Bible connection

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. —1 Peter 2:21

All about Aidan of Lindisfarne (ca. 600-651 ) 

“He cultivated peace and love, purity and humility; he was above anger and greed, and despised pride and conceit; he set himself to keep and teach the laws of God, and was diligent in study and in prayer…I greatly admire all these things about Aidan.” —the monk, The Venerable Bede, writing in his masterwork: “Ecclesiastical History of the English People” (3:17)

Aidan was an Irish, Celtic monk on the Island of Iona (around 630 A.D.), where The Book of Kells was made. Iona was founded by Columba, who was the missionary instrumental in converting the Picts of northwestern Scotland to Christianity. So Aidan’s faith was nurtured in a deep, missional community.

The apostolic work in what are now called the “British Isles” took an organic path. Many Britons followed Jesus long before the church took root in Ireland because Britain was part of the Roman Empire, unlike Ireland. Christianity first followed the trade routes of the Empire. Some of the missionaries who first took the faith to Ireland were British: Patrick (who became the “patron saint” of Ireland) was the most famous but not the only one. When the power of Rome declined, a Germanic tribe called the Angles began to infiltrate Britain and gradually turned it into England (the word “English” comes from “Angle-ish”). These incoming English were pagans.

The kingdom of Northumbria was largely created by the English warrior-leader Aethelfrith. When he was killed in battle (in 616) his children fled into exile. Some of these children found their way to what is now southwest Scotland. Here they met the Irish monks of Iona and joined in their Christian faith. Oswald, the second son of Aethelfrith, grew up determined to regain the throne of Northumbria and to let the pagans among his people hear about Jesus. In 633 he fought a successful battle and established himself as king, choosing Bamburgh, a natural outcrop of rock on the North-East coast, as his main fortress. He then invited the monks of Iona to send a missionary.

In 635 they sent Aidan with 12 other monks. They chose to settle on the island of Lindisfarne (Holy Island), just north of Bamburgh. An earlier missionary monk named Corman had given up on the Northumbrians, saying the people were too uncivilized and stubborn to be Christianized.

The monastery Aidan founded was said to be moderate — at least by the severe Irish standards of aceticism! From their magical island, which was inaccessible by land when the tide came in, the community went out on mission. Learning English as they went,  they used Aidan’s only method as a missionary. He walked the lanes, talked to all the people he met, got to know them and their needs, and interested them in the faith if he could. The monks became part of the community and soon faith became part of it, too. Before long, the seeds they sowed became local Christian churches.

Aidan became known for refusing to ride a horse. Rightly so, he thought riding a horse made him look rich, since only the rich could afford a horse. It was easier and more effective to talk to people when you were on their level. One time King Oswin of the Angles gave Aidan an expensive horse, as befit the respect he had for him. Aidan had not ridden very far before he gave the horse away to a poor person. The king was angry with Aidan for doing this. Aidan asked him if a horse was more important to him than one for whom Christ had died. Oswin, who was a Christian, repented and asked his forgiveness.

Strongly opposed to slavery, Aidan spent much time and effort in ransoming slaves and sending them home.

Aidan did not want his efforts to die with him and the monks from Iona. English leadership was needed for the English church. So he started a school. First his students learned to read Latin —the language in which all the books they could obtain were written. Once the essentials of literacy had been grasped, the expansion of mental horizons was amazing. Books bridged the natural restrictions of time and space!

School began with the 150 Psalms and then went on to the four Gospels. After these essentials, the students could master as much as their library offered and their minds could hold. In Aidan’s time, this kind of education was only available in monastic schools for the general population. Aidan began with 12 boys, who learned the practical work of being monks, priests and missionaries by observing and working with the older monks. Their system had a powerful impact.

The monastery on the Holy Island was for men and boys only. This was not true everywhere. As the Christian faith spread in England, double monasteries were established. Under the rule of one leader, monks and nuns, girls and boys, lived and worked in the same establishment. But Lindisfarne was different in that it had been founded specifically to be the center for mission. Nuns did not walk the lanes and speak to people. Aidan made sure that it was possible in Northumbria for women to become nuns if they so wished. He discipled a woman who was to become the most famous abbess of her day named Hild. She became the abbess of double monasteries at Hartlepool and Whitby. Her contribution to the church was great; at least five of her students became bishops.

After sixteen years as bishop, Aidan died at Bamburgh in 651. We do not know his age. What he had achieved may not have been clear to him at his death but history showed the strong foundations he laid led to hundreds of successful years of church building, beginning with the first missionaries trained in his school, who succeeded in planting the Church in most of Anglo-Saxon England.

More

Beginners guide to Celtic Christianity from the Northumbria Community. [link]

Video: Footsteps of St. Aidan

What do we do with this?

Aidan was a humble, dogged evangelist. His style was incarnational. His radical monks built their community among the people. They did not refuse the aid of powerful people, but they also put them in their place. Their approach was face-to-face and on foot, not from above but alongside. He was also strategic, handing down his leadership to people he prepared to exercise it. Lindisfarne deepened the whole area of Northumbria for centuries as a center of learning and faith.

Your church may have many similarities to Lindisfarne. From your “holy island” where you live you humbly present the truth of Jesus. May you have the strength to go back again and again, exercising your gentle influence, being integral friends in the community. What is your personal part in it all? Pray for strength and for the vision to be a community in mission.