Columban Fr John Boles admiring a modern-day statue in Durham, depicting monks rescuing the uncorrupted body of St Cuthbert from Lindisfarne as Viking raids threatened the island. Photo:Fr Tim Mulroy
“Lindisfarne is magical, especially when you’re going there barefoot.”
This advice from local pilgrimage organiser Rachel to Columban Frs Kevin McDonagh, Tim Mulroy and me had a double meaning. While pilgrimages worldwide often have stretches where pilgrims go barefoot as a sign of faith or penance, in this case we had a very practical reason for shedding our footwear: Lindisfarne, in England’s Northeast, sits on an island … and there is no bridge!
Nowadays, traffic can pass over a causeway visible at low tide. But pilgrims traditionally prefer to go the way used by Christians for nearly one-and-a-half thousand years, treading a route that leads straight across a couple of miles of wet sand, following a line of posts that often rise eerily above the all-too-common coastal mists.
We Columbans had a threefold motivation for joining this unique, semi-aquatic pilgrim trail, given our close friendships with the three participating groups: the Diocese of Hexham & Newcastle (one of the dioceses kind enough to facilitate Columban Mission appeals); the Archbishop Romero Trust (St Oscar Romero being very close to the hearts of so many Columbans); and CAFOD (the Catholic Association for Overseas Development), a vital partner in countless Columban social welfare initiatives.
Also, for me, this was personal. Back when I was a student at the University of Hull, I spent many a glorious day hiking the hills, coasts and pilgrim trails of the Northeast. During my years as a Local Government officer and committed young Catholic adult in the 1970s, my hero and role model was Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador, Central America. (It was his murder on 24th March 1980 that inspired me to become a missionary in Latin America, first as a lay volunteer in Nicaragua and later as a Columban priest in Chile and Peru.) Finally, just before joining the Columbans, I’d spent two enriching years doing voluntary promotional work with CAFOD.
All this came back to me as my fellow pilgrims and I wove our way through the coastal shallows from the mainland to the Holy Isle. It was easy to feel you were walking in the company of saints as the silence descended, broken only by the lapping of waves, the calls of seabirds, the squelching of feet on the sand and the occasional low hum of prayer and conversation. As for saints, Lindisfarne has had more than its fair share. Indeed, the Christian conversion of much of Northern England sprang from here.
By the early Middle Ages, the east and south of Britain had been carved up between competing non-Christian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (an area becoming known as “Angle-land” … England). Then, a young prince of the Kingdom of Northumbria named Oswald, who spent a period in exile among the Irish, became a Christian. On acceding to the throne, he decided to Christianise his kingdom. He entrusted the task to an Irish monk from Iona named Aidan, whom he made abbot, bishop and missionary in a monastery on Lindisfarne Island in 634. Aidan was spectacularly successful in all three roles until he died in 651.
An equally charismatic individual followed him in 665 - Cuthbert, who variously served as monk, abbot, bishop and hermit until his death in 687. By now, Christianity was spreading throughout the region and monasteries were appearing all along the coast, the most notable being the two established by Biscop on Wearside and at Jarrow, both of which served as home for Bede the Venerable (673–735): the “Father of English History”.
Saints Oswald, Aidan, Cuthbert, Biscop and Bede the Venerable were spiritual heavyweights in a tiny area over a mere century: an impressive array of saints by any standard. Yet it wasn’t prayers concerning any of them we heard along the way, but readings connected to the twentieth-century Latin American saint, St Oscar Romero. Why?
Well, because the story of Lindisfarne is not just one of triumph but also of suffering. In 651, King St Oswald was brutally killed and dismembered by Offa, the pagan monarch of neighbouring Mercia. (Tradition has it that Oswald’s head lies in Durham Cathedral. Near to the spot there is a statue of a decapitated man holding a crowned head under his arm!) Then, in 793, Lindisfarne became the first English settlement to fall victim to the Vikings. The monastery was rebuilt but continued to be attacked and its monks slain until, in 875, the monks eventually abandoned the site, carrying away the body of St Cuthbert, which also found a final resting place in Durham Cathedral.
The deaths of Oswald and the Lindisfarne monks echo the sacrifice of Christ and of all who come after them and suffer for the cause of Justice and Truth - represented in our times by the martyrdom of St Oscar Romero.
Romero knew he was putting himself in danger when he accepted the role of Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977. He knew he would inevitably clash with the cruel militarised regime that was oppressing El Salvador at the time. His weekly radio homilies denouncing human rights abuses enraged the authorities just as the parables of Jesus enraged the Chief Priests and Pharisees. His calls for the United States to suspend arms sales to his country and for soldiers not to fire on civilians, effectively signed his death warrant. Yet even before they shot him while celebrating Mass, he’d forgiven his would-be murderers, while foreseeing he’d rise again in the hearts of the people. It was for this reason, as I walked out of our Closing Mass at Lindisfarne’s St Mary’s Church, that I felt Oswald, Aidan, Cuthbert, Biscop and Bede were walking with us and accompanying the pilgrims as we sang, “Like Romero we will serve you and whatever may befall, we’ll devote ourselves to justice and the common good of all”.
Columban Fr John Boles lives and works in Britain
Listen to "Reflection - Walking with the saints"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - September/October 2026
