Feast Day of Nicholas Ferrar

St. John's Church at Little Giddings as it stands today, from Wiki.

Nicholas Ferrar was born in London in 1592. He was the son of a merchant, Nicholas, also, who was a member of The Virginia Company. Upon his father's death, John, Nicholas' brother, took charge of the business affairs of the family until Nicholas succeeded him as deputy. When the Virginia Company was dissolved and John was threatened with bankruptcy, in 1624, the family decided to move away from London and devote themselves to a godly life.

Mary, Nicholas mother, purchased the manor of Little Gidding, and the family retired there. Her daughter, Susanna, and her husband and their many children moved there also. The inhabitants of the manor numbered around 40.

In 1626 William Laud, then Bishop of St. David’s but later Archbishop of Canterbury, ordained Nicholas a deacon though Nicholas made clear that he would not proceed to the priesthood. He and the family soon established on weekdays a regular round of prayer based on Archbishop Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer. The family processed to the church for these services of matins, the litany, and evensong, which were led by Nicholas.

Nicholas became ill and died on the day after the first Sunday of Advent in 1637. The family continued to occupy the manor after Nicholas' death.

The Ferrar household was an example of a godly family, neither unique nor monastic, but firmly committed to the established Church of England and its Prayer Book and determined to follow Christ’s commands to forswear worldliness and devote themselves to God’s service.

Quotes and biographical information taken from Little Gidding Church website.

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

From T. S. Eliot's "Little Gidding", No. 4 of "Four Quartets".

READINGS:

Psalm 15 or 112:1-9
Galatians 6:7-10
Matthew 13:47-52

PRAYER

Lord God, make us so reflect your perfect love; that, with your deacon Nicholas Ferrar and his household, we may rule ourselves according to your Word, and serve you with our whole heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.