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St David Today

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

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Who is St David? Or perhaps we should rather ask: what is he? Is he a symbol only, the human equivalent of leek or dragon, mythical, providing a happy opportunity for a patriotic toast or for the annual generalisations of public persons? Or does he remain powerful in his own right, with something still to say to his own people? There is no harder task than the rediscovery of what is familiar. To see the room in which you sit as new, to know your friends afresh; yes, but good-natured habit and, even more, laziness are always urging us to accept instead of to enquire. For the myth grows old and respectable, and its origin was forgotten long ago. Fourteen centuries of time and an infinity of change separate us from St David. To rediscover him means by-passing almost the whole of our history and surrendering quite a lot of our prejudices.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1950 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 The text of a broadcast talk given from Cardiff on the 27th February, 1949; by courtesy of the B.B.C.