Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne
Bishop & Missionary · 590–651
“He neither sought nor loved anything of this world, but delighted in distributing immediately to the poor whatever was given him by kings or wealthy persons.”
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book III
Aidan grew up in Ireland and became a monk on the island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland. When the Christian king Oswald of Northumbria asked the monks of Iona to send a missionary, the first guy they sent came back complaining the English were too stubborn to convert. Aidan stood up in the meeting and said, basically, 'Maybe try being a little gentler.' The room looked at him and said, 'You go then.' He did.
King Oswald gave him the tidal island of Lindisfarne, just off the Northumbrian coast, and Aidan turned it into a monastery and a launch pad. He walked everywhere, which was unusual for a bishop at the time. He'd stop and talk to anyone, rich or poor. When the king once gave him a horse so he wouldn't have to walk, Aidan gave it away to the first beggar he met. Oswald heard about it and Aidan asked him, half-joking, whether he valued a horse more than a child of God.
He ransomed slaves with money given to him by the wealthy. He trained a generation of English priests. He built schools. He founded churches across Northumbria almost single-handedly. Bede, who wasn't easily impressed, wrote about Aidan with obvious admiration, saying his life was simply different from his words only in that his actions were better.
Aidan died leaning against a church wall he'd just helped rebuild, in 651. Lindisfarne went on to become one of the great centers of Christian learning in early medieval Europe. Not bad for the guy who volunteered when no one else would.