SAINT HERBERT OF DERWENTWATER

St. Herbert of Derwentwater

Feast day: March 20
Died March 20, 687.


 Saint Herbert was the priestly disciple and good friend of Saint Cuthbert. He lived alone on the island on Lake Derwentwater, later called Saint Herbert's. Each year Herbert would visit Saint Cuthbert at Lindisfarne. In 686, the year before Saint Cuthbert died, he travelled to Carlisle, and Herbert visited him there instead. Saint Cuthbert told Herbert on this visit that if he had anything to ask he must do so at this time because he foresaw that he would die and the Herbert would not see him again in this world. Herbert wept and begged him not to abandon him, but to pray that since they had served God together in the world, they be taken at the same time. Saint Cuthbert prayed for a moment and then predicted that this would be so. Soon afterward Herbert fell ill and his illness lasted until March 20 of the following year, when both saints died.

In 1374, Bishop Thomas Appleby of Carlisle ordered the vicar of Crosthwaite to celebrate a sun Mass on St. Herbert's Isle each year on his feast, and granted 40 days' indulgence to all who visited it on this day. Ruins of a circular stone building there may be connected with him