Post #5941

There was no kind of doctrine which he did not possess very well; but his chief concern was meditation on the divine Scriptures, and to understand them better, he learned the Greek and Hebrew languages. He became a deacon at nineteen; at the age of thirty he was ordained a priest by order of his abbot, and immediately, at the request of Archbishop of Exham, he began to explain the sacred text. And in this he followed the doctrine of the holy Fathers so much that he did not affirm anything that was not corroborated by their testimony, often still using almost their expressions. Enemy of idleness, he always passed from the lesson to prayer and from this he returned to the lesson: and he became so inflamed by the subject he was dealing with, that tears often accompanied his explanations. And so that he would not be distracted by the care of temporal things, he never wanted to accept the position of abbot offered him several times. The fame of Bede's science and holiness made his name so famous that Pope St. Sergius thought of calling him in Rome, so that he could work on the solution of very difficult questions that sacred science had to study at the time. He wrote several books for the reform of customs in the faithful, and in defense and explanation of the faith, with which he acquired such a reputation among all, that St. Boniface bishop and martyr proclaimed him Luminary of the Church; Lanfranc, said Doctor of the English; the council of Aachen, admirable Doctor. Indeed, still alive, his writings were publicly read in churches. Therefore, since it was not permissible to call him a saint, they gave him the title of Venerable; which then remained as his own even in later times. His doctrine had such strength and efficacy, because it found confirmation in the sanctity of his life and in the nature of religious virtue. Therefore all the disciples he had, and they were many and illustrious, thanks to his lessons and examples, distinguished themselves not only in letters and sciences, but also in holiness. Finally, worn-out by age and fatigue, he fell seriously ill. And though the evil lasted more than fifty days, he nevertheless interrupted neither his prayers nor the ordinary explanations of the Scriptures; and it was during this time in fact that he translated the Gospel of St. John into English for the use of his countrymen. On the morning of the Ascension, when death was near, he wanted the comfort of the last Sacraments of the Church; then, embracing the brothers, stretched out on the cilice on the ground, and repeated those words twice: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit", he fell asleep in the Lord. It was the 25th of May 735. His dying body, it is said, had a very sweet smell, was buried in the monastery of Jarrow, and then transferred by King Edward the Confessor to Durham Cathedral with the relics of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. Already venerated as a Doctor by the Benedictines and other religious families and dioceses, the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII, by decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of the 13th of November 1899, declared him a Saint and Doctor of the universal Church, ordering that the day of his feast be said from all the Holy Mass and the Office of the Doctors.