St David, Bishop and Patron of Wales

The headline said it all. ‘Wales and World honour St David.’ A quick read through the article on the BBC’s News website gave a colourful collection of various things that happened around the world to honour St David: from free entry to the Botanical Gardens of Wales near Carmarthen inviting hundreds of people to turn up in traditional Welsh dress and break the wordld record for the largest gathering of people in welsh dress. The St David’s Day marches went off in Cardiff and elsewhere, the Mayor of London raised the Welsh flag over the city for two days and wished every one a happy St David’s Day, Chester Zoo offered free entry to anyone with the name ‘David’ and across the waters in Chicago, the iconic Wrigley Building was lit up on St David's Day evening in the red, green and white of the Welsh flag, while Sir Tom Jones performed in concert in Boston. Meanwhile the Welsh Rugby team lose to France slashing our Grand Slam hopes! Yes, Wales and the World have been honouring St David.

Or have they? Did all of those celebrations – and many more like them – really honour St David? They certainly celebrated St David’s Day, they definitely celebrated the nation of Wales and what it may mean to be Welsh – but I suspect that honouring of St David came a very distant second – a bit like the Welsh Rugby team on Friday night. Of course, David is the patron saint of Wales and the day we celebrate any nation’s patron saint often gets assuaged by a celebration of what it means to be a member of that nation…and that is, or should be, all well and good. But if we were to honour St David – truly honour him – what would we do? And who would we be honouring anyway?

Little historical fact is known about St David: there are anecdotes and stories and tales to tell, which provide interesting material. But in honouring St David we would, first and foremost, be honouring a man of faith: a man who strived for holiness, a man who worked so hard to try to live the life that God wanted him to live. A man who attempted to place Christ at the heart of all he did and said. In honouring St David we would, first and foremost, be following his well-known call (to us, at least) to ‘Be joyful’ and ‘Keep the Faith’ - not a bad catchphrase to have and certainly a good one to live by. We would be honouring a man who worked hard for the sake of the gospel, who embraced the gospel whole-heartedly and who by his leadership and inspiration enabled the gospel to grow among the people of Wales. ‘Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about,’ he said. So it seems that if we wish to honour St David we don’t need to do very much at all. It seems that we only have to do the little things that David himself has done. And what are those little things? Are they rasing the welsh flag, eating welsh cakes or wearing daffodils? As fun as they are and as much as I like doing all of those things they are not the things that really matter. We need to look for the small things that we can do that will share the gospel with those with whom we live, to bring the compassion and love and healing of Christ to those whom we meet from day to day. And no matter what comes our way, or what way we take, to be joyful and to keep the faith of Christ.