St Ternan

Feast Day - 12th June of the Bishop to the Picts.

St Ternan - 5th Century

St Ternan was a Mearns man (Kincardineshire) who had a rather illustrious association with St Pallidius, who had been led to the young man by an angel. St Palladius baptized him and then raised him as a Christian. As a young man St Ternan went to Rome and gained instruction and training under Pope Gregory who eventually consecrated him a Bishop. After seven years St Ternan returned to his homeland with the mission to share the gospel with his fellow Picts. There are a number of stories surrounding the Pictish Saint including a Bell called the Ronecht which after being presented by Pope Gregory to St Ternan followed him all the way back to Scotland. Another one relates to when St Machar asked St Ternan for some corn seed. St Ternan did not have any but instead filled sacks with sand and sent them. Rather than be offended St Machar saw it as a sign of faith and planted the sand which created a bumper harvest! After his death and for a thousand years, it is said, his head was held in a gold and silver embossed box and on the place on his skull where he had been consecrated, the skin was still attached. He was also known for his Gospel of St Mathew, a cumdach or book shrine, which was decorated in in the same way as the Book of Kells and others like it. He was buried in Banchory-Ternan, just West of Aberdeen. His Ronecht may well be the same Bell as the one hanging in Banchory Ternan East Church.

Let the faith of St Ternan show us that what we may think we sow as sand, with faith, can become a fruitful and bumper harvest. (Mathew 13:23)