SAINT CUTHBERT

St. Cuthbert
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne,
Feast day: March 20
Patron of Northumbria
Born in Northumbria, England  or Ireland  634;
Died on Inner Farne in March 20, 687;
 feast of his translation to Durham, September 4.
 Saint Cuthbert is possibly the most venerated saint in England, especially in the northern part of the country, where he was a very active missionary. Yet his real nationality is debated. His biographer, Saint Bede, did not specify it. Of course, the English claim him, but so do the Scottish.

There is a good likelihood the he was an Irishman named Mulloche, great-grandson of the High King Muircertagh of Ireland because, according to Moran citing documents in Durham Cathedral, the rood screen bore the inscription: "Saint Cuthbert, Patron of Church, City and Liberty of Durham, an Irishman by birth of royal parentage who was led by God's Providence to England." The cathedral's stained glass windows, which had been registered but destroyed during the reign of Henry VI, depicted the saint's life begin with his birth "at Kells" in Meath. This fact is corroborated by an ancient manuscript viewed by Alban Butler at Cottonian Library. One tradition relates that his mother, the Irish princess Saba, set out on a pilgrimage to Rome, left Cuthbert in the care of Kenswith, and died in Rome.

Thus, Cuthbert, like David, was a shepherd boy on the hills above Leader Water or the valley of the Tweed. Of unknown parentage, he was reared in the Scottish lowlands by a poor widow named Kenswith, and was a cripple because of an abscess on the knee made worse by an attempted cure. But despite this disability he was boisterous and high-spirited, and so physically strong that after he became a monk, on a visit to the monastery at Coldingham, he spent a whole night upon the shore in prayer, and strode into the cold sea praising God.

According to one of Saint Bede's two vitae of the saint, when Cuthbert was about 15, he had a vision of angels conducting the soul of Saint Aidan to heaven. Later, while still a youth, he became a monk under Saint Eata at Melrose Abbey on the Tweed River. The prior of Melrose, Saint Boisil, taught Cuthbert Scripture and the pattern of a devout life. Cuthbert went with Eata to the newly-founded abbey of Ripon in 661 as guest steward. He returned to Melrose, still just a mission station of log shanties, when King Alcfrid turned Ripon over to Saint Wilfrid. It was from Melrose that Cuthbert began his missionary efforts throughout Northumbria.

Cuthbert attended Boisil when the latter contracted the plague. The book of the Scriptures from which he read the Gospel of John to the dying prior was laid on the altar at Durham in the 13th century on Saint Cuthbert's feast. Thus, in 664, Cuthbert became prior of Melrose at the death of Boisil. Soon thereafter Cuthbert fell deathly ill with the same epidemic. Upon hearing that the brethren had prayed throughout the night for his recovery, he called for his staff, dressed, and undertook his duties (but he never fully recovered his health thereafter).

In 664, when Saint Colman refused to accept the decision of the Synod of Whitby in favor of Roman liturgical custom and migrated to Ireland with his monks, Saint Tuda was consecrated bishop in his place, while Eata was named abbot and Cuthbert prior of Lindisfarne, a small island joined to the coast at low tide. From Lindisfarne Cuthbert extended his work southward to the people of Northumberland and Durham.

Afterwards Cuthbert was made abbot of Lindisfarne, where he grew to love the wild rocks and sea, and where the birds and beasts came at his call. Then for eight years beginning in 676, Cuthbert followed his solitary nature by removing himself to the solitude of the isolated, infertile island of Farne, where it was believed that he was fed by the angels. There built an oratory and a cell with only a single small window for communication with the outside world. But he was still sought after, and twice the king of Northumberland implored him to accept election as bishop of Hexham, to which he finally agreed in 684, though unwillingly and with tears.

Almost immediately Cuthbert exchanged his see with Eata for that of Lindisfarne, which Cuthbert preferred. Thus, on Easter Sunday 685, Cuthbert was consecrated bishop of Lindisfarne by Saint Theodore archbishop of Canterbury, with six bishops in attendance at York. For two years Cuthbert was bishop of Lindisfarne, still maintaining his frugal ways and "first doing himself what he taught others." He administered his see, cared for the sick of the plague that decimated his see, distributed alms liberally, and worked so many miracles of healing that he was known in his lifetime as the "Wonder-Worker of Britain." Then at Christmas in 686, in failing health and knowing that his end was near, he resigned his office and retired again to his island cell; but though seriously ill and suffering intensely, he refused all aid, allowing none to nurse him, and finished his course alone.

In the very act of lifting his hands in prayer "his soul sped its way to the joys of the heavenly kingdom." News of his death was flashed by lantern to the watchers at Lindisfarne. Bede reports: "As the tiny gleam flashed over the dark reach of sea, and the watchman hurried with his news into the church, the brethren of the Holy Island were singing the words of the Psalmist: "Thou hast cast us out and scattered us abroad . . . Thou hast shown thy people heavy things."

He was buried at Lindisfarne, where they remained incorrupt for several centuries, but after the Viking raids began his remains wandered with the displaced monks for about 100 years until they were translated to Durham cathedral in 1104. Until its desecration under Henry VIII, his shrine at Durham was one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage for the power of healing that Cuthbert possessed during his lifetime lived on after him. The bones discovered in 1827 beneath the site of the medieval shrine are probably his. He is said to have had supernatural gifts of healing and insight, and people thronged to consult him, so that he became known as the wonder-worker of Britain. He had great qualities as a preacher, and made many missionary journeys. Bede wrote that "Cuthbert was so great a speaker and had such a light in his angelic face. He also had such a love for proclaiming his good news, that none hid their innermost secrets from him." Year after year, on horseback and on foot, he ventured into the remotest territories between Berwick and Galloway. He built the first oratory at Dull, Scotland, with a large stone cross before it and a little cell for himself. Here a monastery arose that became Saint Andrew's University.

His task was not easy, for he lived in an area of vast solitude, of wild moors and sedgy marshes crossed only by boggy tracts, with widely scattered groups of huts and hovels inhabited by a wild and heathen peasantry full of fears and superstitions and haunted by terror of pagan gods. His days were filled with incessant activity in an attempt to keep the spirit of Christianity alive and each night he kept vigil with God.

But unlike the Celtic missionaries, he spoke their language and knew their ways, for he had lived like them in a peasant's home. Once, when a snowstorm drove his boat onto the coast of Fife, he cried to his companions in the storm: "The snow closes the road along the shore; the storm bars our way over the sea. But there is still the way of Heaven that lies open."

Cuthbert was the Apostle of the Lowlands, renowned for his vigor and good-humor; he outstripped his fellow monks in visiting the loneliest and most dangerous outposts from cottage to cottage from Berwick to Solway Firth to bring the Good News of Christ. Selflessly he entered the houses of those stricken by the plague. And he was the most lovable of saints. His patience and humility persuaded the reluctant monks of Lindisfarne to adopt the Benedictine Rule.

He is especially appealing to us today because he was a keenly observant man, interested in the ways of birds and beasts. In fact, the Farne Islands, which served as a hermitage to the monks of Durham, are now a bird and wildlife sanctuary appropriately under the protection of Cuthbert. In his own time he was famed as a worker of miracles in God's name. On one occasion he healed a woman's dying baby with a kiss. The tiny seashells found only on his Farne Island are traditionally called Saint Cuthbert's Beads, and are said by sailors to have been made by him. This tradition is incorporated in Sir Walter Scott's Marmion.

The ample sources for his life and character show a man of extraordinary charm and practical ability, who attracted people deeply by the beauty of holiness.

His cultus is recalled in places names, such as Kirkcudbright (Galloway), Cotherstone (Yorkshire), Cubert (Cornwall), and more than 135 church dedications in England as well as an additional 17 in Scotland. A chapel in the crypt of Fulda was dedicated to him at its consecration (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Bentley, Colgrave, D'Arcy, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Fitzpatrick, Gill, Montague, Montalembert2, Moran, Skene, Tabor, Webb).

The following legends about Saint Cuthbert reveal as much about their author, the Venerable Bede as they do about Saint Cuthbert. Though they repeat in detail some of what is outlined above, they show the historian's care to note source and authority and show his quick eye that observes nature in detail. The complete biography can be found at the Medieval Sourcebook.

"One day as he rode his solitary way about the third hour after sunrise, he came by chance upon a hamlet a spear's cast from the track, and turned off the road to it. The woman of the house that he went into was the pious mother of a family, and he was anxious to rest there a little while, and to ask some provision for the horse that carried him rather than for himself, for it was the oncoming of winter.

"The woman brought him kindly in, and was earnest with him that he would let her get ready a meal, for his own comfort, but the man of God denied her. 'I must not eat yet,' said he, 'because today is a fast.' It was indeed Friday when the faithful for the most part prolong their fast until the third hour before sunset, for reverence of the Lord's Passion.

"The woman, full of hospitable zeal, insisted. 'See now,' said she, 'the road that you are going, you will find never a clachan or a single house upon it, and indeed you have a long way yet before you, and you will not be at the end of it before sundown. So do, I ask you, take some food before you go, or you will have to keep your fast the whole day, and maybe even till the morrow.' But though she pressed him hard, devotion to his religion overcame her entreating, and he went through the day fasting, until evening.

"But as twilight fell and he began to see that he could not come to the end of the journey he had planned that day, and that there was no human habitation near where he could stay the night, suddenly as he rode he saw close by a huddle of shepherds' huts, built ramshackle for the summer, and now lying open and deserted.

"Thither he went in search of shelter, tethered his horse to the inside wall, gathered up a bundle of hay that the wind had torn from the thatch, and set it before him for fodder. Himself had begun to say his hours, when suddenly in the midst of his chanting of the Psalms he saw his horse rear up his head and begin cropping the thatch of the hovel and dragging it down, and in the middle of the falling thatch came tumbling a linen cloth lapped up; curious to know what it might be, he finished his prayer, came up and found wrapped in the linen cloth a piece of loaf still hot, and meat, enough for one man's meal.

"And chanting his thanks for heaven's grace, 'I thank God,' said he, 'Who has stooped to make a feast for me that was fasting for love of His Passion, and for my comrade.' So he divided the piece of loaf that he had found and gave half to the horse, and the rest he kept for himself to eat, and from that day he was the readier to fasting because he understood that the meal had been prepared for him in the solitude by His gift Who of old fed Elijah the solitary in like fashion by the birds, when there was no man near to minister to him; Whose eyes are on them that fear Him and that hope in His mercy, that He will snatch their souls from death and cherish them in their hunger.

"And this story I had from a brother of our monastery which is at the mouth of the river Wear, a priest, Ingwald by name, who has the grace of his great age rather to contemplate things eternal with a pure heart than things temporal with the eyes of earth; and he said that he had it from Cuthbert himself, the time that he was bishop."

And a second story recorded by Bede:

"It was his way for the most part to wander in those places and to preach in those remote hamlets, perched on steep rugged mountain sides, where other men would have a dread of going, and whose poverty and rude ignorance gave no welcome to any scholar. . . . Often for a whole week, sometimes for two or three, and even for a full month, he would not return home, but would abide in the mountains, and call these simple folk to heavenly things by his word and his ways. . . ."

[He was, moreover, easily entreated, and came to stay at the abbey of Coldingham on a cliff above the sea.]

"As was his habit, at night while other men took their rest, he would go out to pray; and after long vigils kept far into the night, he would come home when the hour of common prayer drew near. One night, a brother of this same monastery saw him go silently out, and stealthily followed on his track, to see where he was going or what he would do.

"And so he went out from the monastery and, his spy following him went down to the sea, above which the monastery was built; and wading into the depths till the waves swelled up to his neck and arms, kept his vigil through the dark with chanting voiced like the sea. As the twilight of dawn drew near, he waded back up the beach, and kneeling there, again began to pray; and as he prayed, straight from the depths of the sea came two four-footed beasts which are called by the common people otters.

"These, prostrate before him on the sand, began to busy themselves warming his feet with pantings, and trying to dry them with their fur; and when this good office was rendered, and they had his benediction, they slipped back again beneath their native waters. He himself returned home, and sang the hymns of the office with the brethren at the appointed hour. But the brother who had stood watching him from the cliffs was seized with such panic that he could hardly make his way home, tottering on his feet; and early in the morning came to him and fell at his feet, begging forgiveness with his tears for his foolish attempt, never doubting but that his behavior of the nights was known and discovered.

"To whom Cuthbert: 'What ails you, my brother? What have you done? Have you been out and about to try to come at the truth of this night wandering of mine? I forgive you, on this one condition: That you promise to tell no man what you saw, until my death.' . . . And the promise given, he blessed the brother and absolved him alike of the fault and the annoyance his foolish boldness had given: The brother kept silence on the piece of valor that he had seen, until after the Saint's death, when he took pains to tell it to many"

Bede relates another story:

After many years at Lindisfarne Abbey, Cuthbert set out to become a hermit on an island called Farne, which unlike Lindisfarne, "which twice a day by the upswelling of the ocean tide . . . becomes an island, and twice a day, its shore again bared by the tide outgoing, is restored to its neighbor the land. . . . No man, before God's servant Cuthbert, had been able to make his dwelling here alone, for the phantoms of demons that haunted it; but at the coming of Christ's soldier, armed with the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, the fiery darts of the wicked fell quenched, and the foul Enemy himself, with all his satellite mob, was put to flight."

Cuthbert built himself a cell on the island by cutting away the living rock of a cave. He constructed a wall out of rough boulders and turf. Some of the boulders were so large that "one would hardly think four men could lift them, and yet he is known to have carried them thither with angelic help and set them into the wall. He had two houses in his enclosure, one an oratory, the other a dwelling place. . . . At the harbor of the island was a larger house in which the brethren when they came to visit him could be received and take their rest. . . ."

At first he accepted bread from Lindisfarne, "but after a while he felt it was more fit that he should live by the work of his own hand, after the example of the Fathers. So he asked them to bring him tools to dig the ground with, and wheat to sow; but the grain that he had sown in spring showed no sign of a crop even by the middle of the summer. So when the brethren as usual were visiting him the man of God said, 'It may be the nature of the soil, or it may be it is not the will of God that any wheat should grow for me in this place: So bring me, I pray you, barley, and perhaps I may raise some harvest from it. But if God will give it no increase, it would be better for me to go back to the community than be supported here on other men's labors.'

"They brought him the barley, and he committed it to the ground, far past the time of sowing, and past all hope of springing: and soon there appeared an abundant crop. When it began to ripen, then came the birds, and its was who among them should devour the most. So up comes God's good servant, as he would afterwards tell--for many a time, with his benign and joyous regard, he would tell in company some of the things that he himself had won by faith, and so strengthen the faith of his hearers--'And why,' says he, 'are you touching a crop you did not sow? Or is it, maybe, that you have more need of it than I? If you have God's leave, do what He allows you: but if not, be off, and do no more damage to what is not your own.' He spoke, and at the first word of command, the birds were off in a body and come what might for ever after they contained themselves from any trespass on his harvests. . . .

"And here might be told a miracle done by the blessed Cuthbert in the fashion of the aforesaid Father, Benedict, wherein the obedience and humility of the birds put to shame the obstinacy and arrogance of men. Upon that island for a great while back a pair of ravens had made their dwelling: And one day at their nesting time the man of God spied them tearing with their beaks at the thatch on the brethren's hospice of which I have spoken, and carrying off pieces of it in their bills to build their nest.

"He thrust at them gently with his hand, and bade them give over this damage to the brethren. And when they scoffed at his command, 'In the name of Jesus Christ,' said he, 'be off with you as quick as ye may, and never more presume to abide in the place which ye have spoiled.' And scarcely had he spoken, when they flew dismally away.

"But toward the end of the third day, one of the two came back, and finding Christ's servant busy digging, comes with his wings lamentably trailing and his head bowed to his feet, and his voice low and humble, and begs pardon with such signs as he might: which the good father well understanding, gives him permission to return.

"As for the other, leave once obtained, he straight off goes to fetch his mae, and with no tarrying, back they both come, and carrying along with them a suitable present, no less than a good- sized hunk of hog's lard such as one greases axles with: Many a time thereafter the man of God would show it the brethren who came to see him, and would offer it to grease their shoes, and he would urge on them how obedient and humble men should be, when the proudest of birds made haste with prayers and lamentation and presents to atone for the insult he had given to man. And so, for an example of reformed life to men, these did abide for many years thereafter on that same island, and built their nest, nor ever wrought annoyance upon any"