CHAPTER 23: How Abbess Aelfflaed and one of her nuns were cured by his cincture
CHAPTER 23
How Abbess Aelfflaed and one of her nuns were cured by his cincture
CUTHBERT did not cease to perform miracles of healing even though far removed from mankind. There was a holy handmaid of Christ, Aelfflaed, who, as one of the joys of her virginal state, had charge of a great company of nuns. She looked after them with motherly love, adding to her royal rank the yet more noble adornment of a high degree of holiness. She had a deep affection for Cuthbert. She herself told the following story to that most reverend priest of the Lindisfarne church, Herefrith, who in turn told it to me.
She had been seriously ill for a long time and seemed almost on the point of dying. The doctors could do nothing for her. By God’s grace she was suddenly removed from danger of death though not entirely cured; the internal pain went and she regained the use of her limbs but still could not stand upright nor move about except on all fours. She began to fear that the condition might be permanent, since she had long since given up hope of getting any help from doctors. One day oppressed by these sad thoughts her mind wandered to the peaceful life Cuthbert led.
‘How I wish I had something belonging to my dear Cuthbert!’ she sighed. ‘As I trust and believe in God I know for certain that I should be quickly healed.’
Shortly afterwards someone arrived with a linen cincture sent by Cuthbert. She was delighted with the gift and realized that her wishes had been made known to him by heavenly means. She girded herself with it and next morning was able to stand up straight. Two days later she was completely well. A few days after this one of the nuns was seized with excruciating pains in the head. She got daily worse until it seemed unlikely she could last much longer. The venerable abbess paid her a visit, saw how ill she was, and bound up her head with the cincture. The pain left her that very same day and she was cured. She took off the cincture and hid it in her locker. When it was required by the abbess a few days later it was nowhere to be found, neither in the locker nor anywhere else. This was God’s doing: by those two miracles of healing he manifested Cuthbert’s holiness to the faithful, and then removed the cincture lest it should lead the faithless to doubt such sanctity. Had it been allowed to remain, the sick would have flocked to it and if anyone through lack of merit were left uncured, the fact would be taken not as a proof of that person’s unworthiness but as a reason for disparaging the relic. So, as I said, by a merciful dispensation of Divine Providence, first the belief of the faithful was strengthened, and then all danger of disparagement by the envious or unbelieving was removed.