Celtic Spirituality Pilgrimage: Celtic Spirituality Pilgrimage, Day 10: Lindesfarne

St. David's Episcopal Church

Celtic Spirituality Pilgrimage

led by

Ken and Darlene Swanson

Day 10, April 13th: Lindesfarne

We drove north from Hexham to Lindesfarne Priory, considered by many to be the most significant monastery in English history. Lindesfarne, known as "Holy Island," is a peninsula/island connected to the mainland by a causeway that is passable only at low tide, so timing our arrival and departure was important. In 635AD, King Oswald of Northumbria, who was a passionate Christian, invited a young monk named Aidan (d.651) to come from Iona to evangelize the Northumbrian people. One of the main reasons Aidan chose Lindesfarne to establish his monastery is the Celtic principle of Community and Cave. At low tide, the monks would be connected by land to the "Community" of Northumbria where they taught, preached, healed and served the people; at high tide they were isolated on a natural island where they could withdraw into the "Cave" of silence, prayer, and study of Scripture.

St. Aidan

St. Aidan travelled by foot throughout the kingdom of Northumbria, often with King Oswald as his translator, winning people to faith in Jesus Christ through the winsome joy of his personality and the clarity of his message of Christian salvation. At the foot of St. Aiden's statue, Darlene began our time on the island peninsula with a teaching on St. Aidan and another great abbot at Lindesfarne, St. Cuthbert.

St. Cuthbert (634-687) was a poor shepherd boy who had a vision on the night of St. Aidan's death, calling him into the monastic life. He eventually became abbott at Lindesfarne. Holiness, joy and love flowed from Cuthbert as he travelled about northern England. He captured the imagination of the English people, who revered him as a gift from God.

After Cuthbert died, his tomb on Lindesfarne became a pilgrimage site. When Vikings brutally ravished Lindesfarne beginning in 793, monks carried Cuthbert's remains from Lindesfarne to Durham for safe keeping. A statue in St. Mary's Church on the island commemorates the event.

The monastic community at Lindesfarne prospered until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530's ordered by King Henry VIII. It was then abandoned and fell into physical ruin. But it was never grand, as were the foundations at Tintern or Rievaulx, because Lindesfarne was always primarily a missionary community. Its ruins are still hauntingly beautiful.

The nave of the monastery church

Lindesfarne Priory from above

After lunch, Ken gave a teaching on the missionary outreach of monks from Lindesfarne. It was unparalleled in the history of the Christian Church. St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert won the Northumbrians for Christ. Finian (d.661), another abbott, converted the pagan kings of Mercia and East Saxony. Willibrord (685-739) was the Apostle to the low countries, the first to bring the gospel to the pagan people of what is now Holland and Belgium. Boniface challenged the pagan Druids of Saxony in modern Germany, and won that kingdom to faith in Jesus. And dozens of other, unknown monks from Lindesfarne travelled throughout Europe bearing witness to the gospel.

The allure of Lindesfarne is the continuing devotion of even 21st century Christians to St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert, who are role models of how to live and love as Jesus Christ.

St. Aidan teaching monks at Lindesfarne