Saint Frideswide of Oxford - Feast October 19th

Oct 18th, 2014

Burne-Jones, Christ Church Cathedral

For those of us who live in a faith community where saints form part of the cycle of our liturgical calendar, it is a delight when we find that one of them captures not just the imagination but one’s soul. In spiritual terms we connect with them at a deep level, difficult to describe but very real in practice, and for us and others like us, across time and eternity a glimmer of friendship sparks, hinting not only at the transitory and pilgrimage road of earthly life but also a sense of companionship on our way with those who have already travelled the route. Then in that friendship is the constant hint of the transfigured life of the Kingdom of God, where in that wonderful phrase, ‘the great cloud of witnesses’ beckon us to come and join them when our time to meet the Lord happens.

I’ve always believed that the saints can really be our friends, but I am also aware that we don’t have to ‘like’ every one of them, some just catch us and we take a great interest in them, as I hope, they do in us. Over the years I ‘ve worked in the University of Oxford, my frequent perambulations led me time and time again to the Cathedral of Christ Church and to the wonderfully restored 13th century base of Frideswides shrine in the Latin Chapel on its North side. There too the East window full of beautiful 19th century stained glass, designed by Burne-Jones, tells in many panels the legend of the seventh century Saint, Frideswide, tales taken from the two twelfth century accounts written of her life.

We don’t actually know very much about her, occasionally you will find people who suggest that she didn’t really exist, yet in that place I have found, and it is a sense that grows in me over the years, that she was very much alive and is still alive to us in faith, through the resurrection of Christ. More and more I sense that this lady, daughter it is said of Merican sub-king, who traditionally took a vow of celibacy and formed a community of women, calls to me as she still does to others. What does she say? I’m not too sure because my own work on her and prayer about her is evolving, but I discern it is very much about the place of women in the Church and about people of faith acting as voices for those who have nobody else to help them.

I like the idea that we just don’t know too much about her, because that’s the lots of so many of us after death, but it also suggests that death in our Christian understanding brings a new dimension of experience with those who have gone before. Perhaps it’s TS Eliot’s hints and guesses, but looking at the 12th century accounts of those women who came to her shrine, whoever Frideswide was, whatever she did, it was all to do with her healing both sickness and memories and through the ministry of the Church it gave the dispossessed (such as the women) a voice heard, their plight noted and a message left for posterity.

Frideswide is Oxford’s saint, but she is also honoured and venerated and has been for centuries in Bomy, Artois, where as La Dame Anglaise Frevisse, she is still invoked for sickness at the spring that bears her name.

I feel her presence and voice still speaks across the centuries, maybe in this century she will help the voiceless find a voice through the Church and enable a strong, ancient, ministry for women to be recovered!