Aidan of Lindisfarne
d. 651
Feast Day: August 31

"God says you were not His first choice!
God says you were not His second choice!
God says, when you said 'yes,' you became His first choice!"

This rather bizarre set of assertions comes from a story told by a pastor located in a small desert community in California. He and his wife lived for the day when they could get out of this town to a  city where they would have scope to grow the sort of megachurch he dreamed of. However, during a time in prayer he believed God had clearly spoken and asked this pastor to make a commitment to this small town and his  congregation for the rest of his life. It did not come as some kind of divine arm twisting. As the pastor later said: "I knew if I said 'No' God would not love me any less and if I said 'Yes' He would not love me any more."  After sharing this understanding with his wife they both came to the reluctant conclusion that this request was from God and not just the aftereffect of too many burritos. Their response to God was "Yes."

A few weeks later they had a guest speaker in the church. This was a woman with an international ministry in intercessory prayer. She was not aware of what had passed in the pastor's life earlier, but  in the midst of her presentation she interrupted herself with those three remarkable statements. The pastor now speaks of this critical episode in his life as the beginning of his commitment to the land.

So what in the name of all the saints of Ireland does this have to do with Aidan of Lindisfarne? First of all, Aidan was not the first choice. When Oswald had sent to Iona for a bishop to lead the  conversion of the people of Northumbria the community had sent a monk by the name of Corman. With such a wide open invitation from a king, the mission still failed as Corman found the Angles a barbaric lot and utterly resistant  to his efforts.

Corman returned to Iona with nothing but bitter condemnation. In the distressed silence which followed, Aidan spoke: "Brother, it seems to me that you were too severe on your ignorant hearers. You  should have followed the practice of the Apostles, and begun by giving them the milk of simple teaching, and gradually instructed them in the word of God until they were capable of greater perfection and able to follow the  sublime precepts of Christ." After deliberation and prayer, the Iona community decided to send Aidan with another set of companions to take up the mission to Northumbria.

The second similarity between the story of Aidan and the pastor's story is the commitment to the land. While this certainly refers to the territory itself it also refers to the peoples who inhabit the  land. Aidan brought with him an attitude of humility and compassion. He refused whenever possible to ride a horse as that was a sign of wealth, power and prestige that would separate him from the people. He was not afraid to  rebuke the rich and powerful and used such money as he was given to aid the poor or redeem those sold into slavery. Many of the latter he took back with him to his community on Lindisfarne that they might be educated for a  normal place within the life of the Northumbrian kingdom.

The choice of Lindisfarne as a base of operation is perhaps one of the better illustrations of a lack of physical/spiritual dichotomy in Celtic Christianity. Indeed the dichotomies that characterize  much of post-Renaissance Christian spirituality were utterly alien to the Celtic Christians. For them both solitude and community were part of normative Christian living, the balance between the two varying between the  inclination of the individual and the needs of the moment. In Lindisfarne Aidan found a base which had its natural rhythm of solitude and community. A tidal island, it was connected with the mainland - and the kingdom - only  during the periods of low tide.

Our primary, and indeed almost sole source for information on Aidan is from Bede's "History of the English Church and People." Aidan left us no writings, not even the Rule of his community on  Lindisfarne. There is but one prayer recorded of Aidan and that one is odd enough: "Lord, look what evil Penda does!" The occasion was a period when Aidan was on retreat on the wind-swept island of Inner Farne. From there he  had a clear view of the King's fortress of Bamburgh. The fortress was under siege from the brutal king of Mercia, Penda. Unable to breach the defenses, Penda set the land on fire, hoping to burn out or burn down his opposition.  It was the flames approaching the walls of the town that prompted Aidan's intercession. It is worth noting the simplicity and trust of the prayer. Aidan did not, as least one author asserts, call down retribution from Heaven.  He simply offered up the circumstance to God. Following the prayer the wind suddenly shifted and the fire turned towards Penda's camp. His army frightened and demoralized, Penda withdrew and never sought the town's destruction  again.

Finally, Aidan is best remembered as an evangelist and apostle. It is for this reason that he was selected as the patron for the St. Aidan Trust though there are so many Celtic saints worthy of  emulation. He was gentle with the pagan Saxons and Angles of his kingdom. At the same time he was never afraid to confront culture when it conflicted with the command of Christ. By his constancy, humility and respect he won  respect and a hearing from a hostile and warlike people. Though the Christianity of the land finally took the form of the style brought from the continent by Augustine of Canterbury, its foundation and its roots are Aidan's  work.