Friday, August 31, 2012

St Aidan's Day

Friday 31st August 2012
Hand-carved sticks at the Bellingham Show
Today is the feast day of St Aidan, the gentle missionary who loved the Northumbrian people.  When his fellow monk returned (in the year 635 AD) to the monastery on Iona complaining that the Northumbrians had been unresponsive to his teaching about the Christian faith, Aidan said, "Brother, couldn't you have been a bit gentler?"
    So Aidan was sent in his place, taught the people effectively about God's love for them, was given a splendid horse by King Oswin to help him in his travels, promptly gave it away to the first beggar he met and ended up a bishop on Lindisfarne.
     On the night that he died in 651, the shepherd boy, Cuthbert, had a vision of a soul being carried in a bright light up to heaven.
So I thought we would have a picture of the Northumbrian sticks, the shepherds' crooks for St Cuthbert...More about him tomorrow.
     Our festival walk along our local St Cuthbert's Trail begins with breakfast at Elsdon at 8.30 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday), barbecue at Corsenside from 12 noon, tea at Bellingham about 5.30 p.m.

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