St.

Hugh of Lincoln Feastday: November 17 Patron of sick children, sick people, shoemakers, and swans Hugh of Lincoln was the son of William, Lord of Avalon. He was born at Avalon Castle in Burgundy and was raised and educated at a convent at Villard-Benoit after his mother died when he was eight. He was professed at fifteen, ordained a deacon at nineteen, and was made prior of a monastery at Saint-Maxim. While visiting the Grande Chartreuse with hisprior in 1160. It was then he decided to become a Carthusian there and was ordained. After ten years, he was namedprocurator and in 1175 became Abbot of the first Carthusian monastery in England. This had been built by King Henry IIas part of his penance for the murder of Thomas Becket. His reputation for holiness and sanctity spread all over England and attracted many to the monastery. He admonished Henry for keeping Sees vacant to enrich the royal coffers. Income from the vacant Sees went to the royal treasury. He was then named bishop of the eighteen year old vacant See of Lincoln in 1186 - a post he accepted only when ordered to do so by the prior of the Grande Chartreuse. Hugh quickly restored clerical discipline, labored to restorereligion to the diocese, and became known for his wisdomand justice. He was one of the leaders in denouncing the persecution of the Jews that swept England, 1190-91, repeatedly facing down armed mobs and making them release their victims. He went on a diplomatic mission to France for King John in 1199, visiting the Grande Chartreuse, Cluny, and Citeaux, and returned from the trip in poor health. A few months later, while attending a national council in London, he was stricken and died two months later at the Old Temple in London on November 16. He was canonized twenty years later, in 1220, the first Carthusian to be so honored. St. HildaFeastday: November 17 614 - 680 Benedictine abbess, baptized by St. Paulinus. She was the daughter of a king of Northumbria, England, and is considered one of Englands greatest women. At age thirty three Hilda entered Chelles Monastery in France, where her sister was a nun. At the request of St. Aidan, she returned to Northumbria and became abbess of Hartlepool. In time she became the head of the double monastery of Streaneschalch, at Whitby. She trained five bishops, convened the Council of Whitby, and encouraged the poet Caedmon.

November 17 is the 321st day of the year (322nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 44 days remaining until the end of the year. 1558: Elizabeth I Becomes Queen Upon the death of her sister Mary, Elizabeth Tudor became Queen of England amid bonfires and much ringing of bells. She would not be officially crowned until January. WHO DIED 680: Saint Hild of Whitby Hild or Hilda founded Streaneshalch Abbey (now Whitby) and was one of the most renowned abbesses of Anglo-Saxon England. 1231: Saint Elizabeth of Hungary A princess of Hungary, Elizabeth relinquished her wealth to benefit the poor. reflections on luke 18 1-8 The Widow as Pursuer of Justice A third interpretive route shifts our attention from the judge to the widow. Widows in the ancient world were incredibly vulnerable, regularly listed with orphans and aliens as those persons deserving special protection. The fact that this particular widow must beseech a judge unattended by any family highlights her extreme vulnerability. Yet she not only beseeches the judge, but also persists in her pleas for justice to the point of creating sufficient pressure to influence his actions. The focus in this reading is on the judge's description of his own motivation for settling the widow's claim. He asserts (as the narrator already had) that he neither fears God nor respects people, thereby testifying that his unsavory character has not changed during the course of the parable. When he explains why he relents, however, he utters a description of the effect of the widow's ceaseless complaints on him that most translations dilute. A more literal translation of the judge's grievance (18:5) is that the woman "is giving me a black eye."

Like all black eyes, the one the widow's complaints threaten to inflict have a double effect, representing both physical and social distress. That is, the judge complains that the widow's relentless badgering not only causes him physical harm but also risks publically embarrassing him. For this reason, he says -- perhaps justifying his actions to his wounded sense of self? -- that he relents not because he has changed his mind but simply to shut up this dangerous widow. In this case, insolent, obnoxious, even intolerable behavior results in justice. Read this way, the parable serves to encourage those suffering injustice to continue their complaints and calls for justice. A sermon following this path will encourage believers in their efforts, noting that sometimes it takes extreme, even socially unacceptable behavior to effect change. God, the Bible has persistently insisted, gives special attention to those who are most vulnerable; therefore, we should persist in our complaints, even to the point of embarrassing the powers that be in order to induce change. In the Gospel Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He told them about a dishonest judge who neither feared God nor respected any human being. There was also a woman who keeps on bothering the judge to give her justice. Due to her persistent petition to the judge, he finally listened to the woman and gave her justice. And the Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? Gods word is so alive that it directly talks to us! What HE is saying is that we need to constantly pray no matter what. In our short journey in this world there will be disappointments, there will be failures, there will be tragedies like Mother Teresa we will also have our own share of struggles in our faith! All of these trials should bring us closer to God, it should move us to constantly Pray no matter what circumstances we are in.