TODAY is the Feast of St David of Wales (ca. 512-587), known in Welsh as Dewi Sant.
The 11th century chronciler Rhygyvarch tells how St Patrick (whose feast day falls later this month) hoped to centre his ministry in Wales, but was forestalled by an angel.
HE came to the country of the people of Ceredigion, wherein he sojourned a little while. He enters Demetica rura, the country of Dyved, and there wandering about arrived at length at the place which was named Vallis Rosina; and perceiving that the place was pleasant, he vowed to serve God faithfully there.
But when he was revolving these things in his mind, an angel of the Lord appeared to him. “God,” said he, “hath not disposed this place for thee, but for a son who is not yet born, nor will he be born until thirty years are past.”
Rhygyvarch’s “Life of David” §3, tr. Arthur Wade-Evans.
This son as yet unborn was David. He rose from being Abbot of a small monastery to being a much-loved Bishop and a tireless monastic founder in Wales. According to Rhygyvarch and others, David’s consecration as a Bishop was even performed in Jerusalem by the Patriarch under divine guidance.
On returning to Wales he was acclaimed by the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi as their spokesman for a Welsh revival.
“We beseech thee that by his intercession, whose memory we celebrate, we may come to the eternal joys.” An icon of St David of Wales.
GOD, who didst fortell thy blessed confessor and pontiff, David, by the announcement of an angel to Patrick, prophesying thirty years before he was born, we beseech thee that by his intercession, whose memory we celebrate, we may come to the eternal joys, through [thy Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen].
Collect for St David’s Day, given in Arthur Wade-Evans’s translation for Rhygyvarch’s “Life of David”.
