January 30

Gandhi (1869-1948) righteous among the nations

In 1948 Mahatma Gandhi, a prophet of nonviolence and universal love, was on his way to daily evening prayer when he was killed by three pistol shots fired by a young Hindu.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India in 1869. His family belonged to a caste that traditionally engaged in agriculture and business.
He married at a very young age, as was customary, and was sent to London to study law. During his London years, Gandhi discovered Christianity and came to a deeper understanding of the essentials of his Hindu faith.
In 1893 he became a lawyer in Durban, South Africa, and added to his studies of the Gospel and the Bhagavadgita a new awareness of the forms of extreme discimination that exist among the earth's peoples.
He returned to India in 1915 and created satyagraha, a method of peaceful resistence based on ahimsa, the nonviolence that flows from hearts that search passionately for truth and are moved to action by the fire of love. Beginning in 1920, Gandhi led India's independence movement, trying to keep the Hindu majority united with the Sikh, Christian, and Muslim minorities.
Arrested more than once, and treated with growing hostility by his fellow Hindus, Gandhi spent his remaining years trying to reconcile the population of India, with no other strategy than that of long barefoot marches accompanied by ritual fasting.
In 1947 India's independence was proclaimed, but the country's domestic conditions plummeted. The Mahatma, or "great soul," as Gandhi was now called, was killed because his vision of universal love was unacceptable to some. Before falling softly to the ground, mortally wounded, he pronounced a single word, "Rama," invoking God's name so that his assassinator might be forgiven.

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THE CHURCHES REMEMBER...

ANGLICANS:
Charles (d. 1649), king and martyr 

COPTS AND ETHIOPIANS (21 tubah/terr):
Death/Dormition of the vergin Mary, the Mother of God (Coptic Orthodox Church and Ethiopian Church)
Consecration of the first church dedicated to the Virgin (Coptic Catholic Church)

LUTHERANS:
Xaver Marnitz (d. 1919), witness to the point of bloodshed in Latvia

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS AND GREEK CATHOLICS:
Ippolytus (3rd cent.), priest of Rome, ieromartyr
Synaxis of the three Hierachs (Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom)