Saint Of The Day: Saint Godric

Godric was born in 1069 at Walpole, Norfolk, England.

An adventurous seafaring man, he spent his youth in travel both on land and sea as a peddler and merchant mariner first along the coast of the British Isles, then throughout Europe.

Sometime sailor, sometime ship's captain, he lived a seafarer's life of the day, and it was hardly a religious one. He was known to drink, fight, chase women, con customers, and in a contemporary manuscript, was referred to as a "pirate".

He was converted upon visiting Lindisfarne during a voyage, and being touched by the life of Saint Cuthbert. He was a pilgrim to Jerusalem and the holy lands, Saintiago de Compostela, the shrine of Saint Gaul in Provence, and to Rome.

As a self-imposed austerity, and a way to always remember Christ's lowering himself to become human, Godric never wore shoes, regardless of the season.

He lived as a hermit in the holy lands, and worked in a hospital near Jerusalem. He was also a hermit for nearly sixty years at Finchale, County Durham, England, first in a cave, then later in a more formal hermitage; he was led to its site by a vision of Saint Cuthbert.

It was a rough life, living barefoot in mud and wattle hut, wearing a hair shirt under a metal breastplate, standing in icy waters to control his lust, living for a while off berries and roots, and being badly beaten by Scottish raiders who strangely thought he had a hidden treasure.

He was known for his close familiarity with wild animals, his supernatural visions, his gift of prophecy, and ability to know of events occurring hundreds or thousands of miles away.

He died in 1170 at Finchale, County Durham, England of natural causes.

For a great book on the saint, read Godric by Frederick Buechner. It has one of the best openings to a book that I have ever read! Here is the first paragraph:

"Five friends I had, and two of them snakes. Tune and Fairweather they were, thick round as a man’s arm, my bedmates and playfellows, keeper’s of my skimped hearth and hermit’s heart till in a grim pet I bade them go that day and nevermore to come again, nevermore to hiss their snakelove when they saw me drawing near or coil themselves for warmth about my shaggy legs. They went. They never came again."