The Reverend Philip Banks writes:

In the footsteps of the Celtic saints

It dawned in us (rather too late, as our itinerary was booked ages ago) that we are travelling the holy places of Britain and Ireland in completely the wrong direction! Our journey is taking us anti-clockwise around the coast, and started in Bradwell, where St Cedd brought Christianity to Essex in the seventh century. St Cedd, however, came pretty much at the end of a long line of Celtic saints of that era, which started with St Columba leaving Ireland in the sixth century (under something of a cloud, for apparently he was rather ‘on the run’, having started a war between rival kings there!) to establish the Iona Community off the west coast of Scotland.

From Iona, Aidan emerged, and was invited to establish a monastery on Lindisfarne on the east coast (at that time, the kingdom of Northumbria stretched all the way across to the west coast!). St Cuthbert, who had worked with him, carried the torch after Aidan, and was buried at Lindisfarne. But his body was eventually moved all the way to the Benedictine abbey (now Cathedral) in Durham for burial – a nice safe distance from the coast where Viking raiders were at large. In the centre of Durham there is now a wonderful, life-sized, bronze depiction of the monks carrying Cuthbert’s body in procession, and, as you see from the picture, Ben and Samuel thought they would help out.

St Cedd came from this same line of Celtic saints which began over at Iona, and it was Cedd who brought the faith down the coast to Essex. So, really, we should have started our sabbatical tour in the west with Columba, and come clockwise round the coast instead.

At the moment, we have come to rest for a few days on the Northumberland coast, just by the evocative ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle, so that we can visit Lindisfarne. Our travels so far, as well as to Bradwell, have taken us to Canterbury, Peterborough, York, Mount Grace Priory and Durham. Staying at so many different caravan sites en route has certainly added colour to the trip. I wasn’t expecting to have the delight, having taken a wrong turn, of reversing the caravan half way up a narrow York street, to avoid getting permanently stuck under a low bridge. And I’m glad that I happened to throw a mastic sealant gun in the luggage (as you do!) – the alarming sound of ‘drip, drip’ inside the caravan after some torrential rain had me standing precariously on two boxes finding and fixing the source of the roof leak the next day.

Priestings have been a theme, too, of my sabbatical. On the last Sunday of June, I’d been invited to be the preacher at the ordination of priests here (text is available at http://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/bishop-lauries-pages.html) – a wonderful service in our diocese here. Then, the following week, we were privileged to be at Paul White’s ordination to the priesthood in Canterbury diocese (see separate article). This was the excuse to re-visit Canterbury and see again the site of St Thomas’s martyrdom (photo below), and to visit the remains of St Augustine’s Abbey – a reminder of St Augustine’s arrival in Kent, bringing Christianity to the south of England. 

Durham Cathedral, mostly dating from the early 11th century, is an awesome place (inside, those astonishingly massive yet elegant pillars!). We were blessed to be there on St Benedict’s day. Part of Choral Evensong took place in the Chapter House, normally closed to the public – a powerful reminder of the cathedral’s Benedictine past, where sections of Benedict’s ‘Rule’ were read at the monk’s daily meeting. As well as the wonderful shrine of St Cuthbert, Durham Cathedral is also the burial place of the Venerable Bede – monk of Jarrow, chronicler and scientist, who recorded the death of Cuthbert. So it was wonderful to visit Jarrow as we travelled further north. St Paul’s church there dates from Bede’s day, and we were able to walk and stop in the same chancel (now the parish church) that Bede used for daily worship. The visitor centre (‘Bede’s World’) houses a fantastic ‘hands-on’ museum about Bede and the history of England about which he wrote, together with a re-construction of a saxon monastic settlement, complete with pigs, goats and authentic crops, as well as parties of school children!

If you want to risk being bored by a few more of our photos, click here.

This first ‘leg’ of our travels has been an amazing pilgrimage and adventure. Next year there will be a week-long parish trip here, and even if you’ve been before, do think about coming to this wonderful part of our island country. Maureen Bennett has all the details.

I have to confess that my anglican English reserve, has a mild suspicion of pilgrimage! If, through the resurrection, God-in-Jesus is universally available through the Holy Spirit, what is the point of making an expensive or time consuming journey to seek him in a ‘holy place’? Even Gregory of Nyssa, back in the fourth century, said that ‘ye who fear the Lord, praise Him in the places where ye now are: change of place does not effect any drawing nearer unto God’!

But another, better?, part of me (my mum was a good Catholic, born in Vienna has always wanted to go on a pilgrimage. Somehow the opportunities of encountering the divine seem so much greater. Am I fanciful to think that, on my walk to Santiago in May, I made an active communion with the world around me? It certainly felt like it at times (and I don’t just mean the occasional foray into the bushes along the way for personal comfort!). It seems to me that the travelling and discovering and experiencing holy places is in itself a sacrament, an ‘outward and visible sign of an inner and spiritual grace’. For surely Jesus is not ‘the answer’ or ‘the destination’, but rather he is ‘the way, the truth and the life’. Our journey so far has felt like a massive ‘coming up for air’, and these weeks are ones I will not easily forget. Religious scholar Mercia Eliade (1907-1986) saw the sacred place as the spot where the membrane dividing the transcendent from the natural world becomes ‘thin’ (the same idea as the Celtic notion of ‘thin places’). There the barrier between heaven and earth can be crossed.

We continue onwards now to Rosslyn (of the Holy Grail!), Iona, Whithorn and the many holy sites of Ireland associated with Mary, Columba and Patrick, before looking forward to returning (hopefully not too road-weary!) to normal life in September. Please do pray for us on our journeying as we continue to remember you each Sunday as we worship in such a variety of places.

With much love and best wishes,

Philip Banks