turned much of contemporary Christianity into a form of Humanism with an object of affection. Just as we cannot turn our backs on the doctrine of justification by faith through grace to achieve unity with the Churches of Rome or Constantinople, so too we cannot turn our backs on the moral and ethical teachings of God’s Word in order to find unity with those Protestant Christians who have elected to revise Scripture along humanistic lines.

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a New Reformation. The Church is being called back to her roots, her God-breathed faith, by the power of the Spirit. The calling is one which is rooted in the absolute necessity of conforming ourselves as individuals and as the Body of Christ to the example of the one who died and shed his blood that we might be one, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

COLLECT
Gracious Father, we pray for your holy catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; and where it is divided, reunite it in all truth. This we ask for the sake of him who died and rose again, and ever lives to make intercession for us, Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.

READINGS
Jeremiah 31: 31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3: 19-28 or Revelation 14: 6-7
John 8: 31-36 or Matthew 11: 12-19

On the various New Testament lists of the Twelve Apostles, the tenth and eleventh places are occupied by Simon the Zealot and by Judas of James, also called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus. Some ancient Christian writers say that Simon and Jude went together as missionaries to Persia, and were martyred there. If this is true, it explains, to some extent, our lack of historical information on them and also why they are celebrated together.

COLLECT
O God, we thank you for the glorious company of the apostles, and especially on this day for Simon and Jude; and we pray that, as they were faithful and zealous in their mission, so we may with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

READINGS
Jeremiah 16: 1-16
Psalm 11
1 John 4: 1-6
John 14: 21-27

As Paul carried his preaching out of Asia and into Europe during his second missionary journey, he began at the city of Philippi in Macedonia. His first European convert was a woman named Lydia, a merchant who dealt in purple-dyed goods. She and her household were baptized, and she invited Paul, with Luke and his other companions, to make her house their headquarters in Philippi.

Dorcas (or Tabitha in Aramaic) was a member of the early Christian community in Joppa, a seacoast town of Israel. She was noted for her acts of charity, in particular for making garments and giving them to needy widows. When she fell ill and died, Peter came to see her, and raised her to life.

Phoebe was a deaconess of the Church at Chenchreae, the eastern seaport of the city of Corinth. When Paul mentions her, she has left the vicinity of Corinth and is in Rome, so that Paul commends her to the Church there.

COLLECT
Almighty God, you inspired your servants Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe to uphold and sustain your Church by their loving and generous deeds. Give us the will to love you, open our hearts to hear you, and strengthen our hands to serve you in others for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

READINGS
Proverbs 31: 10-31
Psalm 33
Acts 9: 36-42 or Acts 16: 11-15, 40 or Romans 16: 1-2
Matthew 25: 1-13

Crispin and Crispinian were shoemakers and lived in the third century. They preached the Christian faith in Gaul whilst exercising their trade and so, like St Paul earning his living as a tent-maker, were no drain on the Christian community. They were put to death for their faith at the beginning of the Diocletian persecution and died in about the year 287 in Rome.

COLLECT
Almighty God, you called your servants Crispin and Crispinian to use their employ as a means of evangelism, and gave them the grace to witness to you even unto death. May we find in our own daily lives the means and the courage to witness to our faith in your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.