ST GUTHLAKE, HERMIT

ST GUTHLAKE, HERMIT - 11 APRIL

SAINT GUTHLAKE, HERMIT

(Saint Guthlake, Hermit, and Patron of the Abbey of Croyland.) He was a nobleman, and in his youth served in the armies of Ethelred [Æthelred], king of Mercia: but the grace of God making daily stronger impressions on his heart, in the twenty-fourth year of his age he reflected how dangerous a thing it is to the soul to serve in wars which too often have no other motive than the passions of men and the vanities of the world, and resolved to consecrate the remainder of his life totally to the service of the King of kings.

IN THE SERVICE OF THE KING OF KINGS

He passed two years in the monastery of Repandun, studying to transcribe the virtues and mortifications of all the brethren into the copy of his own life. After this novitiate in the exercises of an ascetic life, with the consent of his superior, in 699, with two companions, he passed in a fisher’s boat into the isle of Croyland, on the festival of St Bartholomew, whom he chose for his patron, and, by having recourse to his intercession, he obtained of God many singular favours.

ON THE ISLE OF CROYLAND

Here he suffered violent temptations and assaults, not unlike those which St Athanasius relates of St Antony: he also met with severe interior trials; but likewise received frequent extraordinary favours and consolations from God.

HE WAS ORDAINED A PRIEST

Hedda, bishop of Dorchester, visiting him, ordained him a priest. The prince Ethalbald, then an exile, often resorted to him, and the saint foretold him the crown of the Mercians, to which he was called after the death of King Coelred, in 719.

HIS HOLY DEATH

The saint, foreknowing the time of his death, sent for his sister Pega, who lived a recluse in another part of the fens four leagues off to the west. He sickened of a fever, and on the seventh day of his illness, during which he had said Mass every morning, and on that day, by way of Viaticum, he sweetly slept in our Lord, on April 11, 714, being forty-seven years old, of which he had passed fifteen in this island.

Source: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Guthlake 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.

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