HOLY MEN AND WOMEN of England

 

The Church of England, along with the rest of the Anglican Communion, recognises that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who are part of the Communion of Saints.  Some of those are named but the majority are known only to God.

Towards the end of the 20th century, the church recognised a number of men and women whose lives it wished to celebrate and these were named in revisions of the Prayer Book.  But in researching for my new book, What Do You Seek - Treasures of Religious Life - I discovered a number whose lives ought to be celebrated and whose omission from our calendar both robs the church from learning from their commitment to lives of prayer, whose valuable witness and ministry should be recognised and whose omission from the Calendar prevents their sanctity and enormous works of pastoral and social care from being recognised.  If any had been Roman Catholic, I believe the cause for their canonisation would already have been advanced.  Listed below are a number of them together with the dates when their lives can be celebrated:

January 16^th              Richard Meux Benson SSJE, priest and religious

February 6^th              Lincoln Stanhope Wainright, priest

March 25^th                 Br. Edward VE, priest and evangelist

March 28^th                 William of Glasshampton, priest, friar, solitary

April 7^th                     Roland Walls, priest, religious, theologian, solitary

September 7^th           Douglas SSF, religious

December 24^th          Dora CHR, holy woman