Cuthbert vs. Swithun

Cuthbert
Cuthbert’s life, marked by miracles and adventure, was also a life of profound kindness. He grew up an orphan shepherd and spent days in quiet solitude tending flocks in the pastures of Scotland. He took holy orders at age seventeen after having seen a vision of angels bearing a saintly man toward heaven. This vision coincided with the death of Saint Aidan — ostensibly Cuthbert saw the saintly man being carried to heaven.

Cuthbert became the abbot of Melrose but was always more comfortable in the wild solitude of nature. He often went out to the sea, standing waist-deep in freezing waters to pray. His communing with the natural world was such that it was said that sea otters dried his legs when he finished prayers. He spent eight years as a hermit on the island of Inner Farne and the animals of the island came under his protection.

When the yellow plague hit the land, Cuthbert traveled extensively to minister to victims. Miraculous healings began to be attributed to him, and he was famed as the “Wonder Worker of Britain.” He saw his journeys as a time to not only comfort the afflicted but also to renew their Christian faith.



Swithun
Saint Swithun, often humorously referenced as the patron of the generic country church “in the field” or “in the swamp,” was an actual Anglo-Saxon bishop and was enshrined at Winchester Cathedral. He is revered for posthumous miracle working and is believed to hold sway over the weather, especially the rain. According to tradition, the weather on his feast day of July 15 continues for forty days. And Californians, take note: Saint Swithun can also be prayed to for the relief of drought.

Swithun was a pious Bishop of Winchester in the ninth century. He convinced King Æthelwulf to bequeath a tenth of his royal lands to the Church, and with those lands Swithun built and restored churches with noted zeal. The king relied on the revered bishop for spiritual counsel, while another bishop advised him on temporal matters. Swithun was known as a friend of the poor who traveled his diocese on foot. A single miracle was attributed to the bishop while he was alive. Workmen were said to have maliciously broken an old woman’s eggs. He picked them up, and they were miraculously restored.

Very little else of his life was recorded, and the history of his bodily remains was most notable to his sainthood. He died on July 2, 862. On his deathbed the bishop was said to have begged to be buried outside where people might pass over his grave and raindrops fall upon it. Consequently, British lore holds that Saint Swithun’s day foretells the weather.