CHAPTER 2: He chooses God in boyhood [648]
CHAPTER 2
He chooses God in boyhood [648]
FROM his boyhood he was obedient to his parents, beloved of all, handsome, well-proportioned, gentle, modest, and controlled, with none of the silly fads common to boys, but, as St James the apostle says, ‘swift to hear but slow to speak’.1 He ministered with humble skill to all his father’s visitors, whether the king’s companions or their slaves – a fine example of the prophet’s dictum ‘All shall be taught by the Lord’.2 When he was fourteen he decided to leave his father’s estates to seek the Kingdom of heaven, for his stepmother was harsh and cruel. His own mother was dead. None the less he managed to clothe, arm, and mount both himself and his servants so that he need not feel ashamed in the royal presence. His father blessed him, as Isaac blessed Jacob and jacob his own sons, that their seed might multiply a thousand fold, and off he set to Eanfled, King oswiu’s queen, to be presented to her on the recommendation of those noblemen whom he had cared for at his father’s house. Thanks be to God, he at once found favour in her sight. He was handsome and very keen-witted, so his request – to be allowed, on the queen’s advice and with her protection, to give himself to the service of God – was granted. One of the king’s most loving and faithful companions, a nobleman called Cudda, had also resolved, on account of his paralysis, to give up worldly ambition and dedicate himself to monastic life at Lindisfarne. The queen commended the newly arrived Wilfrid to him to join him in the service of God and act as his servant. Wilfrid set about his task with heartfelt zeal. This and the fact that he strove humbly and obediently to carry out the rule with sincere devotion made his master and the older monks love him as a son, and his equals to regard him as a brother. He learnt the whole psalter and several other books by heart. His head was not yet tonsured but he served God in purity and true circumcision of heart, deserving a share in the blessing which Samuel received as Eli’s servant.