The Venerable Bede Preaching (P 008; Prayer) Key Ring

Servant of God, Venerable, Blessed, Saint-- in the modern process of canonisation, a candidate for sainthood rises through the ranks. However, the epithet ‘Venerable’ given to St. Bede has less to do with process than with the esteem with which he was regarded by his near contemporaries. Born in 672 or 673 of a noble house in North East England, Bede, whose name in Old English may mean ‘prayer’, was sent to the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter at Monkwearmouth at the age of seven to be educated perhaps in preparation for the religious life. Though Bede moved to St. Paul’s at Jarrow, the second house of the double monastery, he never left the Benedictine life. At Jarrow, he lived out his days as a priest in prayer, in study, and, above all, at writing. He died of natural causes in 735. + Today, Bede is best known for his Ecclesiastical History of the English People which has earned him the title of ‘Father of English History.’ However, he was a polymath. A skilled linguist and translator, he made the writings of the Early Church Fathers accessible in English. He wrote Chronicles, Biblical commentaries, lives of the saints, grammars, and homilies. His interest in computus (the dating of historical and ecclesiastical events especially Easter) popularised the B.C./A.D. system still in use today. He even wrote poetry in both Latin and vernacular English. For his body of theological works, Bede was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1899, the only native-born Englishman to hold the title. + The image here is a simple one: Garbed in the loose, cowled, Benedictine habit with its typically long, wide sleeves, a bald and grey-bearded Bede raises his right hand in a speaking gesture and holds an open book from which he preaches in his left. + St. Bede the Venerable is patron of lectors. + The short prayer beginning “May the Word of the Lord…” is said before the reading of the Gospel at Mass but can also be recited before reading Scripture any time any place. + Feast: May 25 + Image Credit (P 008): Antique image of S[t] Bede. The Venerable. C[onfessor] from a late 19th-century devotional print in chromoxylography, originally published by Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, New York, and Cincinnati. From the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.