CHAPTER 5: How God provided food for him on a journey
CHAPTER 5
How God provided food for him on a journey
WHILE he was seriously contemplating entering on a higher course of life, he received a great grace to strengthen his resolve, and, incidentally, to show quite clearly that those who seek the Kingdom of Heaven and its justice will, by the mercy of providence, not lack bodily sustenance. He was travelling alone one day and, about the third hour, chanced to turn into a distant village. He went to the home of a devout married woman, wishing to rest a while; he was more worried about food for his horse than for himself, for winter was just beginning. The woman made him welcome and pressed him to let her prepare him a meal. But the saint would not permit it; he could not eat as it was a Friday, a day on which many of the faithful, in honour of the Death of our Lord, are wont to prolong their fast till the ninth hour. The woman, being hospitality’s own self, insisted.
‘You will not find another village on your way, nor even a house; and it will take you till sunset to reach your destination. At least take something with you, otherwise you will be fasting the whole day, perhaps even till tomorrow.’ But his zeal for religion got the better of her insistence and he set out still fasting and remained in that state till vespers. When it came to vesper time he saw that he would not be able to finish the journey that day; he saw too that there was no human dwelling within reach. He suddenly noticed some shepherds’ huts, very makeshift constructions, built for the summer, and deserted. He went in, meaning to stay the night, tied the horse to the wall, and gave it a bunch of straw he had gathered from bits blown out of the roof. He passed the time in prayer. Looking up from his psalms he saw the horse lift its head up and start to pull straw out of the roof. Suddenly a bundle wrapped in a linen cloth fell down with the straw. When his prayers were over he got up to find out what it was and discovered half a loaf still warm and some meat wrapped in the cloth, enough for one meal.
‘O God,’ he said, ‘I was fasting for the love of Thee and in return Thou hast fed both me and my animal, blessed be Thy Name.’
He broke the bread and gave half to the horse. From that day on he was much more ready to fast, now that he knew he had been fed in his solitude by Him who, when there was no one else to provide, had sent the very birds, day after day, with food for Elijah in the wilderness. His eyes are ever on them that fear Him and hope in His mercy, so that He may, in the words of the Psalmist, ‘snatch their souls from death and feed them in time of famine.’1 The holy priest Ingwald from our monastery at Monk-wearmouth heard this from Cuthbert when the latter was a bishop. Ingwald, thanks to his ripe old age, has ceased to gaze on earthly things with the eyes of the flesh; his heart is completely taken up with the things of Heaven.