Saint David
Patron Saint of Wales.
Born c 500 in Caerfai, Pembrokeshire
Died on 1st March 589 in St David's, Pembrokeshire
Abbot of Mynyw monasatery (Menevia) & Primate of Wales
Canonized in 1123 in Rome by Pope Calixtus II
Feast Day - 1st March
Major shrine - St David's Cathedral
3 2us by Father David Barnes 
"Another David, living 500 years after Christ, is the patron saint of Wales. He too wanted to put his whole heart into loving God. As a young priest he defended Catholic teaching, especially about how Christ alone saves us from the power of sin which is destructive of our humanity and how our humanity grows only with the help of God's grace. David lived a very ascetic life, he founded monasteries where a very simple life was promoted, a life stripped of as many material things as possible. It was not that he saw material things as bad, but simply that our attachment to material things, an over-dependence on them blinds us to the love of God. He became known as the waterman because his monks drank only water, a way of wanting to rely totally on God."
St Davids, Wales (during Pilgrimage 2000)
To be a Pilgrim: Ruth, from Britain
"I walked as a pilgrim for the first 10 days from St Davids and ended up in Swansea. It was the most wonderful gift. St Davids itself I had never visited before and it's a very ancient cathedral tucked into a sort of bowl in the hill so that the steeple wasn't visible from the sea, so that pirates wouldn't come and maraude them. White Sands Beach, very close by, is where St Patrick is thought to have set sail for Ireland, having been there as a slave and then been set free and come back to Wales and then having this sense that God was asking himself to go and evangelize the Irish. So it's steeped in Christianity and its history. If you could do the equation process, it was 2 pilgrimages to St Davids 'equals' 1 pilgrimage to Rome. And it was a very popular pilgrim destination. "
