Bible and Saints

A man born blind is healed by Jesus, but finds himself a social outcast as a result.

Jesus has been avoiding Jerusalem, but now he has taken the fateful step. Immediately he engulfs himself in controversy by coming to the aid of a woman accused of adultery, and by appearing to claim to be God. When he heals a blind man on the Sabbath the Pharisees hope he has at last done something they can prosecute him for.

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The popular monk was elected as bishop of Menevia in Wales in 550.

St David is the Patron Saint of Wales. His life shows just how closely connected the churches of Britain were to those of the Mediterranean world, even before the arrival of St Augustine of Canterbury in 597.

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God’s love proved to be bigger and stronger than all man’s wickedness.

In the 6th century BC, Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians, and her nobility were deported to Babylon. In their exile, they studied their oppressor’s heathen mythology of a great flood, and turned it quite brilliantly into an allegory of Israel’s sins, the ‘flood’ of invasion, and their own Noah-like role in keeping Judaism alive until God restored Israel to her land.

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Naaman had very fixed ideas about what it takes to get a miracle.

Joram was King of Israel (i.e. the ten northern tribes) in the middle of the ninth century BC.

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The Blessed Virgin Mary adds four years to the life of Bishop Wilfrid, and an angel suggests a suitable thank-you.

Wilfrid, bishop of Hexham, visited Rome in 703-704, to resolve an ongoing dispute with the King of Northumbria. On his way back, he fell ill.

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A monk of the Egyptian desert helped a desperate mother, and was richly rewarded.

Macarius (301-391) was a disciple of St Anthony, the first Christian monk. Here, he does a favour for a friend in need.

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