This week, Miss A and I are learning about the Venerable Bede in English Literature for Boys and Girls by H. E. Marshall. It was inspiring to read how he learned to praise God even in the darkest times. The author tells how after a plague struck, only the Abbot and the young Bede were left alive at the monastery.
For a few days the Abbot read the services all alone, but at the end of a week he could no longer bear the lack of singing, so calling the little lad he bade him to help him and to chant the responses.
The story calls up to us a strange picture. There stands the great monastery, all its rooms empty. Along its stone-flagged passages the footsteps of the man and boy echo strangely. They reach the chapel vast and dim, and there, before the great altar with its gleaming lights, the Abbot in his robes chants the services, but where the voices of choir and people were wont to join, there sounds only the clear high voice of one little boy.That little boy was Bede.And thus night and morning the sound of prayer and praise rose from the deserted chapel until the force of the plague had spent itself, and it was once more possible to find men to take the places of those singers who had died.
He was still praising God, giving lessons and translating books right up to the end. And then…
… sitting upon the pavement of his little cell, he sang, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.” “When he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his last, and departed to the heavenly kingdom.”
Wednesdays with Words is hosted by ladydusk.
To be so faithful! What an example. Thanks for sharing!