Aidan (c. 605-651)
Feast: August 31
Missionary to Northumbria (England)
Upon his arrival in Northumbria, he set up the rule of Columban and persuaded the king to establish the Church in his kingdom.
Nothing more commended his doctrine to the attention of his hearers than the fact that, as he taught, so he himself lived, seeking for nothing and attaching himself to nothing which belonged to this world. All that the king gave him he quickly distributed to the poor: and never, unless when compelled to do so, did he travel through his diocese except on foot.
He was inspired with a passionate love of virtue, but at the same time full of a surpassing mildness and gentleness.
Aidan began his life of service on the Isle of Iona, just off the coast of Scotland. The monastery at Iona was established by Irish monks under Columba. About a century later, in Aidan’s time, the monastery had become a major center of Christianity and was receiving and sending monks across Europe.
Ireland had been converted by Patrick and the Scots and Picts were converted by Columba.
The king asked the monks of Columba’s Iona to send him a missionary to be an Apostle to Northumbria. The Abbott responded by sending a monk named Corman, but he alienated many people by his harshness, and returned in failure to Iona reporting that the Northumbrians were too stubborn to be converted
Aidan criticized his brother's methods:
You should have followed the practice of the Apostles, and begun by giving them the milk of simpler teaching, and gradually nourished them with the word of God until they were capable of greater perfection and able to follow the loftier precepts of Christ.
An inspired missionary, Aidan would walk from one village to another, politely conversing with the people he saw and slowly interesting them in Christianity: in this, he followed the early apostolic model of conversion, by offering them first the milk of gentle doctrine, to bring them by degrees, while nourishing them with the Divine Word, to the true understanding and practice of the more advanced precepts.
By patiently talking to the people on their own level and by taking an active interest in their lives and communities, Aidan and his monks slowly restored Christianity to the Northumbrian countryside. King Oswald, who after his years of exile had a perfect command of Irish, often translated for Aidan and his monks, who did not speak English at first.
He was one to traverse both town and country on foot, never on horseback, unless compelled by some urgent necessity; and wherever in his way he saw any, either rich or poor, he invited them, if infidels, to embrace the mystery of the faith or if they were believers, to strengthen them in the faith, and to stir them up by words and actions to alms and good works. The reading of Scriptures and Psalms and meditation upon holy truths was the daily employment of himself and all that were with him, wheresoever they went; and if it happened, which was but seldom, that he was invited to eat with the king, he went with one or two clerks, and having taken a small repast, made haste to be gone with them, either to read or write. At that time, many religious men and women, stirred up by his example, adopted the custom of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, till the ninth hour, throughout the year. He never gave money to the powerful men of the world, but only meat, if he happened to entertain them; and, on the contrary, whatsoever gifts of money he received from the rich, he either distributed them, as has been said, to the use of the poor, or bestowed them in ransoming such as had been wrongfully sold for slaves. Moreover, he afterwards made many of those he had ransomed his disciples, and after having taught and instructed them, advanced them to the order of priesthood.
