Thought for the week

Friends
This Sunday is St. Andrew’s day. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland,
but how did that come to be? According to early Christian writers,
Andrew conducted missionary journeys in Scythia. The Scythians were
a nomadic people from Eastern Europe who eventually migrated
throughout Europe some ending up in Scotland where according to the
1320 document, the Declaration of Arbroath, they settled and became
the modern day Scots. It is certain that Picts and Gaels continued to live
alongside them, but the writers of the declaration were making the case
for Scotland’s independence and claim that the Scottish people in their
entirety were now descended from Scythians. By noting the separate
ethnicity, the writers were furthering their claim to independence, and by
confirming the link with Andrew, they were allying themselves with the
Papacy and its link to Andrew’s brother Peter in the hope that the Pope
would rescind his excommunication of Robert the Bruce and legitimise
their fight with the English.
Scotland’s link with Andrew had been in place for nearly 500 years
already, when in a similar experience to that of Constantine, the Pictish
King Oengus II saw a white, X-shaped cross against a blue sky before
his army was to fight a much larger Anglo-Saxon horde, and vowed to
make St. Andrew the patron saint if his army was victorious. The legend
dates the initial adoption to 832, but it was the 1320 declaration that
confirmed it.
Like many of our stories of connections with saints and the apostles, the
truth of the story may never be told, but out of warfare and difficulty
came something which offered hope and faith to people who were
struggling. We too need stories that remind us that God is with us and in
a 24-hour news cycle that is all too depressing, we need to look for
these stories in our own lives. One of the long-held traditions of the
Church, and a part of the Methodist Diaconal Way of Life, is the daily
examen, where we replay the day in our minds in a prayerful way, asking
the question “Where was God in that?” and giving thanks for the
answers. If it is not currently a part of your prayer life, why not try it for a
few days and see where it leads.
God bless, Vicci