Saints like David were ordinary people, not post-graduates in goodness, says the Archbishop of Wales.
Celebrating the Patron Saint of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan said saints were people like us who saw God in everyday events and realised His significance.
Speaking on the eve of St David’s Day at the installation of the new Dean of Llandaff, the Archbishop said, “We may not know a great deal about Dewi, but then we do not know a great deal about many of our saints. We have, however, a tendency to think of them as a very special people, people who have reached a kind of post-graduate stage in goodness and who did no wrong. But saints were, in fact, ordinary people like you and me who managed to see God in ordinary every day events and circumstances and also saw that there was a dimension to life that was beyond their reach and their understanding which drew out from them their worship and their love towards the living God
“St David, just before he died, told his fellow monks to ‘be glad and guard your faith, and do the little things which you have heard from me’. The trouble is we think it is only the big things that count and that these are beyond our reach, but little things count as well. How often have you heard people say that a seemingly small and insignificant word or gesture has transformed a difficult situation, encounter or relationship?
“We need to be gentle with one another; we need to realise the significance of seemingly small things such as patience, courtesy, perseverance, generosity and love. For it is these things which, in the end, make up most of our lives, those and the refusal to hold grievances against one another.
“We need to open our minds and hearts to God to do what we can, where we can, as we can, to the people we can and then leave the rest to Him because after all it is His church and His kingdom.”
