CHAPTER 36: Of the house lit up by God
CHAPTER 36
Of the house lit up by God
WILFRID’S words of consolation ended, the king’s officers led our holy bishop away like a lamb to the slaughter to Osfrith, sheriff of the royal borough of Broninis.1 He was confronted with the prisoner and bidden, on the king’s command, to take our holy bishop into custody. Wilfrid, whose faith was so great by now that he might well have been called the light of Britain, was to be locked up in a pitch-black dungeon and securely guarded, and all this was to be kept secret from his friends. The sheriff, in loyalty to the king, carried out his urgent command. Wilfrid was hidden away, under guard, in a place which was rarely brightened by the sun during the day and where no lamp was lighted to grace the hours of the night. His guardians, hearing him continually singing psalms, looked into the cell and found the darkness of the night turned into day. Thunderstruck themselves they terrified others with the tale of his holiness.
‘O Christ, Eternal light, who dost not desert those who acknowledge Thee, Thou whom we believe to be the true light illuminating “every man that cometh into this world”, who in the beginning didst mark with fiery glory the hour of thy future servant’s birth when he came forth from his mother’s womb, now as he prayed in the darkness of his prison cell Thou didst deign to send an angel to visit him and to bring him light, just as when Thine apostle Peter was imprisoned in chains by wicked Herod. To Thee be glory and thanksgiving!’
While he was languishing in prison without the least token of respect, the king sent to offer him what was part of his own diocese and other very lavish gifts provided he acquiesced in the king’s commands and ordinances and denied that the statutes sent by Rome were genuine. To this he humbly replied, showing his trust in the authority of the Holy See, that he would rather lose his head than assent to such a proposal. From this we can learn that a strong will founded on the knowledge of God cannot be confounded.