Today, we commemorate St. Bede the Venerable (25 May/7 June). Known as the “Father of English History” and the “Church Historian,” he was a prolific writer, penning the life stories of many Saints, including St. Cuthbert. A “wonderworker of the English land,” St. Cuthbert was commemorated earlier this spring (20 March/2 April) but was also mentioned in the Paul Kingsnorth article, “A Wild Christianity,” which we recently cross-published. So, in that vein and in anticipation of Memorial Day, we offer this poem by fellowship friend and Southern son, Walt Garlington, who’s patron Saint is the beloved Cuthbert of Lindisfarne.
The Shrine of St. Cuthbert
by Walt Garlington
To the tomb of Holy Cuthbert
The Reformers came, full of wrath and spite.
To the shrine of Holy Cuthbert
The marauders came, to steal and to spoil.
Bone rot they thought to find,
Being darkened in their minds.
But a body instead they saw,
Sweet-smelling and whole.
For God had not abandoned him,
The Lord, Who has hallowed him.
The Christ-hating band fell back,
But forward went again.
The Christ-hating mob,
No one could stay nor stop.
His wealth they robbed,
His leg they broke,
Leaving him forgot and fornaught –
Or so to them it seemed.
But the fathers are not the bairns;
Arise O Southron!
But the fathers are not the bairns;
Go forth O South son!
With your feet or in your heart,
Run to Durham, to the grace-filled relics
Of our God-bearing Father,
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne,
The holiest saint of Angle-kin,
And ask him with meekness and love
And tear after tear
To pray for the stricken Southland,
Until, uplifted by his labors,
She becomes the Eden
She has always striven to be:
The Garden of the Trinity.
Walt Garlington is a chemical engineer turned writer and editor of the website Confiteri: A Southern Perspective. This longtime Southern Baptist, then Anglican, was united to the Orthodox Church in 2012 and makes his home in Louisiana where he attends a GOA parish.
