CHAPTER 18: He restores a child to life
CHAPTER 18
He restores a child to life
‘GOD is wonderful in his saints,’ as the psalmist says; in their works His glory shines. We read in the Old Testament how God’s servants did wonders in His name: Elias and Eliseus, for instance, raised the dead to life; and Christ’s apostles, following their Master’s example, drove out, as He promised they would, every kind of disease in His name. And now, to the glory of God, their successors, of whom our bishop is one, heal the afflicted in exactly the same way. St Wilfrid was out riding one day, going round on his various duties as bishop, baptizing and confirming. Among the people he baptized in the village of On Tiddanufri1 was a certain woman. Her first-born son had died and she was bitterly distressed, moaning with grief and tired out with the weight of the child – for she had the body with her, wrapped in rags and hidden in her bosom. She uncovered its face for the bishop to baptize it with the rest, hoping that it might be brought back to life. Our holy bishop saw that it was dead and stopped, at a loss what to do about it. The woman realized she was found out, fell to the ground, and wept bitterly, boldly adjuring him in the Lord’s name to deliver her son from the lion’s mouth by bringing him to life again to be baptized. She implored him more and more insistently by all the holiness of the episcopacy, kneeling and clasping his feet, kissing and bedewing them with her tears.
‘Most holy lord,’ she cried, ‘do not dampen the faith of a bereaved woman. Strengthen my belief. Raise him up and baptize him and he shall live for God and for you. By the power of Christ do not delay.’
Then our holy bishop, in no doubt about the power of Christ and seeing in her the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman, prayed and laid his hand on the corpse. The breath of life returned and the boy breathed again. He handed the child back to his mother, baptized him, and commanded her in God’s name to give her son back to him at the age of seven for the service of God. The handsomeness of the boy and her husband’s evil advice led the woman to break her promise when the time came. They fled the district. The bishop’s reeve, Hocca, searched him out and found him living with a gang of Britons. He removed him by force and brought him to the bishop. The boy lived in the service of God and died in the great plague. How great and wonderful is the mercy of God who, through the power of his servant brought back to life a child dead and unbaptized so that, baptized, he might inherit a life of unending happiness in Heaven.