Black
Saints
This
page is compiled primarily to expose the contributions of African
peoples to the development of orthodox Christianity. Instead of
merely reciting the Litany of African American notables, so familiar
in February I have compiled a list of some African Saints, Blesseds, and
Venerables, holy men and women of African ancestry. This list is by
no means complete. Anyone with Icons, Portraits or futher
information about the Saints listed please contact Forrest
Drennen,
There were three African Popes
who came from a region of North Africa where the people were
not caucasoid. Although there are no authentic portraits of
these popes, there are drawings and references in the Catholic
Encyclopedia as to their being of African background. The names of
the three African Popes are Victor (189-203 AD),
Gelasius (492-496
AD), and Melchiades or
Miltiades (311-314 AD). All are saints.
Pope
St. Victor
African
by birth, He condemned and excommunicated Theodore of Byzantium who
denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. In a council held in Rome in
196, he fixed the Feast of Easter for the Sunday after the 14th day
of the moon of March. He suffered martyrdom under Servus. He was the
Church's 14th Pope.
Pope St.
Gelasius
St. Gelasius was born in Africa and reigned as
Pope from 492 to 496. He decreed the Canon of Scripture with which
the Tridentine Canon agrees. His theory on the relations between the
Church and the state are explained in the Gelasian Letter to the
Byzantine Emperor Anastasius. Gelasius was active in rooting out the
last vestiges of paganism in Rome.
Pope St. Miltiades or Pope St.
Melchiades
St.
Miltiades was one of the Church's Black Popes. He was born in
Africa, but died in Rome in January, 314. Little is known of
Miltiades except that during his reign as pope, the Emperor Constant
decreed toleration for
Christianity. The classical era of
persecution came to an end and the Church had to meet more subtle
trails. St. Augustine praised St. Miltiades as a man of moderation
and peace. His feast day is December 10th.
St.
Fulgentius,.jpg)
533
Bishop of Ruspe,
Tunisia, January 1st
St.
Paul
342
Egyptian Hermit and
founder of Monastic life in Thebes, January
15
St.
Anthony
356
Founder of
monastic life in the desert of Egypt, Feast January
17
St.
John the Alms Giver
619
Patriarch of
Alexandria, January 23
258
St.
Josephine Bakhita
1947
Sudanese slave girl
born in 1869. She was later sold to an Italian Consul who took her
to Italy where she eventually became free. She was baptized and
later joined the Canossian Sisters in Vincenza, Italy, lived a holy
life, and beatified May 17, 1992. She was canonized on October
1st 2000. Her
feast is 8 February.
Blessed
Absolom Jones,
(1746-1818)
Priest,
Jones (ordained deacon and priest in 1795 and 1802) was the
first black American to receive formal ordination in any
denomination. 'On a Sunday morning in November 1787, Richard Allen
and Absalom Jones, with other non-white worshipers, united their
affiliation with St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church on 4th
Street in Philadelphia. They were asked to stand along walls as
white membership increased and give up seats they normally occupied
- which they did. On the above morning the sexton was standing at
the door and directed them to the gallery (they were told they could
see and hear just as well). Absalom Jones, Richard Allen and William
White arrived late together and were not directed to the gallery.
The meeting had begun with singing. Just as they got to seats the
elder said, "Let us pray". They knelt. One of the white trustees
told them they "must not kneel here". Mr. Jones said "wait until
prayer is over and we will get up and not bother you any more". This
added insult to injury and upon completing their prayer, All left
the church and were no longer “plagued with the church.” They
decided they should have their own place of worship. Dr.
Benjamin Rush helped them launch a building drive.'(From "Trails
of Faith" by Robert Crist, 1976 and notes from Julius Reeves, a
former Pastor of Zion Primitive Baptist Church). With the financial
help of friends (Quaker Philanthropists), St. Thomas African
Episcopal Church was built in Philadelphia and from this Church
there emerged two groups: The Episcopalians, led by Absalom Jones
and the Methodists Led by Richard Allen. In "The Causes and Motives
for Establishing St. Thomas's African Church of Philadelphia," the
Founders and Trustees of the church stated their intent "to arise
out of the dust and shake ourselves, and throw off that servile
fear, that the habit of oppression and bondage trained us up in." Feb.
13
Saint Thomas African Episcopal Church built in
1794
JANANI
LUWUM,
1977
,
ARCHBISHOP OF UGANDA, MARTYR (16 FEB 1977) Feb. 17
ANNA JULIA
HAYWARD COOPER
EDUCATOR (28 February
1964)
Anna Julia Haywood
Cooper (August 10, c1859- February 27, 1964). Educator, advocate and
scholar. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina to an enslaved woman and a
white man, presumably her mother’s master, Anna Julia was an
academically gifted child and received a scholarship to attend St.
Augustine Normal School and Collegiate Institute, a school founded
by the Episcopal Church to educate African-American teachers and
clergy. There she began her membership in the Episcopal Church.
After forcing her way into a Greek class designed for male theology
students, Anna Julia later married the instructor, George A.C.
Cooper, the second African-American ordained to the Episcopal
priesthood in North Carolina. After her husband’s death in 1879,
Cooper received degrees in mathematics from Oberlin College, and was
made principal of the only African American high school in
Washington D.C.. She was denied reappointment in 1906 because she
refused to lower her educational standards. Throughout her career,
Cooper emphasized the importance of education to the future of
African Americans, and was critical of the lack of support they
received from the church. An advocate for African-American women,
Cooper assisted in organizing the Colored Women’s League and the
first Colored Settlement House in Washington, D.C. She wrote and
spoke widely on issues of race and gender, and took an active role
in national and international organizations founded to advance
African Americans. At the age of fifty-five she adopted the five
children of her nephew. In 1925, Cooper became the fourth African
–American woman to complete a Ph.D degree, granted from the Sorbonne
when she was sixty-five years old. From 1930-1942, Cooper served as
president of Frelinghuysen University. 28 February
St.
Gelasius
496
Bishop of Rome and
third African Pope (492-496), March 1
SS.
Perpetua and Felicity
202
Martyred in Carthage
along with 6 others companions," March 7
St. Maximilian
(Marmilian)
295
Martyred at
Theveste, Numidia after refusing to serve in the Roman army, March
12
JAMES
THEODORE HOLLY 
BISHOP OF HAITI AND DOMINICAN
REPUBLIC
(13 March 1911)
The First African American
Bishop in the Episcopal Church & Bishop of Haiti. He was an
African-American minister and abolitionist. Born in 1824 in
Washington, DC, James Theodore Holly was the descendent of freed
slaves. He was active in anti-slavery conventions in the free states
in the United States participating in abolitionist activities. His
father James Overton Holly was a Scottish man from Detroit,
Michigan, and records show that his mothers name was Jane. Holly was
baptized and raised a Catholic yet gradually he moved away from the
Catholic Church. He spent his early years in Washington, D. C. and
Brooklyn, NY where he connected with Frederick Douglass and other
Black abolitionist. In 1852 he converted to the Episcopal Church and
went to Haiti in 1855. There in 1874 he became the first Negro
Episcopal Bishop and the second bishop of any major white Christian
church. During this time Haiti was split with the Vatican and most
men of Haiti supported their religious sentiment through the
symbolism and observance of the Masonic Lodge. As an experienced
Masonic leader and scholar, Holly visited the Masonic temples and
made friends among their exclusive members. He was also willing to
perform Masonic burial services. In 1856 the Protestant Episcopal
Society for Promoting the Extension of the Church Among Colored
People was founded by James Theodore Holly of St. Luke's, New Haven.
Its membership included four Black clergy and seven congregations.
This organization fought the exclusion of Blacks from Episcopal
seminaries and diocesan conventions, as well as the refusal of the
Episcopal Church to take a stand against slavery. In July 1863 Holly
organized the Holy Trinity Church. He later spent 15 years in
Washington D. C. and moved to Brooklyn where he became friends with
Frederick Douglass. From 1889 to 1891, Holly aided Douglass in a
number of his programs. Bishop Holly left the Roman Catholic Church
over a dispute about ordaining local black clergy and joined the
Episcopal Church. He was a shoemaker, then a teacher and school
principal before his own ordination at the age of 27. He served as
rector at St Luke’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut and was one of
the founders of the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting the
Extension of the Church Among Colored People (a forerunner of UBE)
in 1856. This group challenged the Church to take a position against
slavery at General Convention. In 1861 he left the United States
with his family and a group of African Americans to settle in
Haiti---the world’s first black republic. He lost his family and
other settlers to disease and poor living conditions but was
successful in establishing schools and building the Church. He
trained young priests and started congregations and medical programs
in the countryside. In 1874 he was ordained bishop at Grace Church,
New York City, not by the mainstream Episcopal Church, who refused
to ordain a black missionary bishop, but by the American Church
Missionary Society, an Evangelical Episcopal branch of the Church.
He was named Bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Episcopal Church of
Haiti. He attended the Lambeth Convention as a bishop of the Church.
He died in Haiti in on March 13,1911
Saint
Sarapion the Scholastic, or Saint Serapion (Egyptian monk)
Egyptian monk. Ran the
famous catechetical school of Alexandria, Egypt. Resigned to spend
more time in prayer and penitence. Disciple of Saint Anthony in the
desert. Friend of Saint Athanasius.
Bishop of Thmuis, near
Diospolis in the Nile delta in 339. Fought Arianism. Supporter of
Athanasius, and spoke for him in the council of Sardis in 347.
Banished by Emperor Constantius II for his opposition to Arianism.
Named a Confessor of the Faith by Saint Jerome. Fought Macedonianism,
which denies the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Wrote against
Manichaeism, showing that our bodies can be instruments of good or
evil, that it is our choice, and that just and wicked men often
change; it's therefore a lie to think our souls are of God, our
bodies of the devil.
Wrote several learned
letters, a treatise on the titles of the Psalms, and a sacramentary
called the Euchologium, a collection of liturgical prayers.
Athanasius wrote several works against Arians at Serapion's request,
but thought so much of Sarapion that he told him to revise them as he
saw fit.
"The mind is
purified by spiritual knowledge (or by holy meditation and prayer),
the spiritual passions of the soul by charity, and the irregular
appetites by abstinence and penance." -Serapion's little rule
feast day March 21; Coptic church,
March 7
Venerable Richard Allen
(1760-1831)
1831
When black folk
sought to have a place of worship of their own, with the financial
help of friends (Quakers), the Saint Thomas African Episcopal Church
was built. In 1794 Richard Allen rejected an offer to become the
pastor of the church the Free African Society had built, a position
ultimately accepted by Absalom Jones. To reconcile his (Methodist)
faith and his African-American identity, Richard Allen formed "The
Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church". Latter Became
Bishop of the denomination,and published it's first
hymnal (the sourcebook for "Negro Spirituals") The preface to
the AMEC 1984 hymnal says it was the first book of songs published
by the Children of Oppression, and the very first to give expression
in their own selected language telling of the Christian hope of the
race.MARCH 26 or Feb
13th
St.
Benedict the Black
1585
Sicilian, son of
African parents; the first African to be canonized through the
regular canonical process, April 4
Martin
Luther King, Jr.
1968
Civil Rights
Leader,
April 4 or January 15th
Had Dr. King lived, he
would be turning 75 on January 15. Martin died at the hands of an
assassin on April 4, 1968, a few months short of his fortieth
birthday. Human history has forever been changed by the movement he
headed. Our current level of sensitivity to human rights issues and
inclusiveness can be traced to the strides gained by the Civil
Rights Movements of the 1950's and 1960's. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
was a rare human being who sacrificed his life for a vision of
equality for every person — not just African Americans. On November
2, 1983, both the Senate and the House of Representatives agreed
that we should never forget Dr. King's contributions to the world:
the third Monday in January was declared a national
holiday.
Copyright © 2002-2003 The General Board of Discipleship.
Used with permission.
St.
Zeno
380
Born at Cherchell,
Algeria missionary in Verona, Italy, where he become Bishop of
Verona (c. 362), April 12
St.
Marcellinus
4th
Cent.
He was an African
missionary to France, April 20
St.
Athanasius
373
Bishop of Alexandria, May
2
SS.
Timothy and Maura
298
Husband and wife
martyred in Southern Egypt, May 3
St. Isdore of
Chios
251
Alexandrian army
officer beheaded for his faith, May 15
Simon of
Cyrene, The Bearer of the Lord's Cross to Calvary.
?
All three synoptic
gospels mention Simon from Cyrene (an old Greek settlement on the
coast of North Africa). Roman guards pressed Simon into service and
forced him to carry Jesus’ cross (Matthew 27:32; Luke 23:30). Some
have thought Simon was a Gentile, but his name suggests he may have
been a Jew (Shimean is a Hebrew name), who had returned to Jerusalem
for the Passover festival. There is substantial evidence that Simon
of Cyrene was the same individual referred to in Acts 13:1 as
bearing the name “Simon called Niger - or Black Simon.” Mark adds an
interesting detail and tells us that Simon was the father of
Alexander and Rufus (Mark 15:21). It has been suggested that
Alexander and Rufus were known in the early church, and probably
Christians. May 21
Martyrs
of Sudan
The Christian bishops,
chiefs, commanders, clergy and people of Sudan declared, on May 16,
1983, that they would not abandon God as God had revealed himself to
them under threat of Shariah Law imposed by the fundamentalist
Islamic government in Khartoum. Until a peace treaty was signed on
January 9, 2005, the Episcopal Church of the Province of the Sudan
suffered from persecution and devastation through twenty-two years
of civil war. Two and a half million people were killed, half of
whom were members of this church. Many clergy and lay leaders were
singled out because of their religious leadership in their
communities. No buildings, including churches and schools, are left
standing in an area the size of Alaska. Four million people are
internally displaced, and a million are scattered around Africa and
beyond in the Sudanese Diaspora. Twenty-two of the twenty-four
dioceses exist in exile in Uganda or Kenya, and the majority of the
clergy are unpaid. Only 5% of the population of Southern Sudan was
Christian in 1983. Today over 85% of that region of six million is
now mostly Episcopalian or Roman Catholic. A faith rooted deeply in
the mercy of God has renewed their spirits through out the years of
strife and sorrow.
From the proposal provisionally approved at
the 2006 General convention.
St. Julia of
Tunisia
?
Slave girl crucified
for her faith, May 22
St.
Charles Lwanga and The martyrs of Uganda
1886
Martyrs canonized
by Pope Paul VI in 1964. The 22 young court servants were martyred
for their faith by the Buganda King Mwanga in 1886. Along with them
were 80 young Anglicans. June 3
St.
Onuphrius
4th
Cent.
Egyptian hermit, June
12
St.
Orsiesius
c.380
Abbot of Tabennisi
Monastery, Egypt, June 15
St.
Cyril of Alexandria
444
Patriarch of Alexandria
(412-444), June 27
Venerable Pierre
Toussaint (June 27, 1766 – June 30, 1853) —Apostle of New
York>
Born in Haiti, died in
New York City. Toussaint's elevation to sainthood is now under study
in Rome.
Toussaint attended daily
Mass, and was known for his piety, honesty, charity and integrity.
People said he radiated a serene and joyful faith. After his owner
died, Toussaint earned enough money to provide the widow, Marie
Bérard with the New York socialite's lifestyle to which she had
become accustomed. Toussaint paid the bills and issued the
invitations to her parties. Freed when Mrs. Bérard died, Toussaint
became a wealthy benefactor to Catholic charities in New York. He
and Juliette Noel, the woman he married when he was 45, took in
homeless immigrants and other unfortunate people to live with them.
Toussaint paid for the
reconstruction of St. Peter's church after it burned and helped
raise money for the construction of the old St. Patrick's Cathedral
in lower Manhattan. None of this protected him from being turned
away from the cathedral one day in 1836 by an usher who didn't like
the color of his face. A scandalized trustee of the church heard
about the insult, rebuked the usher and apologized to Toussaint.
When Toussaint died on June 30, 1853, the New York press devoted
numerous respectful obituaries to him.
St.
Shenute
c.450
Founder of monastic
life in Egypt, July 1
St.
Anatolius
c. 282
Philosopher and
scientist of Alexandria, July 3
St.
Pantaenus
190
Head of Alexandrian
Catechetical School and missionary to Persia (Iran), July 9
St. Eugenius
5th
Cent.
Archbishop of Carthage,
July 13
St.
John Coltrane
1967
American musician who played Jazz music. After
being fired from the Miles Davis quintet in 1957 for His drug and
alcohol abuse underwent a spiritual awakening, and received from God
a body of spiritual music. "As Coltrane's relationship with God
strengthened, he had dreams in which God revealed various ideas and
musical works to him. Eventually, in the winter of 1964, Coltrane
said that God revealed the entire work of "A Love Supreme" to him,
just as He had revealed the various texts of the Bible to his
believers. Coltrane was now ordained as a minister, and he received
the command to go out and preach God's word as a mature musician
both musically and spiritually committed to God. From this point on
until Coltrane's death in 1967, he claimed that 90 percent of his
playing was prayer."
(http://www-mcnair.berkeley.edu/95journal/EmmetPrice.html) Coltrane
beatified the late jazz saxophonist John Coltrane as a saint in 1982
by Archbishop G.D. Hinkson of the African Orthodox Church, which
owes its Episcopate and Apostolic Authority to the Syrian Church of
Antioch where the disciples were first called Christians, and of
which the Chair (See) of St. Peter the Apostle was the first
Bishop. July 17.
St. Speratus and
companions
180
The 12 martyrs of
Scillum, Carthage, T
St.
Aurelius
5th
Cent.
Archbishop of Carthage,
Tunisia, July 20
SOJOURNER TRUTH (26 NOV
1883)
Sojourner Truth,
originally known as Isabella, was born a slave in New York in about
1798. In 1826 she escaped with the aid of Quaker abolitionists, and
became a street-corner evangelist and the founder of a shelter for
homeless women. When she was travelling, and someone asked her name,
she said "Sojourner," meaning that she was a citizen of heaven, and
a wanderer on earth. She then gave her surname as "Truth," on the
grounds that God was her Father, and His name was Truth. She spoke
at numerous church gatherings, both black and white, quoting the
Bible extensively from memory, and speaking against slavery and for
an improved legal status for women. The speech for which she is best
known is called, "Ain't I a Woman?" It was delivered in response to
a male speaker who had been arguing that the refusal of votes for
women was grounded in a wish to shelter women from the harsh
realities of political life. She replied, with great effect, that
she was a woman, and that society had not sheltered her. She became
known as "the Miriam of the Latter Exodus." July
20
HARRIET ROSS TUBMAN (10 MAR
1913)
Harriet Ross was born
in 1820 in Maryland. She was deeply impressed by the Bible narrative
of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and
it became the basis of her belief that it was God's will to deliver
slaves in America out of their bondage, and that it was her duty to
help accomplish this. In 1844, she escaped to Canada, but returned
to help others escape. Working with other Abolitionists, chiefly
white Quakers, she made at least nineteen excursions into Maryland
in the 1850's, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom. During the
War of 1861-5,she joined the Northern Army as a cook and a nurse and
a spy, and on one occasion led a raid that freed over 750 slaves.
After the war, she worked to shelter orphans and elderly poor
persons, and to advance the status of women and blacks. She became
known as "the Moses of her People." July
20
St. Victor
I
199
Bishop of Rome and
first African Pope (189-199), July 23 or July 28
St.
Rutilius
250
North African martyr,
August
2
Blessed
Isidore Bakanja
1909
A Congolese laborer and
catechist martyred for his faith,
August, 15th
Saint Takla
Haymanot of Ethiopia
A Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church his feast day is
August 17.
Blessed Victoire
Rasoamanarivo
1894
Foundress of the
Catholic Action in Madagascar, beatified in 1989, August 21
153 martyrs of
Utica
c. 260
Thrown into a pit of
quicklime in Utica, Tunisia, August 24
St. Monica
387
Mother of St Augustine
of Hippo, widowed at age 40, August 27 or May 4
St.
Poemen
c. 400
A desert monk known
for his holiness, and who encouraged frequent Communion, August
27
St.
Augustine of Hippo
354-430
Bishop of Hippo
Regius (modern Annaba) on coast of Algeria, Doctor of the Church,
August 28
St. Moses the
Black (Ethiopian)
395
A slave, gang
leader, who after conversion died a martyr of non-violence on August
28, his feast day. That date providentially coincides with the march
to Washington by 500,000 African Americans in 1963, August 28
Blessed Ghebre
Mikha’el
1855
Ethiopian priest and
martyr, September 2
St. Donatian and
Companions
484
Martyrs, six
Bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Byzaccne (present day
Tunisia and Algeria); killed for their faith by the Arian Vandals,
September 6
St. Peter Claver B. 1580 D. 1654
St. Peter Claver, the 17th century black Spanish Jesuit spent his life ministering to black slaves arriving at Cartagena,
Colombia, a city teeming with merchants and slave traders. Claver was one of the few people in the history of the church to be considered a saint in his own lifetime. He boarded slave ships holding the cross aloft. He bandaged
their wounds, treated leprosy and attended to their sicknesses contracted on the long voyage. He befriended the Africans and tended to their physical needs before catechizing them and hence is considered a model of missionary evangelization. He is patron of black missions. Feast. September 9
St. Nemesia and
Companions
257
9 Bishops, several
deacons and lay persons who died in a marble quarry in North Africa,
September 10
Saint
Cyprian of Carthage 
Saint Cyprian
(born around 200; died September 14, 258) was bishop of Carthage and
one of the major theologians of the early African church. He was the
son of wealthy parents and became a teacher of rhetoric and
literature. He converted to Christianity in 246. He had astonished
the Christians of Carthage by pledging a vow of perpetual chastity
right before his baptism. Shortly thereafter he was ordained a
priest and elected bishop of Carthage in 248. in the persecution
under the Emperor Decius, Cyprian went into hiding. In another
persecution, under the Emperor Valerian, Cyprian was placed under
house arrest in Carthage, and, on September 14, 258, he was
beheaded.
Feast Day:
September 13
St. Maurice
and his Theban Legion (from Egypt)
287
Martyrs, who were
killed at Agauno, Switzerland for refusing to sacrifice to pagan
divinities, September 22
St.
Matthew
1st Cent
Apostle and Evangelist.
According to one ancient tradition, he was the first evangelizer of
Nubia (modern Sudan), September 21
St.
Raissa
c. 300
Virgin and martyr from
Alexandria, September 22
SS. Aizan and
Sazan
360
Twin Brothers;
Aizan was the first Christian Emperor of the Kingdom of Axum,
Ethiopia, October 1
St.
Thais
c. 350
Egyptian penitent,
converted after many years as a prostitute, October 8
St.
Cerbonius
573
African missionary
Bishop in Italy, October 10
St. Michael
Aragave
4th
Cent.
One of the first
Ethiopian Monks, October 11
St.
Sarmata
357
A disciple of St.
Anthony of Egypt, martyred by Saracens in the Egyptian desert,
October 11
5000 African martyrs and
confessors of the faith
483
African martyrs
deported and killed for their faith by the Vandal King Huneric,
October 12
Commemoration of the Saints
of the Ethiopian Church: St.
Frumentius (Abba Salama)(Nov 30th OCA)
380
Syriac monks and
founders of the Church in Ethiopia, October 27
St.
Elesbaan
555
An Ethiopia King who
died as a monk in Jerusalem, October 27
St. Lalibala (Ghebre
Mesqel)
1255
An Ethiopian Emperor
revered for his faith, October 27
St. Tekla Hymanot
1313
A great Ethiopian
reformer of monasticism, October 27
St.
Martin de Porres
1639
Born in Peru, son
of a Spanish father and an African slave mother, who became a
pharmacist at an early age and later joined the Dominican Order,
where he continued to dispense medicine to the poor, while living a
humble and austere life, with great devotion to the Eucharist,
November 3
St.
Pierius
4th
Cent.
Head of the
Catechetical School in Alexandria, November 4
St.
Achilias
312
Head of religious
instruction in Alexandria, November 7
St
Nennas
c.300
An Egyptian soldier
in Phygia, who fled from persecution and became a hermit, November
11
St. Arcadius and
companions
437
Martyrs, victims of the
Arian Kind of the Vandals, Genseric, November 13
St.
Gelasius
496
Bishop of Rome and
third African Pope (492-496), liturgical reformer, who ordered the
reception of Communion under both species, November 21
St. Rufus of
Rome
Rufus was one of
the first church workers. He was the son of Simon of Cyrene, the man
who carried Jesus' cross, and is mentioned in Mark 15:21, and again
by Paul in his Letter to the Romans 16:13: “Greet Rufus, chosen in
the Lord, and his mother and mine.” Both apostles refer to him quite
casually, and one can infer that Rufus was very well known to the
first Christians. Feastday: November 21
St Cathrine of
Alexandria
4th
Cent.
Virgin and martyr
who suffered martyrdom in Alexandria. Her relics are said to be kept
in the monastery of St. Catherine on Sinai, November 25
Blessed Anuarite
Nengapeta
1964
Virgin and martyr,
a member of the Holy Family Sister in Congo Kinshasa, martyred by
the Simba rebels, December 1
St. Peter
Martyr of Alexandria
311
Patriarch of Alexandria
during the Roman persecution, December?
St.
Cassian of Tangiers
298
A lawyer who resigned
and became Christian and died as a martyr, December 3
St.
Melchiades
314
Bishop of Rome and
second African Pope (311-314), December 10
FRANCES
JOSEPH-GAUDET
EDUCATOR AND PRISON
REFORMER
(30 December 1934)
Frances Joseph-Gaudet
(1861- December 1934), prison reform worker and educator, was born
in a log cabin in Holmesville, Mississippi of African American and
Native American descent. She was raised by her grandparents. Later
she went to live with a brother in New Orleans where she attended
school and Straight College. Widowed early, she dedicated her life
to prison reform. Beginning in 1894 she held prayer meetings, wrote
letters, delivered messages, and secured clothing for black
prisoners, and later for white prisoners as well. Her dedication to
prisoners and prison reform won her the respect of prison officials,
city authorities, the governor, and the Prison Reform Association. A
delegate to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union international
convention in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1900, she worked for the
reform of young blacks arrested for misdemeanor or vagrancy.
Joseph-Gaudet was the first woman to support juvenile offenders in
Louisiana, and her efforts helped found the juvenile court. She
eventually purchased a farm and founded the Gaudet Normal and
Industrial School. The school, which eventually expanded to 105
acres and numerous buildings, also served as a boarding school for
children with working mothers. Joseph-Gaudet served as principal of
the school until 1921 when she donated the school to the Episcopal
Church of Lousiana. Though the school closed in 1950, the Gaudet
Episcopal Home opened in the same location four years later to serve
African American children ages four to sixteen. The endowment fund
currently supports St. Luke’s Community Center on North Dorgenois
Street, where a hall honors Frances Joseph-Gaudet.
playing in background
We'll Understand it Better Bye and Bye
C.
A. Tindley
We are often tossed and driv’n on the
restless sea of time,
Sombre skies and howling tempest oft
succeed a bright sunshine,
In the land of perfect day, when the
mists have rolled away,
We will understand it better by and
by.
Chorus:
Well bye and bye when the morning comes
All the
Saints of God are gathered home
We will tell the story how we
overcome
And we'll understand and it better bye and bye.
Chorus:
Trials dark on
every hand and we cannot understand
All the ways that God would
lead us to that happy promised land
But we're trusting in His
love and We'll follow til we die
For we'll understand it better
bye and bye.
Often times we
wonder why we must sit all alone and cry
With our heads in sorrow
bowed cast outside the happy crowd
But we'll keep our head up
high brush back the teardrops from out eyes
For we'll understand
it better bye and bye.
Chorus:
