Readings

October 12: [Edith Cavell, Nurse, 1915]

The Collect of the Day

Edith Cavell

Living God, the source of all healing and wholeness: we bless you for the compassionate witness of your servant Edith Cavell. Inspire us to be agents of peace and reconciliation in a world beset by injustice, poverty, and war. We ask this through Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, to the ages of ages. Amen.

Edith Cavell

Living God, who art the source of all healing and wholeness: we bless thee for the compassionate witness of thy servant Edith Cavell. Inspire us, we beseech thee, to be agents of peace of and reconciliation in a world beset by injustice, poverty, and war. We ask this through Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Edith Cavell was born the eldest of four children on December 4th, 1865 in a small village near Norwich, England where her father held a long tenure as vicar. Edith received a classical English boarding school education and spent a period after her schooling serving as a governess in Brussels.

After caring for her father following a grave illness, Edith became a nurse at the London Hospital in 1896. In addition to working at hospitals and infirmaries throughout England, Edith served as a private traveling nurse, visiting and caring for patients in their own homes. In 1907, Edith assumed a position as matron at the newly founded L'École Belge d'Infirmières Diplômées (known in English as the The Berkendael Medical Institute) in Brussels. While serving as matron at the Berkendael Medical Institute, Edith launched a nursing journal, L’infirmière, and taught nursing in many schools throughout Belgium.

World War I broke out while Edith was in England visiting family which precipitated an immediate return to Belgium where she began serving as a Red Cross nurse. Following the German occupation of Brussels in 1914, Cavell began collaborating with others to shelter and smuggle Allied soldiers out of Belgium and into the Netherlands. Motivated by deeply held Christian faith, Edith insisted on treating wounded soldiers on both sides of the war effort, which, combined with her outspokenness against the war and the occupation, placed her in violation of German military law. Edith Cavell was arrested on August 3rd, 1915. During her depositions to the German police, Edith confessed to smuggling more than 60 British and 15 French soldiers, as well as 100 French and British draftable civilians out of Belgium and into neutral countries.

The evening before she was executed, Edith spoke to Father Stirling Gahan, the Anglican prison chaplain, these words which are inscribed on her memorial near Trafalgar Square in London: “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” On the morning of her execution, she asked Pastor Paul Le Seur, the Lutheran prison chaplain to ask “Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.” Edith Cavell was executed by the German government on October 12th, 1915.

Lessons and Psalm

First Lesson

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Psalm

23Yet I am always with you; *you hold me by my right hand.

24You will guide me by your counsel, *and afterwards receive me with glory.

25Whom have I in heaven but you? *and having you I desire nothing upon earth.

26Though my flesh and my heart should waste away, *God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.

27Truly, those who forsake you will perish; *you destroy all who are unfaithful.

28But it is good for me to be near God; *I have made the Lord God my refuge.

29I will speak of all your works *in the gates of the city of Zion.

Gospel

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John 16:25–33

25 “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. 26 On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.” 29 His disciples said, “Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! 30 Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.” 31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. 33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

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