ST AIDAN OF LINDISFARNE, BISHOP - 31 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 31st of August

WELCOME!

SAINT AIDAN OF LINDISFARNE, BISHOP 

Aidan was a native of Ireland, (then called Scotland,) and a monk of Hij, the great monastery which his countryman, St Columba, had founded. He was received by king Oswald, who bestowed on him the isle of Lindisfarne. 

HE OBLIGED THOSE WHO TRAVELLED WITH HIM TO READ THE SCRIPTURES OR TO SPEND THE TIME LEARNING THE PSALMS BY HEART

Of his humility and piety Bede gives an edifying account, and proposes him as an excellent pattern for succeeding bishops and clergymen to follow. He obliged all those who travelled with him, to bestow their time either in reading the scriptures, or in learning the psalms by heart. By his actions he showed that he neither sought nor loved the good things of this world; the presents which were made him by the king, or by other rich men, he distributed among the poor, or expended in redeeming captives. Bede admires his apostolic liberty in reproving the proud and the great, his love of peace, charity, continence, humility, and all other virtues. 

HE FIXED HIS EPISCOPAL SEE AT LINDISFARNE

Aidan fixed his episcopal see at Lindisfarne, and founded a monastery there in the year of our Lord 635 (188 years after the coming of the English Saxons into Britain; 39 years after the arrival of St Augustine [of Canterbury]). From this monastery all the churches of Bernicia, or the northern part of the kingdom of the Northumbers from the Tine to the Firth of Edinburgh, had their beginning; as had some also of those of the Deiri, who inhabited the southern part of the same kingdom from the Tine to the Humber. 

HIS HAPPY DEATH

The see of York had been vacant thirty years, ever since St Paulinus had left it; so that St Aidan governed all the churches of the Northumbers, till his happy death, which happened on August 31, 651. He was first buried in the cemetery in Lindisfarne; but when the new church of St Peter was built there, his body was translated into it. 

From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints 

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Aidan may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.