October 26, 2005

Alfred

One of the remarkable things about the saints is not their holiness, their “sainthood,” whatever that is, but that they help convert “remind” and “remember” into transitive verbs. [A transitive verb (I had to look it up to be sure) is one with a direct object, not one that just is.] We are the direct objects of the saints.

They anchor us in a kind of spiritually rich and moving genealogy. Traditions that don’t have them or recognize them are only the poorer for it and are stuck with mere numbers or streets or subdivisions after which to name their churches, names that don’t much remind them of anything save some entrepreneur out to make a buck.

An old ninth-century Saxon king is on today’s liturgical calendar. His mum called him Alfred. He became king at the tender age of twenty-two, not exactly a time currently known for any serious leadership skills. He not only defeated the Danes and saved southern England, but persuaded their leader to get himself baptized.

Among his other doings, he cleaned up after the Vikings, those burleys like in the current TV ads for a certain credit card. He also made the classics available practically on all the newsstands. One of his comments passed down to remind us went, loosely quoted, something like this: “It is a very foolish and wretched person, indeed, who will not increase their understanding while in the world.” A pretty good reminder for not a few of us.

[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina or Rita Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]

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