Remembering St. Dunstan

Today is, on the Catholic Calendar (the Martyrology), the Day of St. Dunstan. It just so happens to also be my birthday and Dunstan just so happens to be my favorite saint on the Catholic roster. The patron saint of armorers and blacksmiths was also a musician and is remembered for his great zeal for the Kingdom of Heaven. He lived 79 fruitful years in the 10th century, serving as Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Worcester and London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury.
He was a worker of metals and was known for traveling the country, visiting churches in need of repair - both structurally and spiritually. His boldness in Christ was remarkable and extended not only to church reform, but all the way up to national royalty. In 955, he was sent into a two-year exile by King Edwig for criticizing the young ruler's life of immorality. In a recorded prayer, Dunstan pleads with the Lord for mercy upon this world, which he saw even in his time as a desperate and dying one.

O Sun of Righteousness, in all unclouded glory,

supreme Dispenser of Justice, in that great Day

when Thou shalt strictly judge all nations,

we earnestly beseech Thee, upon this Thy people,

who here stand before Thy presence, in Thy pity,

Lord, then have mercy upon us.

Lastly, as is the case with most saints, there is a legend which inevitably follows his name wherever it is said. And while it is somewhat unbelievable, taken as mere mythos in our modern world, I embrace the precept of it and even accept the lore as true story. After all, why not?! Dunstan was working late one night in his smithy, when the devil came to harass him. Charles Dickens relates well the rest of the story in his classic A Christmas Carol -

St Dunstan, as the story goes,
Once pull'd the devil by the nose
With red-hot tongs, which made him roar,
That he was heard three miles or more.

Dunstan was a pious man, with a heart for the Lord's work. He lived humbly before the Lord and, as such, bold before man. His passion and commitment to ministry and Truth are unparalleled and inspiring to me, as they were to the Church in his day. I can only hope to live such a life myself, and to leave such a legacy in my wake. I leave you with this prayer, commended by the Episcopal Church in the name of this great man of God - 

O God of truth and beauty,

who didst richly endow Thy bishop Dunstan

with skill in music and the working of metals,

and with gifts of administration and zeal;

Teach us, we beseech Thee, to see in Thee

the source of all our talents,

and move us to offer them for the adornment of worship

and the advance of true religion;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.

Amen.