Lives of the Saints
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Lives of the Saints’
Edith of Wilton may have been the daughter of King, but she did not behave like one in the Abbey or the town.
Flemish monk Goscelin spent much of his life in England just after the Conquest of 1066, researching the lives of Anglo-Saxon saints. One of his favourites was St Edith of Wilton (?961-984), a daughter of King Edgar. He often felt her presence on his visits to the Abbey where she had lived a century before.
An austere Bishop of Winchester scolded St Edith for her comely nun’s habit, but the young woman’s eyes saw further than his.
St Edith of Wilton was a daughter of King Edgar (r. 959-975). The nuns of the convent, which was ruled by her mother Wulfthryth, wore rather nice habits and the Bishop of Winchester did not did not think them suitable. Edith, however, was not one to judge a book by its cover.
The birth of Jesus Christ fundamentally changed the relationship between mankind and the angels.
Elfric of Eynsham reminds us that when God’s Son took flesh and was born from the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, he conferred an honour on all human bodies and indeed all creation. After the Nativity, even the angels changed their dealings with us, out of respect for what happened on that night in the inn.
A woman advises her husband to entrust their modest savings to the bank of God.
This story was told to John Moschus (?550–619) by Maria, a Christian lady on the Greek island of Samos who was devoted to the care of the poor. The events occurred in Nisibis in Syria, an ancient Christian centre now just inside Turkey, whose early fourth-century church is ruined but still partially standing.
Cuthbert’s friend comes asking for a priest to attend his dying wife — so long as it isn’t Cuthbert.
St Cuthbert’s miracles not only brought healing or deliverance from danger, but left others wiser and kinder for having lived through them. In this example, his friend Hildemer learnt that illness, and specifically mental illness, is nothing for a Christian to be ashamed of.
A guide loses his way on the edge of the merciless Egyptian desert, but Abba John is too kind-hearted to tell him.
Abba John Colobus (?339-?405), sometimes called John the Dwarf, was a monk and abbot of a monstery in Scetis in western Egypt, on the edge of the desert. Remembered today mostly for an act of remarkable obedience, in this short tale he teaches another important virtue: tact.