36 Bede the Venerable

Bede the Venerable

The saint we are approaching now is called Bede and was born in the northeast of England; to be exact, Northumbria, in the year 672 or 673. He himself recounts that when he was seven years old his parents entrusted him to the abbot of the neighbouring Benedictine monastery to be educated, “spending all the remaining time of my life a dweller in that monastery.” He recalls, “I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture; and amid the observance of the monastic rule and the daily charge of singing in church, I always took delight in learning, or teaching, or writing” (Historia eccl. Anglorum, 5, 24)…

Taken from Great Christian Thinkers by Pope Benedict XVI