A Brief Post

Your Daily Officer loves you, but he can't post very much tonight. It's 10:25 and I just walked in the door from a long day (and night) at work. Also, the chances for a good post tomorrow are slim because I'm doing an overnight shift in the hospital. (Remember that part where we pray "Keep watch, Lord, with those who watch, or work, or weep this night..." well, I'll be working all night long tomorrow. Think of me.)

Things I want to talk about soon:

• The book of Micah
• Acts winding to an end, with Paul on trial
• The book I'm raeding about the Psalms
• Random notes from Luke
• How much I love Galaga
  

But for tonight, I'll just offer this. Remember how I'm constantly talking up the Breviary? Well I thought I'd offer you a taste of what it offers. There are practically no feria (unlike the BCP and LF&F), which means that almost every day points us toward a saint from whom we can learn lesons for life (or who, if you believe in this, can intercede on our behalf with God).

Today is a rare Breviary feria, but tomorrow (the 13th of October) is the feast day of St. Edward the King and Confessor (a feast with the rank of semi-double). The following is an excerpt from the Breviary so you can get a taste of the Lessons it provides:

"Edward, surnamed the Confessor, was the nephew of Saint King Edward the Martyr, and himself the last Anglo-Saxon King. When he was ten years old the Danes, who were ravaging England, sought him, to put him to death, and he was driven into exile to dwell with his mother's brother, Richard II, Duke of Normandy, at whose Court and that of his successors, (Richard III; Robert, surnamed the Devil; and William the Bastard,) he lived among all the allurements of vice, such a life of uprightness and innocency as made all men to marvel. For he greatly loved God, and was gentle-hearted, and free from any lust for power. Of him the saying is preserved, That he would liefer not be a King than win a kingdom through slaughter and bloodshed.

"When the Danish tyrants, who had robbed his brothers Edmund and Alfred of life and kingdom, were driven away, Edward was called back into his own country and, with the hearty good-will and rejoicing of all, took the kingdom in the year 1042, being then about forty years old. Thereupon he set himself to repair the breaches which wars had made, and began with the things of God, being desirous that religion should rise from the low estate whereinto it had fallen. Because of the abundance of his charity he was styled everywhere the Father of Orphans and the Parent of the Poor, and he was never happier than when he had spent upon the needy the whole of his kingly treasures.

"He had a wonderful love toward John the Evangelist, so that he was used never to refuse anything for the which he was asked in that Saint's name. Concerning this a marvellous tale is wont to be told. It is said that the Evangelist appeared to him one while in tattered raiment, and in his own name asked him for an alms. It befell that the King had no money, wherefore he took a ring from off his finger and gifted him therewith. Not long afterward, the Evangelist sent the same ring back to him by a pilgrim, with a message concerning his death, which was then at hand. The King therefore commanded that prayers should be made for him, and then fell blessedly asleep in the Lord, upon the very day which had been foretold to him by the Evangelist, that is to say, on January 5th, in 1066. In 1161 he was cannonized, and on October 13th, two years later, his body, which was found incorrupt, was by St. Thomas Becket translated to Westminster Abbey, where it is still enshrined behind the high altar. (Note from your Daily Officer: that's what the photo at the left depicts.) Saint Edward is venerated as the heavenly Patron of England, and the story of his ring is intertwined with the traditions of the Abbey where he is buried."

And with that, a good night.