From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    On the Secret Judgments of God [IV]   
      
   THE DISCIPLE:   
   What is all flesh in Your sight? (1 Cor.1:29) Can the clay boast   
   against Him who fashions it? (Isa. 45:9) Can a man whose heart is   
   subject to God in truth be puffed up with empty boasting? (Isa.   
   29:16;64:8) The whole world cannot exalt him whom the Truth has made   
   subject to itself, nor can the tongues of all who flatter him move him   
   who has fixed his whole hope in God. For even those who talk thus are   
   all nothing; they will pass away with the sound of their own words,   
   but the truth of the Lord stands fast for ever. (Ps. 117:2)   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3, Ch 14   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   20 March – Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne   
      
   (c 634-687)   
    “The Wonder-Worker of England,” Bishop of Lindisfarne, Monk, Hermit,   
   Miracle-worker, Born in c 634 possibly in Northumbria, England and   
   died on 20 March 687 at Lindesfarne, England of natural causes.   
   Patronages – against plague and epidemics, of boatmen, mariners,   
   sailors, watermen, shepherds, England, the Diocese of Hexham and   
   Newcastle, England, Diocese of Lancaster, England, of Durham, England,   
   Northumbria, England. Both during his life and after his death he   
   became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult   
   centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral.   
      
   The Roman Martyrology reads today: “In England, St Cuthbert, Bishop of   
   Lindisfarne, who, from his childhood until his death, was renowned for   
   good works and miracles.”   
      
   Cuthbert was born in North Northumbria in about the year 634 – the   
   same year in which St Aidan founded the Monastery at Lindisfarne. He   
   came from a notable and wealthy English family and like most boys of   
   that class, he was placed with foster-parents for part of his   
   childhood and taught the arts of war. We know nothing of his   
   foster-father but he was very fond of his foster-mother, Kenswith.   
      
   It seems, from stories about his childhood, that he was brought up as   
   a Christian. He was credited, for instance, with having saved, by his   
   prayers, some Monks who were being swept out to sea on a raft. There   
   is some evidence that, in his mid-teens, he was involved in at least   
   one battle, which would have been quite normal for a boy of his social   
   background.   
      
   His life changed when he was about 17 years old. He was looking after   
   some neighbour’s sheep on the hills. (As he was certainly not a   
   shepherd boy it is possible that he was mounting a military guard – a   
   suitable occupation for a young warrior!) Gazing into the night sky he   
   saw a light descend to earth and then return, escorting, he believed,   
   a human soul to Heaven. The date was 31 August 651- the night that St   
   Aidan died! Perhaps Cuthbert had already been considering a possible   
   monastic calling but that was his moment of decision.   
      
   He went to the Monastery at Melrose, also founded by St Aidan and   
   asked to be admitted as a Novice. For the next 13 years he was with   
   the Melrose Monks. When Melrose was given land to found a new   
   Monastery at Ripon, North Yorkshire, Cuthbert went with the founding   
   party and was made Administrator. In his late 20s he returned to   
   Melrose and found that his former teacher and friend, the Prior   
   Boisil, was dying of the plague. Cuthbert became Prior (second to the   
   Abbot) at Melrose.   
      
   In 664 the Synod of Whitby decided that Northumbria should cease to   
   look to Ireland for its spiritual leadership and turn instead to the   
   continent. The Irish Monks of Lindisfarne, with others, went back to   
   Iona. The Abbot of Melrose subsequently became also Abbot of   
   Lindisfarne and Cuthbert its Prior.   
      
   Cuthbert seems to have moved to Lindisfarne at about the age of 30 and   
   lived there for the next 10 years. He ran the Monastery; – he was an   
   active missionary; he was much in demand as a spiritual guide and he   
   was graced with the charism of miraculous curing of the ill. He was an   
   outgoing, cheerful, compassionate person and no doubt became popular.   
   But when he was 40 years old he believed that he was being called to   
   be a hermit and to do the hermit’s job of fighting the spiritual   
   forces of evil in a life of solitude.   
      
   After a short trial period on the tiny islet adjoining Lindisfarne, he   
   moved to the more remote and larger island known as ‘Inner Farne’ and   
   built a hermitage where he lived for 10 years. Of course, people did   
   not leave him alone – they went out in their little boats to consult   
   him or ask for healing. However, on many days of the year the seas   
   around the islands are simply too rough to make the crossing and   
   Cuthbert was left in peace.   
      
   Cuthbert’s fame for piety, diligence, and obedience quickly grew and   
   at the age of about 50 he was asked by both Church and King to leave   
   his hermitage and become a Bishop. He reluctantly agreed. For two   
   years he was an active, travelling Bishop as St Aidan had been. He   
   seems to have journeyed extensively. On one occasion he was visiting   
   the Queen in Carlisle (on the other side of the country from   
   Lindisfarne) when he knew by miraculous understanding that her   
   husband, the King, had been slain by the Picts in battle in Scotland.   
      
   Feeling the approach of death, he retired back to the hermitage on the   
   Inner Farne where, in the company of Lindisfarne Monks, he died on 20   
   March 687. His body was brought back and buried at Lindisfarne. People   
   immediately came to pray at the grave and many miracles occurred. To   
   the Monks of Lindisfarne this was a clear sign that Cuthbert was a   
   Saint in Heaven and they, desired to declare to the world the great   
   power of intercession, of their St Cuthbert.   
      
   They decided to allow 11 years for his body to become a skeleton and   
   then ‘elevate’ his remains on the anniversary of this death (20 March   
   698). We believe that during these years, the beautiful manuscript   
   known as ‘The Lindisfarne Gospels‘ was made, to be used for the first   
   time at the great ceremony of the Translation of St Cuthbert. The   
   declaration of Cuthbert’s sainthood was to be a day of joy and   
   thanksgiving. It turned out to be also a day of surprise, even shock,   
   for when they opened the coffin ,they found no skeleton but a complete   
   and undecayed body. That was a sign of very great sainthood indeed.   
      
   So the cult of St Cuthbert began. Pilgrims began to flock to the   
   Shrine. The ordinary life of the Monastery continued for almost   
   another century until, on 8 June 793, the Vikings came. The Monks were   
   totally unprepared; some were killed; some younger ones and boys were   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)