16 September 2024 – St. Ninian’s Day

In 731 AD, the Venerable Bede completed his magnificent ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’.  He was a monk living in a monastery at Jarrow. He spent his entire life there reading, studying and teaching. In his History, he refers to Ninian. He says six important things about him.

1.       He describes Ninian as a member of the British race and as a bishop.

2.       He says that the Southern Picts accepted the true faith through his preaching.

3.       He indicates that this happened ‘long before’ Columba came from Ireland to Britain.

4.       He says that Ninian ‘had been regularly instructed in the mysteries of the Christian faith in Rome'. Apparently regularly means in a monastery.

5.       He informs us that his see was named after St. Martin and that he was buried in this stately church.

6.       The church was called ‘Candida Casa’ or the ‘White House’ because of an unusual architectural feature of the day. It was built of stone.

Bede doesn’t say that Ninian  founded the Christian settlement at Whithorn nor does he say that he was its first bishop. A Latin poem about the miracles of St. Ninian says that ‘he gained rank of high bishop so that he might shine out as a lamp … and be seen blazing on top of the candlestick’. We remember him today as one of our founding forefathers in this collect from the Northumbrian Community:

Father,

you called Ninian to make you known

among a northern people

and to establish loving community among his own people;

raise up among us messengers of light in dark places

and communities of love in blighted places.