Saturday 17th May is the transferred (optional) Memorial of St. Dunstan (909 -988), one of the most culturally important characters of the tenth century. He was educated by Irish monks at Glastonbury and as a young man spent time in the household of his uncle Athelm, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Later, he seems to have suffered a serious illness but after his recovery, he decided to take monastic vows and was ordained a priest by Alphege, the Bishop of Winchester. Eventually he became Abbot of Glastonbury and his work led to a real renaissance of English monastic life after the Scandinavian invasions. Dunstan set about rebuilding and enlarging the abbey and he adopted a strict Benedictine rule. Thanks to the politics of the time, he was for a while exiled to northern Europe but later recalled to become the Bishop of Worcester and eventually Archbishop of Canterbury. He worked closely with the King to revive English monastic life. He died in 988. He is traditionally regarded as a craftsman or a blacksmith and is often shown in art holding the devil by the nose with a pair of tongues. Let us ask the Holy Spirit this week to instil new joy and vigour into the members of the Benedictine communities of our Diocese and to grant them many new vocations. [Image: British Library][Portsmouth Diocese e-News]