St. Cuthbert's Parish History
When the original Pugin Church of St. Oswald was built, Old Swan was a small country village several miles outside Liverpool. It was ample for the congregation of the time. However by 1924 the village church had become too small for the densely populated area Old Swan had become. Despite having five Masses every Sunday it became evident that a portion of the parish had to be cut off and made into a new parish.
St. Oswald's Parish Priest, Canon Clarkson, found a suitable site in Aviemore Road, Stanley. The first Parish Priest, Fr. James Lonergan, was appointed in 1925 to oversee the fundraising and building of the new church. he became ill and was replaced by Fr. John Noblet.
St. Cuthbert's site was originally purchased for a new school and temporary church. The total cost for the new building was £17,000 and with a congregation of 1,000 people this was considered to be a huge financial burden. The church placed in the first floor "is designed to be used eventually as a school, the arrangement is so, if extra school accommodation is required, for extra classrooms could be provided at once with a minimum of structural change... The church portion has a niche for a figure of St. Cuthbert with a stone canopy over. This decorative feature is placed so that it is visible from Prescot Road, and it is hoped will give some religious and artictic feeling to a dreary neigbourhood."
Alfred Gilbertson, Architect.
After over 70 years the temporary church destined to become a fuller part of the school fabric. In 2002 after much consultation, the parish of St. Cuthbert and St. Brendan were re-united with the mother church, that of St. Oswald and became of parish community. St. Brendan's was to stay open as a shrine and a chapel in St. Owald's was dedicated to St. Cuthbert on All Saints day 2003.
Saint Cuthbert
St. Cuthbert. Monk and Bishop, 634-687
Born into a noble Anglo-Saxon family in 634, he was sent at the age of eight to Bishop Aidan's school on Lindisfarne. Even as a child his prayers were often thought to be miraculously answered. Though serving under Oswald in defending Bamburgh Castle against the Mercians, he spent most of his youth as a shepherd, and after seeing Aidan's soul ascending to heaven in a vision as his teacher died, he vowed to become a monk.
He entered Melrose Abbey under Bishop Boisel in 651 and soon acquired a reputation for asceticism. Later he accompanied Bishop Eata when the latter founded a monastery at Ripon and he became guest master. They returned in 660 and during an epidemic, atMelrose on the death of bishop Boisel, Cuthbert became Prior. The Synod of Whitby in 664 adopted the Roman rather than Celtic form of Christianity but those who opposed them returned to Iona.
Cuthbert made long missionary journeys from Melrose to e.g. Coldingham where St.Oswald's sister was Abbess. In 669 Eata was made Bishop of Lindisfarne and took Cuthbert with him as Prior. His evangelising work continued to be based on Whitby decisions and ensured unity with other parts of the growing Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
In 676 he retired to the solitude of the Farne Islands but after eight years he was called to be Bishop of Hexham. He quickly changed sees with Eata and at Easter 685 he was consecrated Bishop of Lindisfarne. He resigned after a year, returning thankfully to his hermitage on the Inner Farne where he lived a life of isolation, prayer and penance. On 20th March 687 he died and was buried on Lindisfarne, his body remaining incorrupt and an object of pious devotion for the next century.
The Viking raids began in 793 and the first casualty was the monastery but his shrine was unmolested. After another eighty years of disturbance, the monks decided to move the body to the mainland and there followed nearly 200 years of flight and journeying round Northumbria, Yorkshire, Lancashire, with a rest of 110 years at Chester-le-Street. In 995 a miraculous sign indicated a place where, later, Durham Cathedral was built and this was chosen as the site for burial. Pilgrims flocked to Cuthbert's tomb which became famous as a place renowned for miracles. The Saint was reburied in 1104 behind the high altar; in 123-, the Chapel of the Nine Altars was built and a new shrine of marble and gilt alabaster was erected in 1372. The present tomb inscribed with the single word, 'Cuthbertus' dates from 1899.