Category: Prayer

If you haven’t already, please do consider signing up to join us for a series of 15-20 minute times of morning prayer each day throughout Lent. My hope and prayer is that, as we undertake this journey through Lent, in the company of St Luke and St Cuthbert, we do so in the knowledge that, while we may listen and pray on our own, we are actually doing this together, bound by the Holy Spirit, in the presence of the hosts of angels, the great crowd of witnesses who have gone before us, including Luke and Cuthbert, each other, and, of course, Christ himself. We are, therefore, never alone, even in the stillness and the silence. This post is by way of an introduction, and a little background on Cuthbert.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, we start the day with readings from the psalms, the Gospel of Luke, a chapter from Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, and some prayers. At various points we remember some of the pre-Norman saints whose ‘days’ take place during Lent. The pace is deliberately slow, to allow for contemplation, reflection, and supplication. If you are looking for something quick and amusing, you won’t find it here…

St Cuthbert is the Anglo-Saxon saint of northern England who lived in the 7th Century and died in 687AD. He is renowned for his love of God, and his care for, and kindness towards, people and creation, especially animals, and wandered across the north of England from Lindisfarne and Jarrow to Carlisle and the Lakes as monk, abbot, and then bishop, before returning to his life of solitude on the island of Inner Farne, where he died at the age of 53.

Bede wrote his ‘Life’ (or ‘Vita’) of Cuthbert, not as a biography, but as a hagiography, firstly to show us why we should revere Cuthbert as a saint, and secondly, more prosaically, to show us what a life in Christ’s footsteps looks like in his time and place, and to encourage others, especially monks, to follow where Cuthbert had led. There are 46 chapters in Bede’s story of his life and so there are 46 morning prayers in the series. Bede was a master of numerology and there is no coincidence in the fact that his hagiography is written in 46 chapters and that is the same as the number of days in Lent, which had recently been extended to this length (40 days of fasting, excluding the Sundays). He almost certainly wrote it as an early form of ‘Lectio Divina‘, that is, for monastic contemplation each day through Lent. In other words, exactly the way we are using it in these times of morning prayer.

There is no record of Bede ever having met Cuthbert. He was about 15 when Cuthbert died, but Bede was placed by his parents into Jarrow monastery at the age of seven, Cuthbert was his bishop, and the latter made it his business to visit every monastic house in his see when Bede was already a teenager, so it is highly likely he did. However, Bede did know many monks who knew Cuthbert well, and his stories are drawn from their recollections of him, as we discover through the course of the Vita. Both Cuthbert and Bede are buried in Durham Cathedral (where I was ordained, both as deacon and priest), one at either end.

There is much we can learn from our pre-Norman Christian ancestors on this island – they had an immense respect for creation (not fear, as some claim). They saw themselves as part of the whole, but with a special responsibility to care for creation. This shines through in Cuthbert’s life. For example, when Cuthbert was hungry, he shared his food with the animals around him; when he was cold they warmed him; and when they were a nuisance he reprimanded them! In fact, the way in which animals and nature responded to the Anglo-Saxon saints, such as Cuthbert and Guthlac, was one of the main ways of telling that this was a true follower of Christ and blessed by God. But the saints also understood that the animals were equal inheritors of Christ’s work on the Cross. We see the same idea on the carved faces (iconography) of the Anglo-Saxon stone crosses of Bewcastle and Ruthwell on what is called ‘inhabited vinescroll’, where the beasts and birds share in the fruit of the vine (which is, of course, Christ, the Church, and the Eucharist – remember Jesus saying ‘I am divine, you are de branches…’?).

Remember, if you would like to share your thoughts and reflections at any point with others on the same journey, this page is available to do so. Please check up on it occasionally to join in any conversation that may be taking place.

Follow Cuthbert’s story here, and allow it’s slow pace to sink into your spirit…

Dear Friends,

I love long-tailed tits. Looking like small balls of cream and fawn feather on the end of a black and white stick, they’re constantly restless, moving from tree to tree in their little flocks of six to twelve birds, like a gang a marauding youngsters, calling to each other with their single, tiny, softly shrill cheeps (usually the first sign they’re there)! And yet there is something about them that always lifts my heart and brings a smile of pure joy to my face. I don’t even know why they have this effect on me. Perhaps it’s the suddenness of their unexpected arrival in a nearby willow, or on the fat balls at the feeder. They stay for a few seconds, or even a minute if you’re lucky, and then they’re off again and gone, and who knows when you’ll next see them? There seems to be nothing malicious about them, just a love of life. They stick with each other, always chirping, saying, ‘hey, you still with us? Come on, catch up’, or ‘wow, look what I’ve found here’, or ‘now that was fun.’ Sheer delight!

Late last summer I was out walking up near White Preston in the Bewcastle Fells with the family. My eldest daughter turned and, looking back towards the hill, asked what those birds were making such a noise in the distance. I instinctively said ‘corvids’, but something about them didn’t quite fit, and I decided to have closer look through the binoculars. The rest of the family carried on walking, but as I watched, I saw one was hovering while the other was flying around it, sometimes almost hitting it. ‘Ah’, I thought, ‘it’s crow harrying a kestrel to scare it off, and making a lot of noise about it.’ I was about to turn away when the ‘bombing’ bird turned in the air and I saw the distinctive sharp elbow and pointed wings – it was another kestrel. Kestrels are normally silent and solitary – only the young make much of a noise – so I decided to carry on watching. One bird was clearly hunting. The other was flying off and around, and then charging into the other, calling out all the while. The hunting bird would be knocked from its still point in the air, move a few yards and start again, undeterred. It wasn’t going to have any success hunting with all this disturbance around it, so what was going on? And then it dawned on me – the time of year, the location, the resolute patience of the one, the constant calling of the other – it was a mother trying to teach its fledgling how to hunt! As I watched the drama, it all started to make sense. The young one flying around, trying to work out what it’s mother was doing. The mother, silent, repeatedly and quietly adopting the same poise, the same hover, performing the same routine over and over. Once again, that recognition filled me with a sense of wonder, and a smile. Here was creation gloriously at work – a parent trying to teach its youngster the skills it needed to learn to survive in the world, and the youngster not quite ‘getting it’! And I almost missed it. I turned and ran to catch up with the others.

A few weeks later I was out on another walk one morning. The sky was clear and the sun shining. It was going to be another fine day. As I stood watching in silent prayer, again I became aware of a buzzard ‘miaowing’ close by. Turning, I saw a pair circling over the far corner of the field. Buzzards are the noisiest of all the raptors, so no surprises here. But I love watching all birds of prey, so I continued to gaze. After a while I began to notice that only one bird was being vocal – the other was silent. They were circling on thermals, gradually rising higher, sometimes shifting to a new thermal to continue the rise. But then I noticed that the noisy one was also very ‘flappy’. As I watched, I realised the other buzzard barely flapped at all. In fact, I saw it only do so once. Gradually it climbed higher, always leading the way. The noisy one struggled laboriously to try and keep up, now maybe fifty feet below. Once again, I realised I was watching a parent teaching it youngster how to ride the thermals, passing on its particular skill to enable its offspring to live, and to live well. Once again, the thrill of it ran through me.

There is so much that goes on around us, isn’t there? So many stories and dramas unfolding, usually unnoticed, all the time. Sometimes we just need the patience and the stillness to watch, to observe, to listen, and gradually we can begin to ‘read’ them. Perhaps it’s a discipline we can all practice as a form of prayer as we approach and enter Lent. I’d love to hear some of your stories.

Your friend and priest,

Robert

Robert