蜜芽传媒

A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Mark Clavier, Residentiary Canon of Brecon Cathedral.

Good morning. Today Anglicans and Catholics mark the feast of the Venerable Bede, the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon monk famous for his Ecclesiastical History of the English Speaking People. When I was studying at Durham, I prayed regularly at his shrine and visited the still-standing churches at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow where he lived his entire life.

Bede has a mixed reputation here in Wales as he wasn鈥檛 too kind to the Welsh in his writings. He preferred the Irish, whose saints emerge as ideals of Christian humility, bravery, and devotion.

Bede ought to be better known for his sermons, which are almost as engaging as his history. They show him to have been a man of wisdom and holiness.
For example, in one of his Easter sermons, he wrote, 鈥淐hrist appeared to those who were speaking of his resurrection. So, he is with us now when by his gift we do the same thing.鈥� Bede is saying here that if Christians want a life that transcends death then they must talk to others about it. If they want to find Christ, the source and substance of that life, then we must speak of him also.

Why? I think it鈥檚 because we must talk about that which we passionately love. It bubbles out of us. Like our other passions, too, our passion for the resurrected life grows in the telling. Horde it to yourself like a miser, and it withers; share it and it springs to ever new life.

Almighty God, who has enriched your church with the learning and holiness of your servant Bede: Give us the gift of your grace to find in Scripture and disciplined prayer a life that transcends death, and the encouragement to extend that life to others. Amen.