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St. Aidan of Lindisfarne
00:19:40
Although a lesser-known Irish saint, St. Aidan of Lindisfarne was a pivotal priest and missionary to the early Church in Ireland who cared unceasingly for the spiritual and physical needs of both the nobility and the poor. Follow along with Mary McGeehan and Augustine Institute professor Dr. Elizabeth Klein as they discuss this 7th Century Irish bishop in this episode of Catholic Saints. St. Aidan of Lindisfarne exemplified the poverty which Christ calls us to in the Gospels in a radical way. Following his example, how can you embrace this call to poverty by living simply and aiding the poor?
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Podcast Host
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith.
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Mary McGhehan
Hi, welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary McGhehan. I work here at the Augustine Institute. I am joined today by Dr. Elizabeth Klein. Thank you for joining us.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Thanks for having me. Today.
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Mary McGhehan
Today we are going to dive into the life of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne. Dr. Klein, you seem to have a deep love for this region, this land.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. I'm excited to talk about Aidan of Lindisfarne because he's kind of a connecting dot between a couple other saints and saint episodes that we've done. So I've done an episode on Saint Columba, who founded the monastery of Iona in Scotland. This is an incredibly important monastery for Christian culture, Celtic culture, produced illuminated manuscripts, learning all this kind of stuff. And I've also talked about St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, who was a monk at this monastery. And St. Aidan is the one who founded Lindisfarne. So it's kind of a connection between St. Columba, who I did before St. Columbkill, St. Cuthbert, and also we know about his life from Saint Bede, who we've also done an episode on. So I kind of set out to, like, know more about the patristic period in Ireland, England and Scotland at the beginning of the year. So learning about all these saints, Great. Hopefully I'm becoming an expert.
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Mary McGhehan
Yes. This resolution is being fulfilled. Did all these saints know each other? Were they friends? Were they, like, walking around together?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
No. So all of these ones are kind of all separated by a generation. So Saint Columba is, I'm pretty sure, dead by the time that Saint Aidan joins the monastery. But Saint Columba is the founder of that monastery, and then Saint Cuthbert is a later abbot after Aidan has died. But they're all kind of connected by the lineage of their foundations and, you know, where they come from, where their education's from.
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Mary McGhehan
Yes.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And how they're setting.
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Mary McGhehan
Yes. From a similar culture and region.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Right. So St. Aidan is kind of like, I don't know, it's one of the pride of the Irish, I suppose, in the sense that the Irish like to pride themselves on having converted the English. And so that is where St. Aidan comes in. Okay. So this is how St. Aidan got to England. So St. Aidan was born in Ireland and then joins the monastery in Iona, which is in technically modern day Scotland, or like Scotia, as they called it. And while he's at the monastery of Iona, there is a king who comes there who's exiled from the north of England, from Northumbria, named Oswald. And while Oswald is exiled from his homeland in Ireland, he converts to the Catholic faith and is baptized through St. Aidan. Not through St. Aidan in particular that we know of, but through, you know, the monks of his monastery and sort of Irish, the Irish Catholics generally. And so he returns, then he comes out of exile and becomes king of Northumbria, the north of England. And he wants all his people to become Catholic. Now, this isn't like the first time that the Catholic faith has come into England. There were Catholics before, but a lot of them have reverted to paganism. And so he wants to reconvert the people to the faith. So he sends back to Iona this famous monastery and says, send me a missionary, which in and of itself is kind of beautiful and interesting. He doesn't send to Rome, he sends to Ireland because he went there and he knows the monks and they're credible and all that. So he sends Diona and asks him to send him a monk. So they sent him a monk. And, and then this, the first monk they sent him is not named. So as you'll see in the story, it's not favorable. So Bede doesn't say what his name is. But apparently the first monk who sent tries to convert the people and has like no success at all and goes back to Iona and says that the people of Northumbria are too stubborn and hard hearted to become Christian and they can't be converted. And so all the monks of Iona call a meeting and they to discuss this because they don't want to leave the king's request unanswered and not try to convert the people. But they don't know who to send. So they're discussing what to do. And St. Aidan pipes up and says, well, I think you were too hard on them and you should have taken the approach of St. Paul and given them first milk and then led them to like, the meat of the faith. And so, as so often happens, you know, if you speak up and say, I have a better idea, then they say, well, why don't you go and do it?
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Mary McGhehan
So he's dangerous.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. So, you know, maybe St. Aidan could be like the patron saint of like running your mouth in meetings or something. So he, so he comes up with this idea. So they send him and he is in fact successful. So he, he decides to found this monastery of Lindisfarne, which is kind of interesting. It's similar to Iona. It's on this kind of island that can only be gotten to a few times a day. It's off the coast of Northern England. You can still go there. It's in ruins. It's now like a national park, but you can go visit there. And I recently found out there's a pilgrimage that takes you, ends you at Lindisfarne. So maybe I'll have to go on it because it sounds pretty exciting. So he founds the monastery of Lindisfarne. And as the kind of ecclesiastical arrangement is at the time, Aidan is kind of like the bishop. So he becomes in charge of kind of all the people in the area. But then there's also an abbot who is in charge of the monks. So St. Aidan apparently just kind of like travels around the countryside and like walks around and chats people up and is nice to them. And it wins a lot of souls for Christ in this way. One cool little detail that's mentioned by Bede. So Saint Bede, who we talked about, writes this famous book called the Ecclesiastical History of England, or the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It's one of the great works of Christian history after Eusebius, ecclesiastical history. So you can check it out. And he always has, like, very well sourced. Like, he tells you where he got his sources, which is kind of cool. So Bede tells us that one thing that was known about Aidan is that he didn't ride a horse. He always walked on foot. He didn't like to ride a horse unless it was like, in great urgency. So why is this important? I bring this up because The Rule of St. Francis, the first rule of St. Francis also forbids the brothers from riding on a horse. And you might think, like, what's the big deal?
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Mary McGhehan
Yeah. What did the horses do to them?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. It's not like because of animal, like, welfare or anything like that. Although I'm sure St. Francis loved horses. That's not why he told people not to ride them. It's because if you ride a horse, you're like, important. Right? It's like status. Yeah, it's status. It makes you unapproachable. Right. I mean, you just think about if you're riding a horse through a town, trying to talk to people versus walking, like you're literally higher up than them.
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Mary McGhehan
Yes, that's a good point.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And it's like today, you know, it's like that shameful thing, like the people in first class, and then all you like, lowlies who can't afford it have to file past them into the back of the airplane.
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Mary McGhehan
It's the worst, right?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
It's like status. And if people today are, like, waiting at the bus stop, like, they're poor, they're not wealthy people, they can't afford to have the transportation, everyone else. So it's like a very basic marker of status that he chose to forego because it's going to make it easier for him to talk to people, to meet them and. Yeah, not. Not be on your high horse. Right. That's where the saying comes from. And so it's like a really neat little detail.
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Mary McGhehan
And to remember the poor as we're, you know, called and commissioned to, that's one really practical way in this time period. And we can have our own today to meet them and be with them absolute.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And St. Aidan is specifically known for ministering to and caring for the poor, to privileging the poor over the rich, for having no fear in rebuking the rich in favor of the poor. And like, I don't know, this is kind of a saint tromp. We think, like, oh, lover of the poor. But think about the circumstance. He's asked to come to England by the king. So he knows the king. He lives nearby. The king. The king. By the way, Oswald is also a saint, so a very saintly king. And travels with Aidan during his early mission. Because Aidan can't speak English, the king travels with Aiden and helps him translate for the people. But it would have been very easy because he is called by a rich person, because it's actually a very saintly rich person who's helping him. It would have been very easy for him to think, well, conversion comes from getting to know the nobles and from networking, networking with the people that the king knows. But in fact, he privileges the poor and spends a lot of time with the poor. And there's one really cool little story that involves the horse and the poor that I just wanted to read a part of, please, if I can find it here. So the next king after Oswald dies is Oswin. And Oswin gives Bishop Aidan a horse. This is what I said. This is quite a bit after we're told he doesn't ride horses much. So he, Oswin had given Bishop Aiden a very fine horse in order that he could ride it whenever he had to cross a river or undertake any difficult or urgent journey. Although the bishop ordinarily traveled on foot, not long afterwards, when a poor man met the bishop and asked for alms, the bishop immediately dismounted and ordered the horse with all its royal trappings to be given to the beggar, for he was most compassionate A protector of the poor and father to the wretched. Okay, so, like, imagine this scene like, the president has given you a Tesla so that you can get where you need to go quickly and in style, not have to worry about your car breaking down, you know, and, like, at the first instant, you give it away to, like, some poor person in your par. This is, like.
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Mary McGhehan
That is radical.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
It's pretty radical. Which the king will note in just a minute. When this action came to the king's ears, he asked the bishop as they were going in to dine. My Lord Bishop, why did you give away the royal horse which was necessary for your own use? Have we not many less valuable horses or other belongings which would have been good enough for beggars without giving away a horse that I had specially selected for your personal use? So, like, I mean, I would have given you money or something, like, if you wanted to be generous, Like, I'm not against that. But, like, did you really have to give away the, like, nice whores I specifically gave you? The bishop at once answered, what are you saying, you, Majesty? Is this child of a mare more valuable to you than this child of God? And I just, like, this is very beautiful. And again, not at all how we're used to valuing things. You know, it's like, is this hunk of metal really worth more to you than this person made in the image of God? And you're like, oh, well, when you put it that way, yes. And then, beautifully, the king. So the king. They went into dinner, and the bishop sat down in his place. But the king, who had come in from hunting, stood warming himself by the fire with his attendants. As he stood by the fire, the king turned over in his mind what the bishop had said. Then, suddenly unbuckling his sword and handing it to a servant, he impulsively knelt at the bishop's feet and begged his forgiveness, saying, I will not refer to this matter again, nor will I inquire how much of our bounty you give away to God's children? And so that the fact that the king was also converted by Aidan, it's just very beautiful. He had the benefit of having some nice kings on his side, but I thought that was just a beautiful encapsulation of, I don't know, wealth and poverty and such a. Ultimately, a small gesture, but radical. A radical gesture. I remember I had a good friend who experienced a very radical conversion to the faith. And he read the Gospels for the first time, and he said, jesus says to give away any everything. He's like, I Couldn't even give away my car. And I thought about that with this story where he basically gives away his car at the first drop of a hat, at the first opportunity, he just gives it all away without a thought. And then when confronted by it is totally like non plus. He's totally unaffected. He's like, well, obviously that's so obvious to me, completely detached, that I would give that away because this person needed it. Duh. And I didn't need it. And that just seems very beautiful. And also just a little glimpse into how Aidan was able to convert sort of this hard hearted and austin at people who couldn't become Christian.
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Mary McGhehan
Absolutely beautiful. Especially as you were talking about how he would walk the streets and it seemed the more gentle method of evangelization than his predecessor, who had attempted and failed to almost earn the respect of the poor by becoming like them in their own way of life, which we now know. So many other saints who, you know, model that same style. Mother Teresa comes to mind. She would sleep, she would eat very similarly to the people that she would serve, but she wouldn't fly first class. And she wouldn't. Yeah, she wouldn't fly first class.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah.
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Mary McGhehan
Okay, there we go.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. And I think, you know, even, I don't know, just if we think about how bishops manage diocese today and that there isn't maybe that many of them who spend a lot of time just like driving around to parishes and like talking to people and they think that is like the main part of their pastoral ministry. And I think this is a shame because, I don't know, maybe this is like me pontificating about what bishops should and should not do, which is really nobody cares what I think about that. But I think sometimes we have the unfortunate impression maybe that like bishops are kind of like glorified administrators, you know, but anybody can administrate, like, you can find somebody who's good at administration to help you. But you can't replace a bishop as a shepherd of his people. Only the bishop can do that. And it seems like Aidan really took that to heart and that he, he's in charge of all of the souls in his area. Not all of them are Christian. And so Bede says he goes around and people who aren't Christian, he encourages them to be baptized, and people who are Christian, he strengthens them in their faith.
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Mary McGhehan
Yes.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And just taking. Yeah, and just taking that kind of like, what's my job? My job is to take care of these people. How do I take care of these people? I have to be among Them I can't be just driving past in my Tesla or on my royal messenger horse. Right. I have to, you know, spend time with them.
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Mary McGhehan
No, that's a great reflection. And in his poverty, he has space and freedom to give Jesus, you know, to not give our humanity. But the more we are in our poverty, the more space we have for Jesus to fill, to then be proclaimed externally.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. And he's someone who left everything, really left his monastery, went to a foreign land where he didn't speak the language. And so maybe that makes some of the room too, like, well, this is all I have. These people are all I have. I have to, like, start a monastery from scratch and start a people from scratch, and so start small.
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Mary McGhehan
Absolutely. Do we know. You said he was successful. Do we know other tidbits about how he died or other legacies?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So, yeah, he died of illness. I wanted to mention a couple other miracles that are associated with him. So almost all these saints lives, if I don't mention it, they have miracles in them. And so it has miracles of healing. But there are two miracles about sort of incorruption, which I thought, I don't know, kind of captured at least the sense you get from be to this kind of gentle, kind of immovable soul who's able to just go through life at a slow pace, at a walking speed, and not at a horse's pace. The one comes from a story of him and King Oswald. So King Oswald was before Oswin, and he's a canonized saying, or, you know, he's venerated as a Canaanite saint, Saint Oswald. And there's a lot of stories about him, too, in Bede. But there's a lovely story about how the bishop and the king are sitting down to have Easter dinner. So highest feast of the year, Lent, is over. And the cooks bring out this silver platter with, like, sumptuous food for the king. And as soon as they put it in front of the king, he has a messenger come in and say that there are beggars at the door who have nothing to eat for Easter dinner. So the king immediately asks that the food in front of him be taken to the beggars and that the silver plat be broken and distributed among them. And so Aidan, the bishop, is very moved by the king doing this. And he, like, grabs his right hand and says something like, you know, may this right hand never perish. May your right hand never perish. And so after Oswald is killed, slain in battle, his right arm and hand are incorrupt. And become relics. What?
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Mary McGhehan
No way.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, so it's kind of. I don't know, it's just a very cool story. It's like two saints, you know, a saintly king and a saintly bishop and sort of this, the veneration of one saint to another has this kind of powerful effect. It's kind of like a double relic. It's like a relic of a saint. Made by a saint. Yes. So I don't know if that's like a first claque relic squared or it's like a first class relic plus a second class relic because it's the body of a saint and it was touched by another saint. I don't know.
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Mary McGhehan
And prophesied almost.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
I'm not sure if this relic survives. It probably does not. Cause a lot of the stuff in England and other places where there was reformation turmoil, they don't survive.
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Mary McGhehan
But bummer.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, but cool relic.
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Mary McGhehan
Yes.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And then there's a really similar story, a kind of incorruption story regarding his death. So he took ill. When he took ill, he was away from home and he was near a church. So they set up a tent, I guess for him to kind of convalesce in right up against the walls of the church. And he, after he succumbs to illness, he dies while actually like leaning against one of the beams of the church. And so later that church is destroyed by a fire, but the beam that Aiden died while leaning upon survives.
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Mary McGhehan
Oh, interesting.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So they build a second church, including the beam, and then a third church survives the next church. And they decide to put it like in the middle, middle of the church instead of make it part of the wall as like this relic. And so it's kind of an interesting legacy of has kind of continued influence.
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Mary McGhehan
Is the beam still like, can you see the beam today?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
I don't think so. I don't know. I didn't look up the survivor.
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Mary McGhehan
I think that it was so honored by the fact that he died upon it. Tells a lot about the people's love for him.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, a lot of the stuff around the Lindisfarne is in ruins because of Viking invasions. They destroyed it. And then after the dissolution of the monasteries and the Reformation, a lot of the early English stu does not unfortunately survive. But I'm not sure about that beam. I'd have to look up the video. That's okay. But I thought that this is kind of a cool like inversion of like a pharaoh's pyramid or something. You know, you have this like giant monument built to your death that's in, like, buried in sand versus, you know, dying, leaning, literally leaning on the church and then kind of like consecrating a small, tiny, small, tiny part of the church with the holiness of your life. This is a very beautiful image.
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Mary McGhehan
Absolutely. Then the fact that he was dying, he died leaning on the church, I think has a lot of symbolic meaning. Totally beautiful. Well, thank you. Any other facts or.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
There's not as much about St. Aidan as maybe some of the other saints.
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Mary McGhehan
Wonderful.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
But if you read the third book of the Ecclesiastical History of the English people, it has all about Aiden and as well as a lot about Oswald, the other saints. So their lives are kind of intertwined and then this other king. So if you want to follow along the tale of all these English saints, you can go to yet another Saint Bede, who wrote these lovely lives.
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Mary McGhehan
Beautiful. The Lindisfarne Saints continue.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So, yeah, I'll see if I can find any more Lindisfarne saints, but the.
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Mary McGhehan
Two most important ones, it is striking how many have come from that region. So thank you for bringing his life to our attention.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Thanks.
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Mary McGhehan
Thank you for joining us. And St. Aidan of Lindensvarne pray for us.
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Podcast Host
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