November 24 30 days before Christmas
Saint Bieuzy
I could have written today about St. Colman of Cloyne, who shares November 24th with several other saints, but I have noticed that the Irish saints get most of the press, followed by the Welsh, and Scots. The Cornish and Breton saints get less notice, and their is very little about the Manx or Galician Saints on-line. So...I decided to pick St Bieuzy of Brittany, also known at St Bihui.
He was from the 6th century, originally British, but like many of the 6th Century Britons, he emigrated to Brittany after the Anglo-Saxons pushed the Britons out of central Britain. He came over to Brittany as a disciple of St. Gildas the Wise, the latter being the first historian of the British. I always have enjoyed finding tie-ins with Gildas with these various early Celtic Saints. Gildas starts out his scathing history of corrupt British rulers by announcing that he was born the same year at the last major British victory, the battle of Mt. Badon, which halted the Anglo-Saxon advance into Britain for several decades. Later historians would various list the military leader of the Britons at that time as Artos, Artorius or much later, Arthur.
Little is known about St Bieuzy. He apparently was thought to be quite pious, and developed a special gift for healing, which he applied both to people and to animals. He died violently, when the Lord of Melrand struck him on the head with a sword, purportedly for refusinig to heal his hunting dogs of rabies.
The whole aspect of Bieuzy's death forced my brain into gear. Why did Bieuzy refuse to heal the rabid dogs? Perhaps he saw that they were too far gone and that any attempt to cure them would just result in prolonging the inevitable? Perhaps, knowing they were hunting animals, he was feeling compassion for the small game animals that the dogs would go back to flushing out? Regardless...he didn't meet the expectations of a prospective client, stood his ground, and because of that, lost his life.
There is, in the larger group practice that I work out of, a gentleman who glares at me every time we happen to pass each other in the halls. He is convinced that I didn't do enough to keep his octagenarian mother alive, despite her burden of multiple chronic diseases. I suspect that in other "helping" professions, people encounter this same sense of fallen expectations, which sometimes leads to outright anger or disdain. But then, isn't that what happened with Christ?
He was "supposed" to be, by popular imagination, a leader who would drive the occupying Romans out of the promised land, presumably with violence. He would be a new David or Judas Maccabeus. Instead, He preaches that we should love our enemies, render unto Caesar that which is his, and threatens a big aspect of the local economy by overturning the tables of the temple money-changers. Big time disappointment for the superficially involved locals, right?
Yet, and this is the lesson for me today, Christ still asked for forgiveness for the people doing this to him. It is so easy, for me at least, when I don't meet someone elses' expectations, to mentally escalate the situation. "What a jerk," I might think, or start going through a litany in my mind, "Don't they realize that...." It's that false ego that I often need to feed, to feel justified, yet if I am reading my spiritual texts correctly, that whole ego is pretty much of an illusion. It is a hard part of my persona to give up, but that I think is what those of us who are disciples of Jesus are called to do. I still don't know after this rambling what St Bieuzy's motivations were at the end, but I sure do empathize with him.
Lord, help me to realize, through this Advent season and beyond, that there is actually only one set of expectations and hopes that I need to be true to: Yours. If I fall short in other's eyes, help me to see if, at that same time, I am falling short in Yours, correct myself, and ask for forgiveness. Help me to see through to the source of other's expectations (fear, loneliness?) and forgive them if their emotions towards me turn bitter. Help me to realize, it is only through You that I can accomplish this. Amen
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