OPENING PRAYER

 https://youtu.be/tGNPA8dXCp0
 Who is San Beda? (St. Bede)
What do you know about him?
 What can we learn from
the life and mission of St.
Bede (San Beda)?
You will answer this
reflection question after our
discussion
 ST. BEDE the VENERABLE
 Bede is called
"venerable' to
acknowledge his
great wisdom.
 Bede is one of
the few saints
honored as such
even during his
lifetime.

673-735 AD FEAST DAY: MAY 25

WHO IS BEDE THE VENERABLE?
St. Bede’s own description of himself:
1.“Servant of Christ and

2.Priest of the Monastery of Saints Peter and

Paul which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow.”

“BEDE” is actually the

word for priest in the
old Saxon language!
 WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Baeda in Old English
Beda in Spanish and most other
Romance languages (Latin, Italian,
Portuguese, French) and Filipino
Bede in current English language
https://youtu.be/YfJa-fwB02I
 Born around 672/673 AD
 He was born in Monkton,
Durham.
 At the age of seven he was
entrusted to the care of
Benedict Biscop, who in 674
has founded the monastery of
St. Peter at Wearmouth
 St. Bede entered the St. Peter’s
Monastery in Wearmouth at the
age of seven. He remained at
Wearmouth for about a year until
the founding of a second
monastery.
 St. Bede transferred to the St.
Paul’s Monastery at Jarrow where
he spent the rest of his life,
surrounded by the hundreds of book
s and manuscripts that had been
collected from all corners of
Christendom.
 Had extensive schooling at Wearmouth
monastery, then moved to Jarrow
Monastery.
 The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and
Saint Paul, Monkwearmouth–Jarrow,
known simply as Monkwearmouth–
Jarrow Abbey, was a Benedictine
double monastery in the Kingdom of
Northumbria, England.
 https://youtu.be/tRxRioZP_0A
Remnant of St. Bede’s Monastery in 7th century.
Overview of
St. Bede’s
Monastery
near the river
of Tyne
 Received extensive schooling in the monastery,
more than most noble children of his time.
 Studied calligraphy in the scriptorium, grammar,
music and natural sciences
 At the age of nineteen, St. Bede
was ordained to the deaconate,
extraordinary since the
canonical age was twenty-five.
 By this time, he was already
showing something of his
ability as a teacher and was put
in charge of the education of
the oblate boys and the younger
monks.
 He studied for 11 more years before entering
the priesthood at the age of 30, around the
beginning of the eighth century.
 Ordained a priest at 30 years of age
 By the time of his ordination to the priesthood
in 703, he was already occupied with what
was to be his main interest — the history of
the conversion of his own people and the lives
of the saints of the early English Church.
 Afterward, Bede took on the responsibility of
celebrating daily Mass for the members of his
Benedictine community, while also working
on farming, baking, and other works of the
monastery.
WORK AND MISSION
 As a monk, Bede gave absolute priority to prayer,
fasting and charitable hospitality. He regarded all
other works as valueless without the love of God and
one's neighbor.
 During Bede's own lifetime, his spiritual and
intellectual gifts garnered wide recognition.
 Bede, however, was unfazed by these honors.
 Bede declined a request to become
abbot of his monastery.
 Instead, he concentrated on writing,
and produced more than 45 books – 
about history, rhetoric, mathematics,
music, astronomy, poetry, grammar,
philosophy, hagiography, homiletics,
and the Bible.
 He also taught hundreds of students
at the monastery and its school,
which became renowned throughout
Britain.
 To the toils of teaching and
the exact observance of his
Rule
 he added long hours of
private prayer,
 with the study of every
branch of science and
literature then known. 
 He was familiar with
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. 
 Authored The Ecclesiastical
History of the English People,
his most famous piece
OTHER NOTABLE FACTS ABOUT
ST. BEDE
 The first to use the time reckoning
device of A.D., or Anno Domini
 With a special interest in numbers, he
spent much time and effort
investigating such things as the Church
calendar, in particular attempting to
calculate the precise date of Easter.
Bede’s studies in this area also
popularised the division of time into
the BC and AD system that we still use
today.
 OTHER NOTABLE FACTS ABOUT
ST. BEDE
 The first to indicate sources to
substantiate his work
 The first to translate portions
of the Bible (Gospel of St.
John) into the Old English
form
 The first historian of England,
receiving the title The Father
of English History
THE HOLY DEATH of
ST. BEDE THE
VENERABLE
• In the early summer of 735, his health began to fail, and
he suffered much.
• Bede died of heart disease, on his death bed he just finish
translating the gospel of John.
• He was surrounded by his students listening to his last
words, Singing praises to God.

 
St. Bede on his death bed
request “Take my head in
your hands that I may have
the comfort of sitting
opposite the holy place
where I used to pray, and
so sitting may call upon
my Father." And on the
pavement of his cell, the
brothers around him
singing "Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son, and
to the Holy Ghost,“ St.
Bede peacefully breathed
his last. 
• St. Bede died on the eve of the Ascension, May 26,
735 and was buried in Durham Cathedral.

• The title “Doctor of the

Church,” is an official
designation that is bestowed by
the Pope in recognition of the
outstanding contribution a person
has made to the understanding
and interpretation of the sacred
Scriptures and the development of
Christian doctrine.

 Already recognized a saint right after his death around 735. Declared the only English Doctor of
the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.
 Bede’s monastic life was an
uneventful one and we can sum it
up in his own words:
 'I have spent the whole of my life ...
devoting all my pains to the study of
the Scriptures, and, amid the
observance of monastic discipline and
the daily task of singing in the church,
it has ever been my delight to learn or
teach or write.’
 This summary is in very truth the
whole of Bede's life.
 DURHAM CATHEDRAL

 https://youtu.be/boq3qeLzeww
 Bede composed a five-line
poem on his deathbed
which is popularly known
till date as ‘Bede’s Death
Song’.
Christ is the morning star,
Who when the night of this
world is past
Brings to his saints
The promise of the light of
life
And opens everlasting day.
 SW2: ST. BEDE
 After our discussion on the life of St. Bede,
1. What can we learn from the life and
mission of St. Bede (San Beda)? ( at least
10 sentences)
2. Why do you think our school was
named after St. Bede? (at least 10
sentences)
 NEXT MEETINGS:
 AUGUST 17: Synchronous Session
 MODULE 1: INTRODUCTION TO
SPIRITUALITY
 AUGUST 24: Synchronous session
 Quiz 1 on Module 00 and Module 1
 Time limit: 40 minutes (within 1:50 -2:50)
 One question at a time will be shown
 Question will be locked after answering
 Heavenly Father, who called your
PRAYER in HONOR OF
servant Bede, while still a child, to
ST. BEDE THE
devote his life to your service in the
VENERABLE
disciplines of religion and
scholarship: Grant that as he
labored in the Spirit to bring the
riches of your truth to his
generation, so we, in our various
vocations, may strive to make you
known in all the world; through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.