St Machar, 6th century

It is Remembrance-tide. Yesterday crowds stood still in Glasgow city centre to observe the two minutes' silence at 11.00h on the 11th month. Many young people, notably Rangers' Football Club supporters held aloft banners deploring and condemning the war-mongering remembrances and distancing themselves from remembering those who fell in both world wars and subsequent conflicts. Is this a good sign? Does it mean that the young adults nowadays, for whom we fought, no longer wished to be fought for? Maybe so. At my great age though I still feel we should remember those in past eras who fought to defend us against oppression and so they helped keep us free from invasion and domination. Remembrance Day may well fade into oblivion in time. Today in the Church Calendar we remember Machar, about whom little is known. What information we have is found in the Aberdeen Breviary. The RC Church chose to keep information about him and the other Celtic 'saints' hidden as they were not of course RC. Machar is said to have been a companion of Columba when they arrived at Iona in their wee boat. It is also speculated that Machar may well have been another name for Mungo, patron of Glasgow. He did build a cathedral at Aberdeen, in the bend of the river Don, symbolic of a bishop's cromach (crozier). Indeed, St Machar's 'Cathedral' still stands, albeit it is not a cathedral, per se, but simply a parish church of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Richard Hooker, priest & theologian, AD 1600

We are in the middle of All Saints' tide / All Souls and Remembrance Sunday will soon be here. Fr Richard Hooker was a pioneering Anglican theologian who came to the attention of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and Queen Elizabeth I for his writings from a Catholic-Anglican standpoint. He married a puritan and later, as sub-dean at Salisbury Cathedral, came into conflict with other puritans. He stuck to his guns and wrote about 'Justification by Faith' and maintained that Christians would be saved by God and controversially he included Roman Catholics. He even said that it could also include others who were not Christian, i.e., by God's grace alone are we saved. The inclusion of RCs at that time caused a lot of trouble in Protestant England, which seems incredible nowadays. Richard Hooker, along with Cranmer and others, are seen as Fathers of Anglicanism as we know it today, following the Anglican Rule and maintaining a direct link with the Apostolic, Catholic Church, whilst at the same time remaining reformed from the RCs.

All Saints' Day

This painting by Fra Angelico is from the 5th century, depicting all the saints in heaven. I have always been somewhat confused about saints, They appear to be man-made mainly by the RC Church and the candidates have to go through a prolonged process towards Beatification and then sainthood. Then apparently, RCs can pray to them! Being in the reformed Catholic tradition that s a most strange and anti biblical viewpoint. Also, is it correct that only people the Vatican deems to be saints can be saints?
The hymn 'Forr All the Saints...' reminds me of the hordes of people I know who are saints, yet they are not recognised by hierarchies or even Churches. At my age I attend a lot of funerals and am often quite amazed at the history of someone whom I thought I had known well for years, and then learn what wonderful things they have done. The packed to overflowing church also tells us a lot about how well respected and adored the deceased was and is. I rather like the Episcopal and Anglican tradition of remembering local people as 'saints' in the Calendar.