Winter in North­umbria is a cruel and unforgiving time. Short, dark days. Rain, snow and hail punctuated with blasts of icy wind from across the North Sea.

It seems no coincidence that the feast day of the region’s patron saint, Cuthbert, comes just as signs of new life begin to appear: March 20, same as the Solemnity of St. Joseph and, this year, the first day of spring.

As a resident of Northumbria, I always look to St. Cuthbert’s day to remind me of the theological virtue of hope. The occasion is a sign of the summer days ahead, soon to transform my bleak, gray homeland into one of the most beautiful and unspoiled places on earth.

Even though he was born almost 1,400 years ago, in 635, much is known about the life of St. Cuthbert. Our knowledge comes thanks to another saint, the Venerable Bede. Bede wrote two accounts of Cuthbert’s life, one in verse and one in prose.

Cuthbert came from humble beginnings. As a boy, he tended sheep on the hills of Melrose in Scotland. When he was 16, while watching his sheep, he saw a vision. St. Bede described it like this:

“On a sudden, he saw a long stream of light break through the darkness of the night, and in the midst of it a company of the heavenly host descended to the earth, and having received among them a spirit of surpassing brightness, returned without delay to their heavenly home.”

Next morning, Cuthbert found that St. Aidan — founder of the Priory of Lindisfarne and a man of great holiness — had died at the very moment he, Cuthbert, had received the vision. Cuthbert discerned that God had shown him the angels carrying Aidan up to heaven. He took this as a sign that the Lord’s path for him was to enter the Celtic monastery of Melrose to train as a monk.

It was to be no easy road. Gentle Cuthbert became a reluctant soldier when Northumbria was attacked by its southern neighbor, Mercia. Peace was not restored to the land until some four years later, after a great battle. Cuthbert, finding himself finally free to turn to the life he desired, rode straight from the battlefield to Melrose.

The monks must have been surprised to receive a soldier, armed and mounted on a horse, asking for admission as a postulant.

Traveling Healer

Eventually, of course, Cuthbert was accepted as a monk. Soon he became renowned for his piety, learning and devotion to the Mass, which he could not celebrate without tears.

According to the tradition of his monastery, Cuthbert traveled great distances to preach the Gospel — leaving in his wake accounts of healings. One day, for example, he arrived at a village ravaged by an epidemic. A young mother begged him to save her dying child. Cuthbert blessed them both and told them not to fear, for God would heal them. Mother and child are said to have lived for many years afterwards.

Cuthbert always remained close to nature, and he was most at home in the wild and rugged countryside of Northumbria. During a stay at Ebba’s monastery in (the aptly named) Coldingham, he often spent hours at night immersed in the bitterly cold sea, singing praises to God and praying. One evening a monk followed him secretly and was astonished to witness the sight of three sea otters drying Cuthbert’s feet with their warm breath.

A Hidden Incorruptible

Cuthbert’s favorite place to be was Lindisfarne, a remote island that can only be reached from the mainland by a narrow causeway at certain times of day when the tides are favorable. He first came here when he was only 19 and the island held a special place in his heart for the rest of his life. His gift of healing and ability to work miracles soon became so widely accepted and repeated that the locals began to refer to Lindisfarne as “Holy Island,” a nickname that has stuck to this day.

Although Cuthbert was elected bishop of Hexham in 684, and despite his gift for working with people, part of him always longed for a quiet, contemplative life on Lindisfarne. At the end of his life, his failing health prompted him to return there, home at last.

After receiving the sacraments of confession and holy Communion, he raised his eyes and hands in a peaceful gesture toward heaven and died on March 20, 687.

It was the custom in those days to open the coffin of holy persons some years after their death to wash the bones and wrap them in silk. Eleven years after Cuthbert’s death, the stone coffin was opened to reveal not a collection of bones but the intact body of a saint lying as if asleep. St. Cuthbert’s tomb quickly became a magnet for pilgrims. Such were the numerous miracles reported at his grave that Cuthbert was called the “Wonder-worker of England.”

In 875 the monks of Lindisfarne became alarmed by the threat of Viking invasion. They fled the island, taking with them the relics of Saint Cuthbert. It took more than 200 years for the Church to find Cuthbert a permanent resting place. Eventually, with the body still incorrupt, the relics were moved to the new cathedral of Durham.

During the English Reformation, the tomb of Cuthbert was plundered. However, the monks had been warned of an impending attack and they had hidden Cuthbert’s body in a secret place. This remained a mystery until 1827, when a hidden tomb was found in the cathedral containing bones thought to be those of St. Cuthbert.

This theory is not without controversy. There is a tradition that these bones belong to someone else, while Cuthbert’s body remains incorrupt and hidden in a place known only to certain Benedictines who hand it down from one generation to the next.

Be that as it may, Northumberland is filled with traces of St. Cuthbert in the numerous churches, monuments and crosses raised in his honor. The center of modern devotion to him is found at St. Cuthbert’s College in Ushaw, near Durham, where it is the privilege of visiting cardinals to wear a gold and sapphire ring taken from his finger in 1537. Here, under Cuthbert’s patronage, many of the priests for the northern counties of England are trained.

St. Cuthbert’s day is a time to celebrate God’s presence in my own little corner of the world. It is a reminder that the light of God, the promise of Easter, can shine anywhere — even on the coldest and darkest of winter days. Although Northumbria is often dismissed as depressing and gloomy at this time of the year, St. Cuthbert reveled in its bleakness. He bathed in the freezing North Sea and saw angels in the snow-filled skies.

So, for me, at the end of a long winter, he bears the strongest witness to one of my favorite Scripture verses, 2 Corinthians 4:6:

“For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of (Jesus) Christ.”

Rachel O’Brien writes from

Gateshead, England.