November 25

Today marks the 1748 death, and is a feast day in the Lutheran and Episcopal Churches, for Isaac Watts, pastor and musician. He wrote over seven hundred hymns, including “Joy to the World” and “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” 

Today is also a feast day, in the Episcopal Church, for James Huntington, who died in 1935 and was ordained on this day in 1884. He founded The Order of the Holy Cross, a Benedictine monastic order. He worked in New York among immigrants and became a voice for organized labor. 

Today is also the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a day set apart by the U.N. which is supposed to signal the beginning of 16 days of action that culminates on International Human Rights Day. It falls on the date of the assassination of the three MIrabal Sisters, in 1960, who fought against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. They were Patricia, Maria Teresa, and Minerva. Minerva Mirabal’s opposition was not only political, it was personal: she was sexually harassed by Trujillo when she was 23 and he personally saw to it that her ability to practice law would be denied.

Reflection: 

In a letter to a friend who was considering the monastic life, James Huntington wrote: 

“Of course it is a hard life, in some respects the very hardest. To get up before five o’clock every morning, to live on the rations given you with no choice as to your food, to pray, in chapel or in your cell, four times a day, to work under orders, to go where you are sent, to do as you are told whether you like it or not, to bear humiliation, to fast, to be ridiculed by the world, and to keep on at all this as old age arrives, and to die in harness at the end – this is not an easy life. But is it a harder life than Jesus Christ lived? And isn’t it true that those who live it wouldn’t exchange it for anything the world can give, that it is they who keep their freshness and elasticity, who have brightness in their eyes, a smile on their lips, warmth in their hearts? Is it not they who see the fruits of their sacrifices in the salvation and sanctification of other souls? 

At any rate, don’t play fast and loose with a call to be an intimate friend of Jesus Christ. If you believe He wants you in the ranks of the Religious Life, make up your mind once for all, and come as soon as He opens the way. If not, do whatever else He has for you, and may He bless and help you to do it with all your might.”

James Huntington

Prayer: God of Mercy, help us commit to lives of service and justice. Amen.