CHAPTER 7: How he entertained an angel and, in seeking to give him earthly food, was rewarded in turn with bread from he
CHAPTER 7
How he entertained an angel and, in seeking to give him earthly food, was rewarded in turn with bread from heaven
A FEW years later when King Alhfrith, for the salvation of his soul, gave Abbot Eata ground at Ripon1 to build a monastery, the abbot transferred some of the monks to live there, under the same rule as they had at Melrose. Cuthbert was one of them. He was appointed guestmaster and is said to have had an angel sent to him as a guest to test his devotion.
One morning he left the inner monastery buildings to go to the guest chamber and found a youth sitting inside. He gave him the usual sort of kindly welcome, thinking, naturally, that he was a man. He got him water to wash his hands, washed his feet himself, dried them, put them in his bosom, and humbly chafed them with his hands. The youth was asked to wait till after terce, when a meal would be ready; otherwise if he left at once he would faint with hunger in the winter cold. He thought the lad had travelled all night through the wind and snow and had put in at the monastery at dawn to rest. But the youth said he must leave immediately and hurry to a far distant place. Cuthbert asked question after question and finally adjured him in God’s Name to stay. As soon as terce was over it was dinner time, and a table was set and food brought.
‘Now eat and get your strength back,’ Cuthbert urged him, ‘while I go and get you some warm bread. I hope it will be ready.’
When he came back the youth had vanished. The ground was covered with fresh snow but there were no footsteps to be seen. The man of God was amazed. He puzzled over what had happened and then went to put the table back in the storehouse. At the door there was a wonderfully fragrant odour. He looked about to see where it was coming from and there beside him were three loaves, unusually white and fine. Trembling he said to himself: ‘Now I know that it was an angel, come not to be fed but to feed. He has brought bread such as cannot be produced on earth, whiter than the lily, sweeter than roses, more delicious than honey. Such food, it is obvious, comes not from this world of ours but from the paradise of joy. No wonder he refused human food when he can enjoy in Heaven the bread of eternal life.’ The manifest virtue of this miracle moved the saint to even greater zeal for good works, and as his virtues increased, so did the grace that was given him. Angels would often appear and talk with him and when he was hungry he would be refreshed with food by the special gift of God. Cuthbert was a very pleasant, affable man; he generally restricted himself to citing the lives of the fathers when he wanted to find models of godly living for his brethren, yet sometimes, in all humility, he would mention his own spiritual graces. Sometimes he did this openly, sometimes he talked in the third person as though it were someone else. His audience always knew that he was speaking like St Paul, who at times would recount his virtues openly, at times as though speaking of another – when, for example, he says: ‘I knew a man in Christ, above fourteen years ago, such an one caught up even to the seventh heaven,’ and so on.1