Lives of the Saints
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Lives of the Saints’
The long-lost monastery at Crayke in North Yorkshire was home to two saints with different but equally valuable gifts.
Crayke in North Yorkshire was at one time home to a thriving monastic community, founded by St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (634-687), and blessed with two eighth-century saints, St Echa (or Etha) whose feast is kept on May 5th, and St Ultan, commemorated on August 8th.
The seventh-century Bishop of London helped kings and clergy to shine Christian light into the darkness of mere religion.
St Erkenwald, the 7th century Bishop of London, is not particularly well-known today, but he played a prominent role in building up Christian civilisation amidst the violence, ignorance and superstition of Anglo-Saxon England’s pagan kingdoms.
Abbot Elfric praised St Thomas for demanding hard evidence for the resurrection.
The Apostle St Thomas refused to believe reports of the resurrection of Jesus unless he saw and touched the risen Christ for himself. Some scold him for his ‘doubt’, but the English Abbot Elfric (955-1010) warmly thanked him for demanding such clear proof, and noted that Jesus was evidently expecting it.
Abbot Elfric expounds a Palm Sunday text to explain how Christianity combines orderly behaviour with intelligent and genuine liberty.
In a sermon for Palm Sunday, Abbot Elfric (955-1010) of the monastery in Eynsham in Oxfordshire drew on the Biblical account of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem to show that Christianity tames the wildness of man not by the bridle of coercion and law, but by the wisdom of reason and freewill.
For Jesus Christ to step down alive from his cross would have been a mighty miracle, but not the mightiest.
In a sermon for Easter Day, Abbot Elfric (955-1010) reminded his congregation that the people of Jerusalem thought it would be a miracle worthy of God for Jesus to step down alive from his cross. A miracle, yes; but not so worthy of God as the one he then performed.
The eighth-century English bishop and poet Cynewulf takes us to the threshold of God’s holy city, and gives us a choice.
Cynewulf (possibly the 8th century bishop Cynewulf of Lindisfarne) presents the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a choice given to all mankind: what kind of life do we want in the hereafter, and what are we prepared to do in order to obtain it?