On the Secret Judgments of God [IV]

 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 =C3=A0 Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3, Ch 14

<<>><<>><<>>
20 March =E2=80=93 Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne

(c 634-687)
 =E2=80=9CThe Wonder-Worker of England,=E2=80=9D Bishop of Lindisfarne, Mon=
k, Hermit,
Miracle-worker, Born in c 634 possibly in Northumbria, England and
died on 20 March 687 at Lindesfarne, England of natural causes.
Patronages =E2=80=93 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: =E2=80=9CIn England, St Cuthbert, Bishop=
 of
Lindisfarne, who, from his childhood until his death, was renowned for
good works and miracles.=E2=80=9D

Cuthbert was born in North Northumbria in about the year 634 =E2=80=93 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=E2=80=99s sheep on the hills. (As he was certainly not a
shepherd boy it is possible that he was mounting a military guard =E2=80=93=
 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; =E2=80=93 he was a=
n
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=E2=80=99s 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 =E2=80=98Inner Farne=E2=
=80=99 and
built a hermitage where he lived for 10 years. Of course, people did
not leave him alone =E2=80=93 they went out in their little boats to consul=
t
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=E2=80=99s fame for piety, diligence, and obedience quickly grew an=
d
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 =E2=80=98elevate=E2=80=99 his remains on the anniversary of this death=
 (20 March
698). We believe that during these years, the beautiful manuscript
known as =E2=80=98The Lindisfarne Gospels=E2=80=98 was made, to be used for=
 the first
time at the great ceremony of the Translation of St Cuthbert. The
declaration of Cuthbert=E2=80=99s 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
taken away to be sold as slaves; gold and silver was taken and the
monastery partly burned down. After that, the Monastery lived under
threat and it seems that in the 9th century there was a gradual
movement of goods and buildings to the nearby mainland. The
traditional date for the final abandonment of Lindisfarne is 875.
The body of St. Cuthbert, together with other relics and treasures
which had survived the Viking attack, were carried by the Monks and
villagers onto the mainland.

For over 100 years the community settled at the old Roman Town of
Chester-le-Street. It was said that fear of further attack took them
inland to Ripon but not for long and on their journey back from there
they finally settled at Durham.

After the Norman Conquest (1066) a Benedictine community began to
build the great Cathedral at Durham. They proposed to honour the body
of St. Cuthbert with a new Shrine immediately east of the new High
Altar and in 1104, all was ready for the translation. The Durham Monks
opened up the coffin and found, that the St Cuthbert=E2=80=99s body was ind=
eed
still incorrupt. Throughout the Middle Ages the coffin was placed in a
beautiful Shrine and visited by great numbers of pilgrims. But at the
reformation, when the Monastery was dissolved, the Shrine was
dismantled and the coffin opened =E2=80=93 the body was still complete. It =
was
buried in a plain grave behind the High Altar and the Sacred items
buried with St Cuthbert were removed. Below is St Cuthbert=E2=80=99s Gospel=
 of
St John, recovered from his coffin; the original tooled red goatskin
binding is the earliest surviving Western binding.

The human remains were then re-interred in the same place and marked
by a plain gravestone with the name Cuthbertus. The Site, remains the
focus of many pilgrimages today, including myself and family who have
venerated St Cuthbert, a few times, in the Cathedral built to house
his Shrine =E2=80=93 of course, this is now a protestant church.

The 8th-century historian St Bede, wrote both a verse and a prose life
of St Cuthbert around 720. He has been described as the most popular
Saint in England prior to the death of Thomas Becket in 1170.
In particular, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, was inspired and
encouraged in his struggle against the Danes by a vision or dream he
had of St Cuthbert. Thereafter, the royal house of Wessex, who became
the Kings of England, made a point of great devotion to St Cuthbert.

https://anastpaul.com/2022/03/20/


The waters have risen
and severe storms are upon us
but we do not fear drowning,
for we stand firmly upon a rock.
Let the sea rage,
it cannot break the rock.=E2=80=9D
Let the waves rise,
they cannot sink the Boat of Jesus.=E2=80=9D
--St John Chrysostom (347-407)

Saint Quote:
Even the death on the Cross was sublime: for it was the culminating
and necessary point in that scheme of Love in which death was to be
followed by blessed resurrection for the whole "lump" of humanity: and
the Cross itself has a mystic meaning.
--Saint Gregory of Nyssa


<><><><>
PRAYERS FROM THE RACCOLTA

TO OUR LADY (642)
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
O Refuge of sinners, Mother of the dying, do not forsake us at the
hour of our death. Obtain for us the grace of perfect sorrow, sincere
contrition, the pardon and remission of our sins, a worthy receiving
of the holy Viaticum, and the consolation of the Sacrament of Extreme
Unction, in order that we may appear with greater security before the
throne of the just but merciful Judge, our God and our Redeemer. Amen.

TO OUR LORD JESUS (643)

Grant unto us, Lord Jesus, ever to follow the example of Thy Holy
Family, that in the hour of our death Thy glorious Virgin Mother
together with blessed Joseph may come to meet us and we may be
worthily received by Thee into everlasting dwellings: Who livest and
reignest world without end. Amen.