A very happy #StCuthbertsDay to all my followers! I know that many will feel in no mood to mark it with the customary jollity & celebration, but I am determined to keep the candle flame of this best of days alive despite all the gusting of the current terrible storm... 
Originally - courtesy of @WalkerMarcus - I was going to mark #StCuthbertsDay by speaking about him at a special service in @StBartholomews. I hope, if @jamiembrixton & I can master the technology, to record what I was going to say. The service will continue, but online!
I will also be marking #StCuthbertsDay by tweeting about him over the course of the day. To kick things off, here are two apostles from the wooden coffin built in 698, 11 years after his death, when his body was elevated & reburied on Lindisfarne, & found to be incorrupt.
“It became widely known that in the north of England, across the tidal flats of an island called Lindisfarne, there lay the body of a man so perfectly devout that the mechanisms of death itself had been put on hold by the pure intensity of his faith” - @daviddwill #StCuthbertsDay
As a young boy, so a 14th century manuscript tells us, Cuthbert "pleyde atte balle with the children that his fellowes were."
Clearly, befitting the man who should rank as England’s patron saint, this could only have been an early form of cricket... #StCuthbertsDay
Clearly, befitting the man who should rank as England’s patron saint, this could only have been an early form of cricket... #StCuthbertsDay
These windows beautifully convey the way that Cuthbert was more than just an anchorite, more even than just a bishop, but a figure of awesome & terrible power, who was valued by the Northumbrian royal dynasty as a kind of Merlin or Gandalf #StCuthbertsDay
The member of the Northumbrian dynasty to whom Cuthbert seems to have been closest was the wonderfully named Ælfflæd (‘Elf Beauty’), the daughter of King Oswiu, the successor of St Hilda as Abbess of Whitby, & a woman renowned for her holiness & powers of healing #StCuthbertsDay
It was Ælfflæd, according to the keeper of Cuthbert’s shrine at Durham Cathedral in 1383, who wrapped the dead saint in his winding sheet. If so, then it was possibly Ælfflæd as well who placed a cross of a style otherwise only found in female graves on his body. #StCuthbertsDay
More on the mystery of St Cuthbert’s cross, and the various elements of the puzzle, courtesy of @daviddwill, here: sacristy.co.uk/blog/2019/cuth… #StCuthbertsDay
Cuthbert lived in a world where the heavenly was felt to be close. He was a living, breathing thin place. One dark night, he saw light streaming from the skies, "& the choirs of the heavenly host coming down to earth." Twice he was personally visited by angels. #StCutherbertsDay
What was the source of Cuthbert's power? The sense that his faith could move mountains & was manifest in the awesome austerities to which he subjected himself: living for days off a raw onion, praying all night standing in the North Sea, living on the remoteness of Farne Island.
"And so he studied, seeking his own way,
And found a rough sea-bitten island."
Geoffrey Hill, 'St Cuthbert on Farne Island'
#StCuthbertsDay
And found a rough sea-bitten island."
Geoffrey Hill, 'St Cuthbert on Farne Island'
#StCuthbertsDay
The measure of Cuthbert's holiness was that even animals were drawn to it. Sea otters warmed his feet; eagles brought him fish; he cared for the eider ducks which to this day are known as well as 'cuddy ducks'. #StCuthbertsDay
Bede reports how one of two ravens scolded by Cuthbert for stealing thatch came back, "& with his wings lamentably trailing & his head bowed to his feet, & his voice low & humble, begged pardon: which the good father gave." #StCuthbertsDay
The 2 near contemporaneous biographies we have of Cuthbert, one by Bede, one anonymous, are agreed that the saint's charisma & aura of natural authority were combined with qualities of kindness, patience & gentleness. Bede's portrait is full of personal reminisences.
"His thirst for righteousness made him quick to reprove wrong-doers, but his gentleness made him speedy to forgive penitents" - Bede #StCuthbertsDay
"He always gave encouragement appropriate to the person he was addressing - which is to say that he always knew before speaking to people what advice he should be giving them, and when & how." #StCuthbertsDay
What truly set the seal on Cuthbert's reputation, however, was what happened to his body after death. 11 years after his burial, it was found that "the skin had not decayed nor grown old, while his neck & knees were like those of a living man." #StCuthbertsDay
The incorruptibility of Cuthbert's corpse, & the renown this brought Lindisfarne among the sinful, sick & desperate across Europe, was what ended up making his monastery rich - & in turn drew the Vikings to make the island their first target in Britain. #StCuthbertsDay
The monks, cutting their losses after repeated Viking raids, exhumed the miracle-working corpse of St Cuthbert, the source of all their wealth & power, & after taking it on a tour of the various lands that had been granted the saint, settled in the Roman fort of Chester-le-Street
The authority of Cuthbert (despite the fact he was dead) remained sufficient to keep the lands between the Tyne & the Tees under his rule, to anoint & overthrow Viking warlords, & to feed King Alfred & his men with a fish supper on the Isle of Athelney. #StCuthbertsDay
When Alfred's grandson Athelstan visited Cuthbert on his way to making war against the King of the Scots, he presented the saint with a host of gifts as markers of his respect & devotion - including a gospel-book. #StCuthbertsDay
Over the course of the Middle Ages, a saint once renowned as a healer, an ascetic, a communer with animals, was transformed into the protector of his people - & an increasingly martial figure. His banner in particular served as a martial totem in the wars against the Scots.
A dear friend of mine from the North-East who died much too young was the first to tell me the story of how, in 1943, St Cuthbert conjured up a mist to protect Durham, & the cathedral that was the final resting place of his body, from the Luftwaffe bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peo…
That Cuthbert's body still lies in Durham Catheral (Thomas Cromwell's agents did not destroy it, as they'd been ordered to, because they found that his body, "contrary their expectation", was still incorrupt) renders Cuthbert a unique figure in the history of English Christianity
But today, in the midst of all we are in, I like to think of him above all as a healer - & as a man who, when he himself fell sick as a novice & then recovered, was told by his abbot "that he would never again be stricken by the same malady."
Happy St Cuthbert's Day!
Happy St Cuthbert's Day!
If you would like to hear the talk I was due to give at @StBartholomews tonight for the #StCuthbertsDay service, but recorded instead this afternoon at home, you will find it here: open.spotify.com/show/1wUkMRqsN…
or here: greatstbarts.com/podcasts-and-b…
The service will be broadcast at 19.00.
or here: greatstbarts.com/podcasts-and-b…
The service will be broadcast at 19.00.
The talk I gave (virtually) to mark #StCuthbertsDay 2020. At first I was sad to have had to record it in my house rather than in @StBartholomews, as had originally been the plan. But amid the evils of the age, I hope it has an added poignancy.
Huge thanks to @jamiembrixton for filming it & editing it so beautifully.
And so ends my celebration of #StCuthbertsDay 2020.
And so ends my celebration of #StCuthbertsDay 2020.
