We just have a few days left in our Easter season, as we will celebrate the solemnity of Pentecost this weekend and the end of the Easter season. As you know, I will be leaving tomorrow morning for Rome with my Notre Dame cohort to celebrate Pentecost in the special Mass they have in the Pantheon. I am looking forward to a wonderful week in Rome with my Notre Dame group, as you can imagine. As we continue to hear about the missionary efforts of the Early Church in our readings from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about Paul’s difficulties in today’s reading, as Paul is ordered to stand before the chief priests and the Sanhedrin to give testimony. Rather than trying to help Paul and encourage him, the Jewish authorities are plotting to kill him and destroy him, a reminder of what Jesus went through during his journey to the cross. Paul is cunning and intelligent as he traps the Sadducees and Pharisees, getting them in an argument that he knows that will keep them preoccupied, since these two groups do not agree in the belief in the resurrection.
Today, we commemorate the feast day of the Venerable Bede, an English Benedictine monk from Northumbria, which was a medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom located in what is now the northern part of England and the southeastern part of Scotland. The Venerable Bede is one of my favorite saints, and I really like his name! He was born in the late 7th century. As a young child, he survived a terrible plague that struck that region in 686 that killed the majority of the population. Even though he spent the majority of his life at his monastery, he was a well-known author, teacher, and scholar. His work entitled the Ecclesiastical History of the English People has brought him claim as he is considered the father of English history. I remember reading that book in college in a course on Western Civilization. Pope Leo XIII declared the Venerable Bede a Doctor of the Church in 1899. Bede is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation of Doctor of the Church. St Anselm of Canterbury, is also a Doctor of the Church, but even though Anselm was a Bishop in England, he was born in Italy. Bede was also a great linguist in Latin and Greek, having translated the works of the Early Church Fathers into the language of the Anglo-Saxons, which contributed greatly to the spread of Christianity in England. Bede is the patron saint of English writers and historians. We unite our prayers with his prayers today.
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