Tuesday, October 12, 2021

‘A Trinity of Saints’

 

The joy and warmth of spring

Are freely flowing

In the month of May

And reach their greatest height

At the end of

Þrimilcemonað1

With the celebration

Of a trinity

Of England’s Saints –

Augustine, Aldhelm, Bede –

Three separate lives

Making up a single life

That established

The Christian Faith

Among English folk.

 

From Sicily

Through St Andrew’s in Rome,

To Canterbury

And all of Kent,

St Augustine –

The Apostle,

Enlightener,

The Father-Farmer –

Sowed the sacred seed

Of the Gospel

In the hearts of

King Ethelbert and all his realm,

And nourished by the sweet dew

Of the Holy Ghost

Brought forth a miraculous

Harvest of mystical

Stems and fruits that quickly

Spread in the following years

To every corner

Of the English lands

And knit them together

Into one body

With a common Faith,

Making them one gleaming

Golden field of wheat

Nourished by a

Single Holy Root.

 

The first-fruits of that

Fertile growth in Wessex lands,

Aldhelm – bishop, abbot;

Learnèd in classical tongues

And other lore; lover

Of riddles; poet, preacher,

Teacher, harper, singer;

Gentle shepherd who

Wooed the wayward

Back to Church; renowned

Ascetic; strong in prayer,

Mighty in miracles;

Multiplier of churches

And monasteries

For the faithful;

He made sturdy,

Steadfast, the God-born stalks

Of St Augustine’s field.

 

One of the choicest

Of those early fruits,

Venerable Bede,

Northumbrian-born,

Monastically raised

At Wearmouth-Jarrow,

Nurtured by Saints,

Excelling, in turn,

In telling others

Of their blessèd lives,

In explaining the meaning

Of Holy Scripture,

In expounding

The history

Of Christian England;

He was like God’s seal

Upon her, confirming

His abiding presence

Amongst her people.

 

But now the three-jeweled crown

Has fallen from our heads;

The flames of unbelief

Have scorched the fruitful field;

Hope and joy have given

Way to emptiness, despair,

The desire for death.

 

Yet the abundant love

Of their divinely-woven

Fellowship, an image

Of the Divine communion

Of the Life-Creating

Trinity, beckons us

To grasp again

The festive, saintly crown

And root ourselves

In the fire-blasted field

That St Augustine planted

Centuries ago,

Restoring our communion

With our ancestors,

Our God, and our Saints.

 

1 ‘Three Milk Month’, the name given to May by St Bede because the cows could be milked three times a day due to the great amount of grass, etc., for them to feed upon (from Mr Eadmund Dunstall’s Englisc Calendar for May).

***

Lives of these three English Saints may be found at the following web pages:

St Augustine

https://orthochristian.com/94050.html

St Aldhelm

https://orthochristian.com/113504.html

St Bede

https://orthochristian.com/104073.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

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