December 7th St Diuma
December 7th has 2 major entries in the Celtic and Old English Saints on-line listing: http://www.celticsaints.org/2013/ I was all set to write about St. Biuthe, as I wanted an excuse to write about the large stone Celtic crosses that dot Ireland, the most talked about being from the monastery founded by Biuthe in county Louth. But for some reason, as I started to look into today more, I was led back to the other Saint: Diuma.
Diuma was from the mid 7th century. His name is Irish, so one must assume he was either from Ireland or from the Scots-Irish area around Iona. He was a monk at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, the abbey founded by St. Aidan. Diuma was selected by Abbot Finan, along with Cedd, Betti and Adda for mission to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, whose King had recently converted from paganism to Christianity. He became the first bishop of Mercia.
Reverend Canon Kate Tristram of Lindisarne has a wonderful subsection of the Lindifarne website dedicated to "Little Known Saints of the North." Here is a section from here musings about Diuma:
"We are told nothing about Diuma's character, but we can guess quite a lot. Obviously he was well-trained in the Irish tradition of a strongly disciplined ascetic life, and obviously capable of adapting to new people and situations. There must have been something very attractive about his way of preaching the gospel,for Bede says that he and his companions 'were listened to gladly'." More at: http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/canon-tristram
There is not a whole lot more known about Diuma, other than he died and was buried in Mercia in the year 658. So why did I get drawn to talk about him? The answer requires me to talk a little about the Kingdom of Mercia.
Unless someone is from England, which I am not, and had to learn about English history in school, the only way a person might know about Mercia is if you are cursed with an insatiable curiosity about history trivia and connections between one set of trivia and another...I have this curse. For several hundred years, Mercia was the bully of England. It kept gradually aborbing other Kingdoms until it controlled pretty much everything except Wales, Cornwall and the area north of Humber river: Northumbria. The Northumbrians were not terribly fond of Merica or their King, Penda (this was not the one who converted to Chritianity.) One of David Adam's remarkable books, Flame in my Heart, St Aidan for Today, opens with his discussion how as a school boy in Northumbria he learned about the wonderful victory of the Northumbrians over the Mercians and Welsh at the battle of Heavenfield. The memory of the emnity obviously did not fade away!
Penda is decribed by Bede as the most warlike of the Mercian royalty and "diabolical." He ravaged the Northumbrian countryside in his battles, burned churches, and killed a royal Northumbrian hostage who was under his "protection"--something that would have been anaethema in that time period.
(On a total trivia side note: Mercia had it's own linguistic variation of Old English. It was studied extensively in the early 20th Century by one of Oxford's leading professors, a certain John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Tolkien later look the name of one of his main characters, Eomer of Rohan, from a listing of Mercian Royalty. Another name for Rohan in his books is "The Mark," a derivation of Mercia.)
So...when the major Church in Northumbria sends missionaries to Mercia, this is not a casual decision. They are sending their brethren into the countryside of their most detested enemy. Granted Diuma was likely not Northumbrian by birth, (although Cedd was), but I suspect he would have been sympathetic with Northumbrians and Celts alike who would have lost their lives and property under the devastation reaked by King Penda. This would be somewhat akin to a modern Christian missionary who had lost family in 911, setting out to go towns in the Middle East that were known to have a strong Al-Queda sentiment.
The Celtic church had people in it who were quick to anger...that seems to be a part of the Gaelic disposition. But it also seemed to have a strong sense of Christ's admonitions to Love thine Enemy. We here that phrase quoted a lot from scripture, but how little we really seem to apply it to life. After 911 it seemed to me that it was some of the most purportedly Christian areas of our nation (I am thinking of the home state of the President at that time) had "Christian" leaders wanting to nuke the areas that were speculated to have harbored the terrorists. My own priest had the Grace to suggest that we should pray for the souls, not only of the victims, but of the mis-quided pilots of the aircraft that hit the towers...his suggestion was not well received by many members of the congregation...it was too hurtful, too difficult to think of "those people" as anything other than the hated enemy.
So...just as I have a great measure of respect for my priest's suggestion at that time...so I have a great deal of respect for not only Diuma, but the people in Lindisfarne who sent out the delegation to Mercia in the first place. It showed courage, love and and an orthodox interpretation of Christ's dictum that is sometime not as apparent as it should be in our modern church.
Lord, I pray today, not only for my own tendencies to sometimes harbor grudges or enmity, but for the Church as a whole. Help me, and help the Church, to follow more closely the example and teachings of Jesus...to see our enemies as fellow human beings and as part of your creation, and to love them regardless of their actions and our differences. This is a tough one, Lord, I would love it to be something You inspire us to accept. Amen
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