There are many (minor) saints today, but we are going to go with St. Bega, also known as St. Bee. You might think the luminous Mother Teresa would be a hard act to follow (and she is), but Bee, intending to be (just) a faithful laywoman, ended up being the first nun in Northumbria in what is now England, and was a woman whom Mother Teresa would recognize and approve.
She was "devoted to the poor and oppressed" -- patron of those ground down between their lords and the marauding border Scots -- and she cooked, washed and mended for the poor, as well as for the laborers who built her monastery, to which other young women soon came. And when her successor, St. Hilda, died, Bee had a vision of her soul ascending to heaven.
She'd been persuaded, for her own protection from the marauders, to consecrate herself as a nun by St. Aidan -- since she loved to pray by herself in the wild country, the edge of which is still today called St. Bee's Head. St. Bee, pray for us.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
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