Constance and her Companions 12 step Eucharist St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
September 6, 2017 5:30
Do any here have Memphis roots or connections? This weekend, specifically on Saturday, churches in Memphis and especially the Cathedral, St. Mary’s, will celebrate the martyrdom of Constance and her Companions./
It is the summer of 1878, 139 years ago. Memphis is struck with its third epidemic in a decade of yellow fever, the mosquito-borne hemorrhagic viral infection. 30,000 citizens flee in terror. Everyone who can afford to do so packs up their bags and leaves the city and flees away from the river. 200 people are dying each day. 90% of the city contracts yellow fever, 5000 eventually die, and Memphis loses its city charter. A group of Anglican nuns from New England at the cathedral who have only been in the city five years choose to stay and nurse the sick. 4 nuns and 2 priests die. Today, if you go to the altar at St. Mary’s Cathedral you will see their names written on the steps in gold./
As I think of these martyrs, I think of so many who made sacrifices to bring about our new life, our recovery from addiction, people, especially family members, we have harmed that we can only make living amends to, whether they be alive or dead. I think of people who spent hours, hours talking and telling us their stories about recovery and their experience, strength, and hope. I think of people in our past who founded recovery programs before we were born so that we might live. I think of people who daily die without recovery who remind all of us how cunning and baffling this disease, this addiction is. I think of the God of my understanding who so loves all of us that this God becomes human and even dies so that we might really know the depth of God’s love for us and realize in some small way the experience of resurrection…. and that is who we all are. We are all resurrection people. Some of us lived a life with a disease that was becoming a living hell, but somehow, by some mystery, some miracle, we were led by people, many of whom were martyrs, into recovery. We are Easter people. We have been resurrected from the dead. Never forget this. This should be at the top of our gratitude list every day.
Listen carefully/ and as we say our daily prayers of gratitude, we might sometimes hear Constance and her companions and all the martyrs in our lives whispering nearby. “It was all worth it. You are all worth it.”
Joanna joannaseibert.com