Venerable Bede

May 25th is the feast day for a saint known to us today as "The Venerable Bede,". He lived in England 673 to 735, spending his life from age 7 in the Wearmouth Abbey in Northumberland. As a Benedictine, his hours would have followed a regular schedule of worship and prayer, study, teaching, and writing.

Bede was a very wise man and  wrote 25 commentaries on the Bible, many of which are still used today. He also wrote a comprehensive guide to English history to date (History of the English Church and People) which gained him the title of "The Father of English History".In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII. He is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation.

Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work with the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers contributed significantly to English Christianity, making the writings much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons.

On a side note, Jarrow Nonastery was founded in 682. The dedication stone:

still survives and it is very possible that Bede himself helped with the setting and the building of the church.

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