St Bede of Wearmouth and Jarrow
BEDE fell ill just before Easter in 735. His fellow-monks found his deterioration hard, but Bede remained cheerful, singing to them and reciting passages from the Psalms and the letters of St Paul, and also from local Northumbrian verse:
Before that journey all must make,
none is too wise if he consider,
while he yet awaits his going,
what may be reckoned of his deeds,
both good and evil, and his soul’s worth,
when death-day is past.*
Bede spent Wednesday May 25th, the day before the Feast of the Ascension, finishing his English translation of St John’s Gospel, and giving away his few possessions.
Towards the evening, he asked a young monk called Wilbert to help him sit up in the posture he had so long used in prayer, and with failing breath his last words came in song:
‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; now and forever, and to the ages of ages.’*
* It is not clear from Cuthbert’s account whether Bede’s short poem was composed by him or simply recited, but he prefaces it by saying that Bede was ‘learned in our native poetry’.
* For more details, see The Departure of Bede. The full account of Bede’s passing can be read at The Death of Bede on the page of St Peter’s Church, Wearmouth, which is all that is left of the monastery.