I've decided when I get my little woodland chapel area built out at Wilderstead, I'm going to call it St.-Cuthbert-in-the-Vale. Cuthbert was a great man, but a simple one. He built himself a hermitage on Farne Island (Lindesfarne), but was coaxed out of retirement to be a bishop. Did that well, then retired to his island again. Wilderstead is my hermitage, so I thought Cuthbert would be an appropriate patron. The other choice would have been St. Hubert, but he was French and I was looking for someone Old English.
We Protestants don't make much of the saints, which is a shame. We tend to canonize Good Causes rather than Good People (Human Relations Day, Week of Prayer for Xtn Unity, One Great Hour of Sharing, UM Student Day . . .). We also load all these commemorations onto Sunday observances. Churches who observe the calendar of saints lift up people who are exemplars of many virtues and many ways of facing situations. And when their special days land on a Sunday, they get moved off to the next convenient date so that Sunday can be reserved for commemorating Christ.
I created a calendar of saints for United Methodists over twenty years ago. Never went anywhere with it. Still think it would be worthwhile to emphasize the saints more.
