Saint Birinus, Bishop

December 3 Today is the feast day of Saint Birinus.  Ora pro nobis. Saint Birinus date of birth is unknown. He was the first Bishop of Dorchester (in what is now the County of Oxford, not Dorchester, the capital of Dorsetshire). Birinus had great devotion for the Body of Our Lord, as is shown in the account of his walking on the sea to procure the corporal given him by Pope Honorius, wherein he ever carried the Blessed Eucharist. According to Bede, Birinus came to Britain on the advice of Pope Honorius I (625-638), having been consecrated bishop by Asterius at Genoa. He promised “to sow the seed of the holy faith in the inner parts beyond the English“, but on his arrival (634) found the West Saxons so pagan that he decided to devoted his ministry to them. God blessed his zeal by the conversion of their king, Cynegils (635), of his son Cwichelm (636), and of Cwichelm’s son Cuthred (639). Cynegils’ daughter (Cyneburga?) was also baptized, and Oswald, the holy King of Northumbria, who had come to Cynegils in suit of her hand, was sponsor to her father and wedded her. Doubtless his presence helped Birinus much in his ...

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