Cuddy's Isle – Mr G's Ponderings

The Cross marking the sacred spot where St. Cuthbert prayed.
The small island is known as Cuddy’s Isle. As with Holy Island/Lindisfarne itself,
it becomes an Island cut off by the tide, twice a day.

HOLY CROSS 2023

One of the prayers of Taize sets the scene for Holy Cross Day which many Christians 0bserve on September 14^th:

Through the repentance of our hearts,

And the spirit of simplicity of the beatitudes,

You clothe us with forgiveness, as with a garment.

Enable us to welcome the realities of the Gospel

With a childlike heart,

And to discover your will,

Which is love and nothing else.

Here we are brought to the heart of the Cross’s message – the Victory of love – and not only sin and death are defeated by love but also those other things which afflict our lives and drag us down.
The Irish have a saying – “The Cross of Christ upon us” which means that it is an immediate presence in our lives – a power on which we can call in any time of need or uncertainty.So, a tenth century prayer speaks of :

Christ’s Cross over this face, and thus over my ear. Christ’s cross over these eyes…this mouth. .this side – to accompany me… Christ’s Cross to meet every difficulty.

The Cross becomes a protection – the Saving Sign which they would trace in every danger – usually quietly behind their back. The recognition here is that when our human frailty brings insecurity our security rests in Christ and in the certainty that through His Cross, he has done what we say at every Baptism as we trace the Cross on the forehead:
Christ claims you for his own.
Receive the sign of his Cross
After which we tell the one being baptised to never be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ Crucified, to fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil and remain faithful to Christ to the end of their life.
But not in their own strength alone. We follow this immediately with a blessing:

May almighty God deliver you from the powers of darkness,
Restore in you the image of his glory,
And lead you in the light and obedience of Christ.

The tracing of the Cross both then and whenever we invoke it is not a magic talisman, nor an empty gesture or a pious practice, but a bringing to our aid the full power of Christ Himself.
To pilgrim in the Cross is to walk in Christ’s Name and to confess Jesus as Lord to the glory of God the Father, to quote the letter of St Paul to the Philippians.
That’s what has driven people to proclaim the victory of the Cross with a certainty that it both symbolizes and makes present Christ’s power of love which converted lives and which, if we believe it, will go on doing so.

[Mr.G]

Cuddy’s Isle at high tide. Photo by my friend Helen Gheorghiu Gould

*Cuddy’s Isle (St Cuthbert’s Isle) on Lindisfarne, Northumbria.* This photograph was taken by my friend Helen Gheorghiu-Gould earlier this week. She is currently having sabbatical time and this visit is part of her time away from her ministry. It is a time of reflection, prayer, rest and opening her heart to God’s possibilities for her.

The photograph took me back to the many visits and associations I have had over the years and stirred the heart-strings both of memory and of my halting spiritual pilgrimage. It has always been, for me, a place of encounter with God where He has guided me with love.

Holy Island (Lindisfarne) is a deeply special place for the story of Christianity in our land. It was to here that St. Aidan came from Iona to proclaim the love of God in Jesus Christ for His people. Here St. Aidan trained up twelve Saxon boys, including four brothers, to spread the Good News of Jesus. It was here, the day after Aidan’s soul was taken up to heaven that a boy named Cuthbert came to dedicate his life to God after first testing his vocation at the Abbey in Melrose.

When Cuthbert was called to be a great leader of the church and weighed down by the many tasks he undertook, he escaped to his special meeting place with God. As Lindisfarne became (and becomes) an island twice a day, so the little island known as Cuddy’s isle is the same. Here Cuthbert crossed before the tide cut him off and left him to simply be with God.

Here’s a poem I’ve just written inspired by Helen’s photograph and the thoughts it has stirred.

An Island

There is an island
made holy by the prayers and tears of saints.
A holy, set-aside place where souls in search of God
find him waiting.

It is a thin place
where earth touches heaven
and barriers are paper-thin:
tissue hiding nothing,
darkness transparent,
light warmly radiant.

I have been there,
down the rough path
past the church to a bend in the road
where expectancy parts the air.
The sea drifts to shore,
benign and welcoming
or pushing waves to the limit of its power.

Go there.
It beckons and seeks you.
Clamber and scramble the rocks of your desire.
You have a meeting, a moment, an arrangement.
God waits and stretches out his hand in welcome,
shelters safe and holds.

You are there
at the place of speaking,
listening,
being still.

Even as the wind swirls and chills,
you are warm.

And this place?
Cuddy’s Isle of Lindisfarne.
Or perhaps…
your heart.

[Mr G. 1st July 2021]