Celebrate That Fact and Pray for Them and Teach Your Heart Out

 Durham Cathedral

A couple of things that keep me sane during Wisconsin's long winters are reading good books and watching interesting YouTube videos.

Because I thought it was such a great answer, I transcribed part of a YouTube video of a Wheaton Theology Conference. A young person had asked the question,

"Is teaching in the local church worth devoting my life to?"

N.T. Wright's answer was the following:

"Of course it’s worth devoting your life to teaching in the local church, if that is your primary calling. For some people, that is their primary calling.Some wonderful great teachers have devoted themselves to this. You just don’t know.  Who are these people you’re teaching? You have no idea what God is going to do through the glimmer of new insight that by God’s grace will come through your teaching into their hearts and lives.

"I live in a part of the world where we honor people like Cuthbert and Aiden and Bede. And Bede was a little boy in the monastery in Jarrow when they had the Plague. And the only two of them that were left were Bede as a little boy and one elderly monk. And they would sing the Psalms together. And Bede grew up to be the single great scholar in the Europe of his day : an astronomer, mathematician, Biblical commentator, etc. etc. etc.

"Who would have thought, seeing that monastery on the wild coast of northeast England, that here would be somebody that would be this great teacher, you just don’t know who you’ve got in your congregation. Celebrate that fact and pray for them and teach your heart out."

***

And since Wright is from northern England in the first place, and since he was Bishop of Durham from 2003-2010, he was able to pull that nifty little history lesson right off the tip of his brain, without hesitation. I loved that answer.

N.T. Wright is currently Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland -  and author of a gazillion books, of which Surprised by Hope, The Day The Revolution Began, Jesus and the Victory of God, The Meal Jesus Gave Us, Simply Christian...are just a mere fraction, and all worth keeping in your home library.

 

(You will find other posts about Cuthbert, Bede, and possibly even N.T. Wright if you type their names in the search box on my sidebar.) 

Have a blessed Lord's Day, friends.

Durham Cathedral - Part C - The Venerable Bede...and giveaway reminder.

Tomb of the Venerable Bede 672 AD - 735 AD.

in the Galilee Chapel of Durham Cathedral

From Durham World Heritage site, re. the Galilee Chapel, which contains Bede's tomb:

"Built in the 1170s, [the Galilee Chapel] was originally planned as an extension to the eastern end of the Cathedral, which was always full of pilgrims and therefore cramped. However, due to a change in the level of the bedrock from the rest of the Cathedral, the walls kept on cracking during the construction and all attempts to build it at the eastern end of the Church seemed to fail. This was taken as a sign of divine intervention, and it was built in its current location at the western end of the Cathedral instead."

Bede: Living At The Monastery at Jarrow

St. Paul's Church, Jarrow

Home of the Venerable Bede

 18 miles NNE of Durham

If you zoom in on the map, you will be able to see where this is in relation to Durham.
Durham is just a half hour by train from York (York Minster),
York is just 2 hours by train from London.
SO worth the trip! 

If you click on the 'Satellite Imagery' square on the lower left
and then zoom in, you will be able to see the ruins of the monastery.

From Justus.Anglican.org

"Bede was a monk at the English monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, in Northumbria. From the age of seven, he spent all his life at that monastery except for a few brief visits to nearby sites. He says of himself: 'I have devoted my energies to a study of the Scriptures, observing monastic discipline, and singing the daily services in church; study, teaching, and writing have always been my delight.'"

Just to place this on the timeline of your mind, Bede was 15 years old when St. Cuthbert died, and lived 48 years beyond the time of St. Cuthbert (last week's post).  He became a deacon at 19, a priest at 29, and after his ordination wrote commentaries on the Scriptures, as well as writings on geography, arithmetic, and astronomy. He wrote two accounts of the life of St. Cuthbert, one in prose and one in verse, along with his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 

From Britannica.com

 "In 731/732 Bede completed his Historia ecclesiastica. Divided into five books, it recorded events in Britain from the raids by Julius Caesar (55–54 bc) to the arrival in Kent (ad 597) of St. Augustine. For his sources he claimed the authority of ancient letters, the “traditions of our forefathers,” and his own knowledge of contemporary events...It remains an indispensable source for some of the facts and much of the feel of early Anglo-Saxon history."

Benedict, founder and abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory was responsible for its extensive library, resources used by Bede. During Benedict's travels to Rome, he acquired volumes that he brought back to the monastery. I can't help having visions of him dragging that carry-on through Heathrow.

When Bede died, he was buried at Jarrow, but in 1022 his bones were buried alongside St. Cuthbert's relics at Durham Cathedral until they were moved into the Galilee Chapel in the 14th century. 

Galilee Chapel: Slender Columns, Zigzag Arches

Hammerbeam ceiling

Just-barely-visible remains of 13th or14th century fresco paintings

(see next photo also)

Whitewashed during the Reformation,

the whitewash was scraped off during the Victorian Era,

taking much of the paint with it.

The pictures depict Christian martyrs

Beautiful zigzag on arches,

very different from arches in the main cathedral 
(See last Friday's post)

Okay, this is all I can tell you about Bede, and I hope most of it is true.

***

Happily moving on from the Venerable Bede, we have a birthday at our house today, and it's not mine:

He's still a pretty cute kid!

***

Last Day to Enter my Natural Soap Giveaway!

Ends tonight at 10 PM.

Winners will be announced on Saturday morning.
Enter Giveaway on YESTERDAY'S POST

Have a great weekend, everyone!  

Check back tomorrow for giveaway winners.

Next Friday I promise to get out of the cathedral...for a while.