Daily prayer in Lent with early English saints: 22, 6 March 2024, Saint Willibrord of York

Saint Willibrord of York, Apostle to Frisia and the first Archbishop of Utrecht

Patrick Comerford

The Season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024), and this week began with the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III, 3 March 2024).

Throughout Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated in Common Worship.

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.

Saint Willibrord depicted in a stained-glass window in the basilica in Echternach, Luxembourg

Early English pre-Reformation saints: 22, Saint Willibrord of York

Saint Willibrord of York (739), Bishop, Apostle of Frisia, is commemorated in the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship on 7 November. He was born in Northumbria, educated at Ripon and grew up under the influence of Wilfrid, Bishop of York. Later he joined the Benedictines. Between the ages of 20 and 32, he was in the Abbey of Rath Melsigi in Co Carlow, then a centre of learning.

But the main part of his life was dedicated to his missionary work in Frisia and northern Germany. He built many churches, inaugurated bishoprics and consecrated cathedrals. The cathedral in Utrecht, with a diocesan organisation based on that of Canterbury, is his best-known foundation.

With his younger contemporary Boniface, he began a century of English Christian influence on continental Christianity. Alcuin described him as venerable, gracious and full of joy, and his ministry as based on energetic preaching informed by prayer and sacred reading.

He died on 7 November 739 and was buried at Echternach monastery in Luxembourg, which he founded. He is the patron saint of the Netherlands.

A joint ecumenical diocesan pilgrimage of about 60 people travelled from Carlow to Echternach to take part in the ‘Dancing Procession’ in June 2017, when Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg presented a Relic of Saint Willibrord to Bishop Denis Nulty. Later that month, 29 people from Echternach visited Co Carlow to take part in the Walk with Willibrord, when the relic was walked from Saint Laserian’s Church of Ireland Cathedral in Old Leighlin to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow.

A statue of Saint Willibrord in Echternach

Matthew 5: 17-19 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.’

A statue of Saint Willibrord in Carlow Cathedral (Photograph: Sheila1988 / Wikipedia)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 6 March 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 ‘International Women’s Day Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Beverley A Mason, Bishop of Warrington.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (6 March 2024) invites us to pray with these words:

Pray for all women who are holding households, people, family, friends and businesses together. Where a woman has been silenced, may she find her voice; where she is abused, may she recover her dignity; where she is fighting for the vulnerable, may she find her strength; where she is tormented, may she receive healing; when she pleads for the life of another, may she catch the Lord’s gaze and know she is heard and they are loved.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday: The Venerable Bede

Tomorrow: Saint Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton

The Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow … part of the ‘Walk with Willibrord’ pilgrim route (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

The Precentor of Limerick who drowned in Dublin on his way home to Wexford

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick … Robert Grave was Precentor of Limerick and Bishop of Ferns when he drowned in Dublin Bay on his way home to Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Among the many projects that have disappeared in the midst and mists of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, one was a proposed talk to the Friends of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, last month (8 September 2020) on the precentors of the cathedral.

It was planned as a light, even quirky, yet scholarly, look at some of my predecessors as precentor, recalling some of the more interesting, but also some of the more humorous, more curious and even more eccentric people who have gone before me, and, perhaps, even some of the more tragic precentors too.

The list of Precentors of Limerick goes back to 1204, but their biographical details are very light until the beginning of the 15th century, when we come across Dionisius or Denis O’Dea, who was allowed five years leave of absence as precentor to study at Oxford in 1415. He then became Bishop of Ossory in 1421, but he was allowed to remain Precentor of Limerick too. He had not yet been ordained a priest, and needed a papal dispensation for his ordination and consecration because he was the illegitimate son of a subdeacon.

Awly O Lonysigh, who succeeded O’Dea as Precentor in 1421, was also made Rector of the Monastery of Saint Catherine O’Connell, Limerick, which was abolished because of the ‘dissolute lives of the nuns.’ But he was deprived of office in 1445 when he was reported to the Pope as a ‘notorious fornicator.’

John or Richard Purcell, who was Precentor of Limerick in 1455, was also Archdeacon of Lismore, Papal Nuncio in Ireland and Collector of Papal Dues, and while he was Precentor of Limerick he was also Bishop of Ferns (1457-1479).

After the Reformation, John Long became Precentor of Limerick in the 1560s, and later became Archbishop of Armagh (1584-1589). His successor, Thomas Purcell, was dismissed in 1573 because of his support for the Desmond rebellion. Described as ‘a tall horseman,’ he seems to have spent some time in exile in Spain, and was killed by a Colonel Zouche in 1581.

One of the more tragic precentors at the end of the 16th century must have been Robert Grave.

Born in Kent ca 1560, he was said to have been educated at Cambridge University to have received the degree of MA. However, I can find no record of any college he attended in Cambridge, the date of his degree, when or where he was ordained, or when and why he came to Ireland.

He was in Ireland by 1590, when he was appointed Dean of Cork. A year later, he was appointed Precentor of Limerick in 1591, Precentor of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 1595, and then became Prebendary of Tullbracky in Limerick in 1600.

He was holding all four positions in cathedrals three different when he was nominated Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin on 30 April 1600 and was appointed bishop by letters patent on 17 July 1600.

At the time, the two dioceses were facing major financial crises. Grave’s predecessor in the Diocese of Ferns, Hugh Allen (1582-1599), had died at Fethard in 1599 and was buried at the parish church there.

But Hugh Allen, like Bishop Alexander Devereux before him, had made long irregular and long leases of many parts of the see lands. For example, he illegally leased the Manor of Fethard and other lands in south Co Wexford, to his son John Allen, and leased over 1,500 acres of other church lands at small rents to Sir Henry Wallop of Enniscorthy Castle.

In the neighbouring diocese, Richard Meredith had been Bishop of Leighlin (1589-1597) while he was also Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (1584-1597), and had once been jailed for his complicity in treason.

Meredith spent most of his time in Dublin. When he died in 1597, he was buried in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and the see of Leighlin remained vacant for three years until it was united with Ferns at the appointment of Robert Grave as Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin.

Saint Edan’s Cathedral, Ferns … the Diocese of Ferns was united with the Diocese of Leighlin at the consecration of Bishop Grave in 1600 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Diocese of Ferns and Leighlin included most of Co Wexford and Co Carlow and parts of Co Wicklow and Co Laois (then Queen’s County).

Robert Grave was consecrated Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in August 1600. But he was allowed to retain all his other church posts when he became bishop, including the office of Precentor of Limerick.

At the time, the Bishops of Ferns were living in Wexford, rather than Ferns. In the early 15th century, Bishop Patrick Barrett transferred the bishop’s residence from Ferns Castle to New Ross and built Mountgarrett Castle as his residence. Later bishops lived at Fethard Castle in south Co Wexford, but they seem to have had their principal residence in Saint Mary’s Parish, Wexford, and were buried in the now ruined Saint Mary’s Church.

However, tragedy struck the new bishop soon after his consecration. As he and all his family made their way home by sea to Wexford, they were drowned in Dublin Bay on 1 October 1600. Bishop Grave had a watery grave, and was never buried in Saint Mary’s in Wexford.

Grave’s successor as Bishop of Ferns, Nicholas Stafford, was from an old Wexford family and had been Chancellor of the Diocese of Ferns and Leighlin. He was consecrated bishop early in 1601, and when he died in on 15 November 1604 he was buried in Saint Mary’s Church, Wexford.

Grave’s successor as Precentor of Limerick, John Burgoyne, was also educated at Cambridge. But the records of his education at Cambridge are verifiable, and show that he was educated at Jesus College and received the degrees BA (1581) and MA (1584). While he was Precentor of Limerick (1601-1614), Burgoyne was also Precentor of Waterford (1613).

Over the next few weeks, I may look at some other Precentors of Limerick. Perhaps, when this pandemic has passed and this lockdown is lifted, I may get to tell more stories about these predecessors in Saint Mary’s Cathedral on another day.

Mary Street, Wexford … a reminder in a street name of the former Saint Mary’s Parish (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mediaeval mayhem and murder ... after a walk on the beach

Mediaeval Leighlin ... a charming cathedral in Co Carlow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Co Carlow last night for the installation of my former colleague, the Very Revd Tom Gordon, as Dean of Saint Laserian’s Cathedral in Old Leighlin, and his commissioning by the Bishop of Cashel and Ossory as diocesan adult education adviser.

Saint Laserian’s is a delightful 13th century Gothic cathedral that looks at once like both a castle and a church, without sophistication or grandeur, hidden away beyond Bagenalstown and Leighlinbridge.

In his sermon, the Revd Dr Adrian Empey regaled us with tales of mayhem and murder in mediaeval Leighlin.

Aubrey Gwynn and R.N. Haddock painted a charming image of life in late mediaeval Leighlin when they quoted a description of Bishop Nicholas Maguire. It was said that he “studied at Oxford, although it was but 2 years and 3 months, yet he profited so much in logik, philosophie, the seven liberall sciences and divinitie that in his latter days he seemed to excel.” It was said he “was noted for his hospitality and the number of cows that he was able to graze without loss (so well was he beloved) upon the woods and mountains ...”

Less well beloved, it seems, was Bishop Matthew Sanders. The story is told that although Bishop Sanders was “an eloquent preacher and a man of unsullied life,” he was murdered in 1549 by Archdeacon Maurice Kavanagh, whom he had reproved for misconduct. The bishop was buried in the cathedral and the archdeacon and his accomplices were hanged on the site of the murder. When the cathedral was being repaired three centuries later in 1848, the bishop’s skull was discovered, with forensic evidence of his murder – a piece was missing from the left side of the skull.

In my search last night I was unable to find another reminder of our frailty and mortality said to be inscribed in a 16th century memorial on the floor in the chancel that has the words: “O all you who pass by, remember us, I beseech you. We were what you are; and what we now are you will sometime be.”

Calm after a storm ... the harbour in Skerries yesterday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Earlier in the day, I led Morning Prayer and preached in Kenure Church Rush, and preached and celebrated the Eucharist in Holmpatrick Parish Church in Skerries.

Despite the onset of autumn, there was strong sunshine as I sat out for lunch in the Olive in Skerries before going for a walk on the beach. The tide was almost in and the shoreline was still showing the effects of the storm last Thursday night.

As I reached Red Island, I realised the last swim of the season was about to take place. A large number of had set off from the steps opposite the rugby club in Holmpatrick and, accompanied by kayaks and small boats, they had braved the cold waters to swim across to Red Island in order to raise funds for the Skerries Lifeboats.

On the other side of Red Island, a large number of yachts and sailboats were out at sea. It was cheering to see so many people taking advantage of the calm after the storm and the lingering autumn sunshine.

Then it was a call into Gerry’s to buy the Sunday newspapers before heading home and setting out for Old Leighlin.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin