The saints
Anglican Feast Days celebrate certain men and women for their bravery, insights, contributions, and faith in Christ. They were social reformers, poets and scientists, evangelists, and MPs, mystics, missionaries, scholars, kings and social and constitutional reformers. They include
'Ma' Slessor, an African missionaryBenedict Biscop, the man who loved books
the poets George Herbert and John Donne
the scientist William of Ockham
the middleaged saint of second chances, St Patrick
Anselm, the man who ended slavery in Britain
Julian of Norwich, a mystic and the first woman to be published in England
constitutional reformer St Dunstan
St Alban, the man willing to die for a friend
William Wilberforce, who helped to abolish the slave trade and slavery in the British Empire
St Aidan, the man who could see your true face
Mary Sumner, the founder of the Mothers' Union
social reformer Anthony Ashley Cooper
Bible translator William Tyndale
Scientist and reformer Robert Grosseteste
Heroine and nurse Edith Cavell
Hilda, founder of Whitby Abbey and patron of the first English poet
Samuel Johnson writer, moralist and creator of the English Dictionary
Hymn writer and logician Isaac Watts
Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children
Most of them met huge challenges. They were very human. They were true.
In the lifetime that is childhood, what is hardest for a child to bear, lack of justice or lack of love? A child senses that the person who treats her unfairly does not love her.
Like children, the saints instinctively knew that justice and love are connected, the way muscle is connected to bone.
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