Cuthbert was a saint renowned for the depth of his faith, the modesty of his demeanour and the simplicity of his way of life. He lived in the 7th century and grew up in the countryside of the Scottish borders. After some service as a soldier he entered the monastery at Old Melrose. Monastic life was in crisis at that time. Should monks follow the ways of the Christians who had come over from Rome with Augustine in 597 or should they keep to their Celtic traditions? Outwardly, the major difference was the shape of the tonsure, politically it was on how to determine the date of Easter Day, and personally it was between the simplicity of the Celts and the more relaxed ways of the Romans.
The Synod of Whitby 664 adopted the Roman ways. Cuthbert supported this decision for he said, 'have no communion with those who depart from the unity of catholic peace'. He undertook the task of drawing the Celtic Christians into the new ways both as abbot and as bishop. But still the simplicity of Celtic ways attracted him and he yearned for the solitude of the hermit rather than the responsibility of bishop or abbot. So, the last years of his life were spent on Farne Island, just opposite Bamburgh Castle on the Northumbrian coast. There he lived the ascetic life, with little concern for physical comfort and taking much joy in the natural world of God's creation.
When he died in 687 the news was signalled to the community at Lindisfarne by torches waved from the cliff top of the island. By the time of his death, Cuthbert was held in such veneration that he was considered to have miraculous powers of healing. Even beyond the grave he apparently appeared in a vision to some 8th century monks who had lost overboard the precious Lindisfarne Gospels as they were crossing the Irish Sea. The manuscript was then found washed up on the seashore in exactly the place Cuthbert had indicated. Later examination of that manuscript indeed showed stains of sea water! Viking raids made Lindisfarne unsafe for a shrine to Cuthbert.
Eventually, in 1104, his remains reached the new cathedral in Durham where they were an object of popular pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. Cuthbert, described by one contemporary as 'afire with heavenly love' and described very simply by the Venerable Bede as 'the child of God', did much to ensure the survival of a united Christian Church in Anglo Saxon England. The simplicity of his own life, and his determination to put the good of the whole Church before his own inclinations, make him a saint to be remembered and an example to us all in our present age of division and argument within our family of God.
Richard Allen