Patrick Comerford
The Season of Lent began earlier this month on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and today is the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II, 25 February 2024).
Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated by the Church of England in the Calendar of Common Worship.
Later this morning, I hope to attend the Parish Eucharist in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton. But, before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;
2, today’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Early English pre-Reformation saints: 12, Saint Chad of Lichfield
Saint Chad of Lichfield, who is commemorated in Common Worship on 2 March, died on 2 March 672. He was a prominent seventh century Anglo-Saxon abbot who became the Bishop of the Northumbrians and subsequently Bishop of the Mercians or Lichfield. He features strongly in the work of Venerable Bede and, alongside his brother Saint Cedd, he is credited with introducing Christianity to the Mercian kingdom.
Much of what we know about Saint Chad comes from the writings of the Venerable Bede, who gleaned details about Saint Chad and Saint Cedd from the monks of Lastingham, where both brothers were abbots.
Saint Chad was one of four brothers: the others were Cedd, Cynibil and Caelin. Chad seems to have been younger than Cedd, and the four brothers seem to have been from a family of Northumbrian nobility. However, the name Chad is Celtic, rather than Anglo-Saxon in origin, and it is found in the names of many Welsh princes and nobles.
Bede says that in his early life Saint Chad was a student of Saint Aidan in Lindisfarne, along his own brother Cedd. Chad later travelled to Ireland as a monk, before he was ordained as a priest. He and his companion Egbert travelled together to Ireland while Finan and Colmán were Bishops at Lindisfarne. This indicates they went to Ireland after Saint Aidan died in 651. Egbert later recalled that he and Saint Chad ‘followed the monastic life together very strictly – in prayers, in continence and in meditation on Holy Scripture.’
Saint Chad’s time in Ireland fits into the period 651-664, for in 664 he was back in Northumbria to take over from his brother Cedd, who was stricken by the plague.
During Chad’s lifetime, there was continuing conflict between Northumbria and Mercia. Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, continually campaigned against Northumbrian rulers, usually with the support of the Christian Welsh princes. In 641, Penda inflicted a crushing defeat on the Northumbrians, killing King Oswald. Northumbria was not fully reunited by Oswald’s successor, Oswiu, until 651. Oswiu then defeated and killed Penda in 655, causing the decline of Mercia for a more than a decade, and allowing the Northumbrian rulers to intervene in Mercian affairs.
Saint Chad departed from Roman practices in vital ways – before and after the Synod of Whitby. But the course of his life between his time in Ireland and his emergence as a Church leader is unknown, and fresh details emerge again only with Bede’s account of Cedd’s career and the founding of their monastery at Lastingham.
Saint Cedd became a prominent figure in the Church in Northumbria while Saint Chad was in Ireland. Oswiu sent him on a difficult mission to the Middle Angles or Mercia in 653. He was recalled after a year, was sent on a similar mission to the East Saxons, and he was consecrated bishop soon after. Later, Saint Cedd became Abbot of Lastingham.
Saint Chad reappears on the Church scene in 664, shortly after the Synod of Whitby (663-664), when many Church leaders had died of the plague. When Cedd died, Saint Chad succeeded him as the Abbot at Lastingham.
When Saint Colmán, Bishop of the Northumbrians, left for Scotland after the Synod of Whitby decided against him, he was succeeded by Tuda, who lived for only a short time after.
Later, King Oswiu invited Saint Chad to become Bishop of the Northumbrians. He travelled to Canterbury for his consecration, but found that Archbishop Deusdedit had died and had not been replaced. He then travelled to Wessex, where he was consecrated by Bishop Wini of the West Saxons and two Welsh bishops.
Bede recalls that, as a bishop, Saint Chad visited the towns, countryside, cottages, villages and houses in order to preach the Gospel.
Bishop Wilfrid returned to his diocese in 666 to find he had been replaced as bishop by Saint Chad and asserted his episcopal authority by going into Mercia and as far as Kent to ordain priests.
A new Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, arrived in England in 669. He instructed Chad to step down in favour of Wilfrid. Yet, Theodore was so impressed by Chad’s humility that he confirmed his episcopal consecration. Saint Chad then retired gracefully and resumed his post as Abbot of Lastingham.
Later that same year, King Wulfhere of Mercia, the Christian son of Penda, requested a bishop for Mercia. Archbishop Theodore called Saint Chad out of his retirement in Lastingham.
Archbishop Theodore was greatly impressed by Chad’s humility and holiness, including his refusal to use a horse, walking everywhere instead. However, despite his regard for Saint Chad, Archbishop Theodore ordered him to ride on long journeys and on one occasion even lifted him into the saddle.
Saint Chad then became the fifth bishop of the Mercians, with a territory centred on the middle Trent and lower Tame – the area around Lichfield, Tamworth and Repton.
Because Wulfhere donated land in Lichfield for Saint Chad to build a monastery, the centre of the Diocese of Mercia became settled on Lichfield. Lichfield was beside the old Roman road of Watling Street, the main route across Mercia, and a short distance from Mercia’s main royal centre in Tamworth. But the Diocese of Mercia was expansive, stretching across England, from coast to coast.
Saint Chad’s monastic house in Lichfield may have been similar to the monastery in Lastingham, and it was partly staffed by monks from Lastingham. Indeed, Saint Chad remained Abbot of Lastingham for the rest of his life.
When he became bishop, Saint Chad set out to initiate missionary and pastoral work in Mercia, and, according to Bede, he governed the diocese ‘in the manner of the ancient fathers and in great perfection of life.’ He built a small house at Lichfield, a short distance from the church, large enough for his eight disciples.
However, Saint Chad worked in Mercia for only 2½ years before he too died of the plague on 2 March 672. He was buried at the Church of Saint Mary, which later became part of Lichfield Cathedral.
Many years later, his friend Egbert told a visitor that someone in Ireland had seen the heavenly company coming for Saint Chad’s soul and returning with it to heaven. However the story is also told of Saint Owini the hermit of Lichfield.
According to Bede, Saint Chad was venerated as a saint immediately after his death, and his relics were translated to a new shrine. There he was revered throughout the Middle Ages. His tomb was in the apse, directly behind the high altar of Lichfield cathedral, while his skull was kept in a special chapel, above the south aisle.
When Saint Chad died in 672, pilgrims began to visit his shrine. In 700, Bishop Hedda built a new church to house the saint’s bones. From 1085 into the 12th century, the Saxon church was replaced by a Norman cathedral, and then by the Gothic cathedral begun in 1195.
Pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint Chad continued for many years. The cathedral was expanded by the addition of a Lady Chapel, and by 1500 there were as many as 20 altars around the Cathedral.
At the dissolution of the shrine at the same time as the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, Canon Arthur Dudley of Lichfield Cathedral removed and retained some relics. They passed from him to his nieces, Bridget and Katherine Dudley of Russells Hall. They were found again in 1651 in the home of a dying farmer, Henry Hodgetts, who gave them to the Jesuit priest who heard his last confession. They were later moved to the Seminary at St Omer in France.
Lichfield Cathedral was severely damaged during the Civil War, coming under siege three times in the mid-17th century. Bishop John Hacket restored the cathedral in the 1660s, and William Wyatt made substantial changes in the 18th century, but Saint Chad’s relics never returned to the cathedral.
The relics came into the possession of Sir Thomas Fitzherbert-Brockholes of Aston Hall, near Stone, Staffordshire, in the early 19th century. After his death, they were presented to Bishop Thomas Walsh, the Roman Catholic Vicar Apostolic of the Midlands, in 1837 and were enshrined in Saint Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham, in a new shrine designed by AWM Pugin.
Meanwhile, the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott was responsible for the successful restoration of Lichfield Cathedral to its mediaeval splendour in 1858-1878.
The Chapel of Saint Chad’s Head in Lichfield Cathedral recalls that the saint’s skull was kept here until the Reformation. The site of his mediaeval shrine is also marked in the cathedral.
Saint Chad’s Well, where Saint Chad is said to have baptised his converts, is in the churchyard at Saint Chad’s Church close to Lichfield Cathedral.
Today, Lichfield Cathedral still stands at the heart of the Diocese of Lichfield and is a focus for the regular worship of God, the life of a thriving community, the work of God in the wider world, and for pilgrimage. A new pilgrim route from Lindisfarne to Lichfield, marks the missionary journey of Saint Chad from Holy Island in Northumbria to Lichfield Cathedral in Mercia.
Mark 8: 43-48 (NRSVA):
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 25 February 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Lent Reflection: Freedom in Christ.’ This theme is introduced today by the Revd Bianca Daébs (Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil):
If, therefore, the Son sets you free, you will be free (John 8: 36)
The theme of freedom is present in many biblical texts, especially in some passages of the Gospel, such as in the text of John 3: 36, which emphasises the theme of Freedom in Christ. The text says, “If Jesus sets you free, you can be truly free.” So here are two questions: free from what and free for what?
To answer both questions, you need to draw closer to Jesus and understand the principles that drive your life and faith.
The freedom to love the other as oneself, the exercise of otherness proposed in the Gospel of Jesus, invites us to two movements: the first is to recognize our captivity, to know exactly where our ties are, our difficulty in prioritizing what really matters, what transcends in our relationships. It is only after this experience of the emptying of our vanities that we can go beyond ourselves, towards others.
In the world God has planned for us, the freedom to love and serve guides human relationships. Anything that violates these relationships leads us away from the dignified and righteous life that God has designed for us.
Today, Jesus, through his message, continues to invite us to experience the true freedom that enables us to break the captivity that still binds us in order to freely and collectively build a more just and dignified world.
This is a sample taken from the 2024 USPG Lent Course which you can download and order from the USPG website www.uspg.org.uk
The USPG Prayer Diary today (25 February 2024, Lent II) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:
You shall go out in joy and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands
(Isaiah 55.12)
The Collect:
Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
you see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:
keep us both outwardly in our bodies,
and inwardly in our souls;
that we may be defended from all adversities
which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
by the prayer and discipline of Lent
may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings,
and by following in his Way
come to share in his glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection: Saint James the Deacon of York
Tomorrow: Saint Ethelburga, Abbess of Barking
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
No comments:
Post a Comment