St David, known in Welsh as Dewi Sant, flourished in the sixth century as one of the most influential figures of the Celtic Church. A native of Wales, he was renowned as a teacher, preacher, and monastic founder, establishing communities and churches throughout Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and beyond.

His principal foundation at Menevia, where St David’s Cathedral now stands in the far west of Pembrokeshire, became a celebrated centre of learning and holiness. The community David gathered there was distinguished by its commitment to radical simplicity. His monks drank only water (earning David the nickname Aquaticus, “The Waterman”), ate only bread with salt and herbs, and pulled the plough themselves without the help of draught animals.

Yet David’s spirituality was never austere for its own sake. His asceticism was rooted in the traditions of the Desert Fathers but tempered with pastoral warmth and deep compassion for the poor and suffering. He was a bishop who served his people with gentleness, a teacher who made the faith accessible, and a leader whose example spoke more powerfully than his words.

Dewi Sant: The Waterman

His Final Words

David’s legacy is captured in the last words he spoke to his community, words that have echoed down the centuries and become the spiritual heart of Wales: “Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do.”

These words, so apparently simple, contain a profound spiritual programme. They speak of joy as the proper disposition of the Christian life, of faith as something to be guarded and lived rather than merely professed, and of holiness as the faithful attention to ordinary duties rather than the pursuit of the spectacular. It is this spirituality of the “little things” (y pethau bychain) that gives the Order of St David its distinctive character.

Our Rule of Life

The Order draws from two great wells of Christian wisdom. The first is the Celtic monastic tradition of St David, with its emphasis on closeness to creation, joyful simplicity, and the awareness of what the Celtic saints called the thin places -- those moments and spaces where heaven seems very close to earth. The second is the Rule of St Benedict, one of the most enduring guides to Christian life ever written, with its gentle wisdom, its balance of prayer and work, and its call to stability and conversion of life.

Together, these two traditions shape a Rule of Life that is practical, grounded, and suited to people living in the modern world.

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