Mother Hild (Midweek Message)

 

The image of St. Hild on Caedmon's Cross, holding a bishop's crosier and a model of Whitby Abbey and surrounded by the bishops of the Synod of Whitby.  At her feet are ammonites,  fossils common in Whitby, thought in pious legend to be evidence of her miraculous saving of the Abbey by turning deadly snakes into stone. 

Mother Hild

Father Tony’s Midweek Message

November 18, 2015

Today is the feast day of St. Hild of Whitby (known more frequently in English by her Latinized name, Hilda), who died on 17 November 680.  Most of what we know about her is recorded in St. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. She was born in 614 C.E. into the royal family of Northumbria and was brought up at court.   She was baptized a Christian at the age of thirteen with the whole court of King Edwin by Paulinus, an Italian missionary sent by Pope Gregory the Great.  Formed in the local Celtic Christianity of northern England and Scotland, and encouraged by Aidan of Lindisfarne, she took religious vows at the age of 33.   She established and lived most of her life at the abbey monastery at Whitby, at the time one of the great centers of learning and spirituality in the British Isles, and home to separate cloistered communities of monks and nuns.   Loved and respected as abbess and granted the honors of a bishop, she nurtured many, including several who later became bishops, as well as Caedmon, the poet and singer of tales who wrote what is seen as the first poem in English, the Dream of the Rood (the Cross). 

In 664 Whitby was chosen to host a great synod of the church to resolve the differences between the practices of the newly arrived Roman mission and somewhat locally limited Celtic Christian practices that went back to the first century.  These included such things and the dating of Easter, the style of monastic garb and haircuts, and rites and ceremonies in Divine Liturgy.   As host of the Synod, Hild was instrumental in getting the two sides to listen to each other.  When eventually the Roman mission succeeded in having its practices endorsed and the monks of Lindisfarne walked out (eventually to end up in Ireland), Hild was key in reconciling Britons of all types to the newly established single Church of England lead by two primates, one archbishop in Canterbury in Southern England and one in nearby York, together with its largely Roman calendar and practices.  She did this despite her own formation in the Celtic Church because of her dedication to the idea of the unity of Christians.   

St. Bede says of Hild, “She established a Rule of Life…  and taught the observance of righteousness, mercy, purity, and other virtues, but especially of peace and charity.  After the example of the primitive Church, no one there was rich, no one was needy, for everything was held in common, and nothing was considered to be anyone’s personal property. … All who knew Abbess Hilda, the handmaid of Christ, called her mother because of her wonderful devotion and grace.” 

Eternal God, who made the abbess Hild to shine like a jewel and through her holiness and leadership blessed your Church with new life and unity: help us, like her, to yearn for the gospel of Christ and to reconcile those who are divided; through him who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen