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ST OSWALD OF NORTHUMBRIA - 5 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 5th of August

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SAINT OSWALD OF NORTHUMBRIA 

The English Saxon kingdom of the Northumbers was founded by Ida in 547. After  Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, who ruled the whole kingdom of the Northumbers twenty-four years, was slain in battle in 617, his sons Eanfrid, Oswald, and Oswi took refuge among the Scots, where they were instructed in the Christian faith, and received the sacrament of regeneration. 

AFTER BOTH HIS BROTHERS HAD BEEN KILLED BY ENEMIES, OSWALD BECAME KING

After both his brothers had been killed by enemies, Oswald became king.  He had embraced the faith with his whole heart, and he had no other view than to bring his subjects to the spiritual kingdom of divine grace, and to labour with them to secure a crown of eternal glory.   

At that time Cadwalla ravaged all the Northumbrian provinces, not as a conqueror, but as a cruel tyrant, laying every thing waste with fire and sword. Oswald assembled what troops he was able, and being fortified by faith in Christ, marched confidently, though with a small force, against this mighty enemy, who had by that time proceeded as far as the Picts’ wall. 

HE CAUSED A GREAT WOODEN CROSS TO BE MADE

Oswald gave him battle at a place called by Bede Denis-burn, that is, the brook Denis, adjoining to the Picts’ wall on the north side. Being come near the enemy’s camp, the evening before the engagement, the pious king caused a great wooden cross to be made in haste, and he held it up himself with both his hands whilst the hole dug in the earth to plant it in was filled up round the foot.

This cross of St Oswald remained afterwards very famous. Bede tells us, that to his time, many cut little chips of it, which they steeped in water, which being drank by sick persons, or sprinkled upon them, many recovered their health. 

CONFIDENCE IN CHRIST

The learned Alcuin, in his poem on the bishops and saints of York, relates how the pious king, no ways daunted at the multitude and ferocity of his enemies, encouraged his soldiers to a confidence in Christ, and exhorted them to implore his protection prostrate with him on their faces before the cross which he had set up. 

Almighty God was pleased to bless the king’s faith and devotion by granting him and his small army a complete victory over Cadwalla, who was killed in the battle, and his forces, with those of his allies, entirely routed.   

HE SET HIMSELF TO RESTORE GOOD ORDER THROUGHOUT HIS DOMINIONS

St Oswald, after giving thanks to God, immediately set himself to restore good order throughout his dominions, and to plant in them the faith of Christ. By his ambassadors he entreated the king and bishops in Scotland to send him a bishop and assistants, by whose preaching the people whom he governed might be grounded in the Christian religion, and receive baptism. 

HE WAS HIS INTERPRETER

Aidan, a native of Ireland, and a monk of the celebrated monastery of Hij, was chosen for the great and arduous undertaking, and the king bestowed on Aidan the isle of Lindisfarne for his episcopal seat; and was so edified with his learning and zeal, that this great prince, before the bishop could sufficiently speak the English language, would be himself his interpreter, and explain his sermons and instructions to the people.   

When St Oswald had reigned eight years in great prosperity, Penda, the barbarous Pagan king of Mercia, found means to raise a great army and invade the Christian dominions of our holy king. St Oswald was killed in the battle that was fought between them. 

"O GOD, BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR SOULS"

When he saw himself surrounded with the arms of his enemies, he offered his prayer for the souls of his soldiers. Whence it became a proverb: "O God be merciful to their souls, said Oswald when he fell." He was slain in the thirty-eighth year of his age, of our Lord 642, on August 5, in a place called Maserfield. This seems to have been at Winwick in Lancashire, where is a well still called St Oswald’s. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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