HOLY BIRNSTAN (BIRSTAN, BEORNSTAN), BISHOP OF
WINCHESTER
Our holy Father Birnstan followed St. Frithestan as Bishop of Winchester
in 931. His steadfast way was to offer the Holy Mass, then hearken to
the wretched, washing them and giving them food, and then beseech God alone for
a long while. At night he would go about the graveyard bidding God to soothe the souls
of the dead. Once, after bidding: “May they rest in frith,” he heard a voice
as if of an unending army of souls answering: “Amen”. He died while
beseeching God alone in 934, and was more or less forgotten for about forty
years.
One night, St. Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, was working in front of
the holy relics of his bishopric when three ghostly people came to him. The middle
of these then said: “I am Birnstan, once bishop of this town. Here,” he said, of the man on his right, “is Birinus, the first gospel-bearer. And here,” he
said, of the man on his left, “is Swithun, the marked lord of this
church and town. You should know that even as you see me here with
them now, so I have no unmatched brightness with them in Heaven. Why then am I
bereaved of the hailing of men, when I am hailed in the Church of the
heavenly beings?”
St. Birnstan is hailed on November 4.
Holy Father Birnstan, beseech God for us!