Holy Places
By the Rev. Charles Hoffacker (’82)
In many parts of the world with a long history of Christianity, you’ll find villages, monasteries, and churches named for a local saint, often an obscure one. These dedications bear witness to a holy person who once dwelt in the area that was deemed worthy of honor and remembrance by contemporaries and subsequent generations. The presence of a manifestly holy person also yielded something further: the sense of a place as manifestly holy, related to that person’s abiding presence.
Every place belongs to God. God is present in every place, and thus every place is holy, yet some places become recognized for their holiness. While not all such places are connected with Christianity and its saints, many of them are. These places may have been set apart at some point by ecclesiastical blessing as a church, chapel, shrine, or other entity. They may also be recognized because generations of local Christians and perhaps pilgrims have remembered and commemorated the holy lives associated with them. This distinction is not a precise one.
The history of Christianity in the United States is relatively short, but the saints who flourished in this land are coming to be recognized and commemorated more thoroughly as time passes. Another factor contributing to this development is the increasing recognition that holiness can be apparent through a wide range of vocations and in people of every race, ethnicity, and social location.
The discovery of a saint happens gradually. What was once taken for granted comes to be increasingly appreciated as a life and a place where grace was and is manifest in a fresh and often startling way. The commonplace observation that we do not understand our own time or the recent past very well has a parallel: we do not accurately recognize every saint near us in time and space. It may take generations for an accurate perspective to emerge.
The complexity of our society also means that places associated with contemporary saints are often of a sort that did not exist in previous generations. Furthermore, places associated with saints, regardless of their era, may in our time be under the trusteeship of relatively new sorts of entities.
Thus, what the church calls a holy place may be known by a different name when overseen by a homeowner, a non-profit organization, or a unit of government. This may be a good development if a wide range of people become interested in the holy person and place and their abiding significance. In contrast to the insularity that mars much of American Christianity, many people, whether believers or not, may encounter a refreshing historical example of the gospel at work in the world.
Nashotah House is a place set apart by both ecclesiastical blessing and the witness of holy lives. The campus features a variety of chapels and shrines. The cemetery is the resting place of many holy persons, including two (James Lloyd Breck and Jackson Kemper) honored with feast days in the Episcopal Church. Regular common prayer, especially the Holy Eucharist, has been an uninterrupted feature of life at Nashotah House since its establishment. The House also retains features of its early purposes as a mission station and a center for priestly formation.
Fidelity takes diverse forms, however. This is apparent, for example, regarding four holy persons from the Episcopal Church calendar (William White, Harriet Tubman, James O. S. Huntington, and Frances Perkins) and sites connected with each one -- all of which, like Nashotah House, are normally open to the public. Two of these sites are administered by the federal government and one by an independent non-profit. The remaining site belongs to a religious order. Stories connected with these places reveal lives of holiness and service that offer powerful examples for people today, whether or not they are believers. These four holy ones remain present with us, especially at their sites. They continue to speak, and they do so with eloquence.
William White (feast day July 17)
Born in Philadelphia in 1747, White served there as rector of Christ Church and St. Peter’s (1779-1836), Bishop of Pennsylvania (1786-1836), and Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (1789, 1795-1836). He also became chaplain of the Continental Congress and later chaplain of the Senate. William White was one of the chief architects of the Episcopal Church as an Anglican jurisdiction appropriate to the new nation. Unlike some Anglican clergy of his time, he never owned enslaved persons. He came to be honored as Philadelphia’s “first citizen,” due to his ministry to yellow fever sufferers, charitable endeavors, and leadership of educational institutions. He mentored many of his church’s leaders, including Absalom Jones, the Episcopal Church’s first Black priest.
The collect for the feast of William White describes him as gifted with “wisdom, patience, and a reconciling temper.” Throughout his lengthy service in one of America’s largest cities, he used these gifts to good effect helping the new nation and the new church take shape.
The Bishop White House at 309 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, is now part of Independence National Historical Park. Situated midway between the two churches served by William White, this spacious residence was built in the Federal style in 1787. The parlor was an entertainment center for card-playing, conversation, and music. Upstairs can be found some 150 books from the Bishop’s library, as well as the bedroom he occupied alone for forty years after his wife’s death. Mosquito netting on his bed recalls his survival of the Yellow Fever epidemics of 1793 and 1797. The presence of many children and grandchildren made the White home a lively one, as did the many guests welcomed there, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.
Harriet Tubman (feast day July 20)
Born in 1820, Harriet Tubman grew up in a large and loving family, but she suffered beatings and severe injury from her owners, and so she turned to religion, especially the Exodus story. In the heart of Dorchester County, Maryland, amid fields, creeks, and marshes, she labored from early childhood and grew into a woman determined to gain freedom for herself and others.
Harriet Tubman escaped to Canada, then at great risk to herself she made repeated trips back to Maryland to lead more than 300 people to freedom. As she put it, “My home, after all, was down in Maryland.” Vast sums were offered for her capture, but she was never apprehended. ”I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
When the Civil War began, Harriet Tubman quickly joined the Union Army, where she served in several capacities, including as commander of 300 Black troops in a raid that freed over 750 enslaved people. At other times she ministered to Black orphans and old people and advocated for women’s rights and schools for Black children. Celebrated as the “Moses of Her People,” she claimed that her struggle against slavery had been commanded by God, who addressed her through omens, dreams, and warnings.
The open spaces included in the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland and other Tubman historical sites recall her enormous trust in God, her generous heart, and her persistent courage. The rural character of these spaces makes it easy to imagine Harriet stealthily traveling there once again, conducting oppressed people to the freedom intended for all God’s children. To borrow from a song about her friend John Brown, “her soul goes marching on.”
James O. S. Huntington (feast day November 25)
James Huntington was ordained a priest by his father, the first bishop of Central New York. While attending a retreat in Philadelphia, he discerned a call to the religious life and the need to found an indigenous American community for men. He and others began ministering to poor immigrants at Holy Cross Mission on New York’s Lower East Side. In 1884, at the age of thirty, his life vows were received by the Bishop of New York.
An active reformer with an enduring sense of social responsibility, Father Huntington played a leading role in establishing the Church Association for the Advancement of the Interests of Labor (CAIL), which helped pass legislation abolishing child labor in New York State, investigated conditions in factories and tenements, and arbitrated strikes. As the Order of the Holy Cross (OHC) slowly grew, it relocated first to Maryland and then to the Hudson Valley of New York. Father Huntington served as superior several times and continued his energetic rounds of preaching, teaching, and spiritual counsel until his death in 1935.
Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York is the OHC motherhouse. Designed by the celebrated architects Ralph Adams Cram and Henry Vaughan, it was dedicated in 1904. Situated on a 26-acre site near the Hudson River, the facilities include two guesthouses, the monastic enclosure, and the Chapel of St. Augustine.
The mortal remains of Father Huntington and many of his brothers that rest in the peaceful crypt below the chapel constitute a foundation informing the daily life of their community in West Park and elsewhere in the world. A major OHC ministry today is welcoming guests to Holy Cross Monastery for individual and group retreats. Thus, the monks open to others the holy place they call home.
Frances Perkins (feast day May 13)
Raised in an old New England family, Frances Perkins graduated as class president at Mount Holyoke College in 1902. Involved in organizations for social change, she became increasingly aware of the hardships faced by working people and immigrants. In 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Fire in Manhattan, a major industrial disaster that was a moment of conversion for her, intensifying her calling to work for industrial safety and better conditions for laborers. Governor Al Smith of New York brought her into his administration. She later served under Franklin Roosevelt, first during his time as New York governor and then as Labor Secretary throughout his presidency. Perkins contributed substantially to many New Deal programs, especially Social Security, which she considered her most significant and lasting achievement.
Frances Perkins became a devout Episcopalian as a young adult. During her Washington years she went on a monthly retreat at an Episcopal convent. It was, in her view, the “duty of Christian people to take part in politics. I feel that more sincerely than I can possibly say.”
The place where Frances Perkins kept returning throughout her long life was the Perkins homestead in Newcastle, Maine, which had been in her family since the mid-eighteenth century. This lovely and unpretentious property, now a National Historic Landmark, is owned by the Frances Perkins Center, an independent nonprofit organization. The Center “convenes leaders and future leaders in public policy, labor, and related fields to generate creative solutions to today’s social and economic problems and teaches students of all ages about a remarkable woman whose work continues to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.”
Frances Perkins. James Huntington. Harriet Tubman. William White. Part of the legacy left to us by manifestly holy people are places they frequented and thus made manifestly holy. When we travel to these places or even reflect upon them, we realize, perhaps to our surprise, that these people are not far from us, and that we are, in the language of the Prayer Book, “encouraged by their examples, aided by their prayers, and strengthened by their fellowship.”
The Rev. Charles Hoffacker (’82) is a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington who lives in Greenbelt, Maryland. Now enjoying retirement, he ministers in a variety of ways, including as a writer and independent scholar.
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Friends often come across books by the recommendations of those they know. We are excited to offer a monthly series called “What’s On Your Shelf?” We’ve asked several people to chime in and let us know what they’re reading. As a result, Nashotah House’s Chapter is pleased to present monthly book reviews from alumni, friends, faculty, and board members. Do you have a favorite book you’ve read recently? We hope you’ll let us know about it. Please email chapter@nashotah.edu if you have any questions and more information about how we may post your review.
Image courtesy Elizabeth Garfield, Nashotah House “middler” seminarian.