Saint of the Day – Saint Hilda of Whitby, 614–680 AD







Whitby Abbey




“All who knew her called her mother because of her outstanding devotion and grace” (The Venerable Bede)
A consecrated virgin, a skilled and wise leader and teacher, Abbess of Hartlepool and then Whitby (Streonshalh), a ‘double monastery’ where both male and female religious worshipped together but lived separately.
She attended the Synod of Whitby called by King Oswiu, which agreed to keep the feast of Easter according to the Roman calendar, as well as agreeing the adoption of the Roman tonsure. This decision led to the monks of Lindisfarne, led by Colman, moving first to Iona and thence to Ireland; the declarations of the Synod may be seen as one stage in the ‘Romanisation’ of the church in the British Isles, although Roman practice was already widespread and this Synod affected the kingdom of Northumbria alone.
When she died at the age of sixty-six, a nun saw her soul being carried to heaven by angels and local legend says that when sea birds fly over the Abbey, they dip their wings in her honour. She turned snakes to stone – and these became the local ammonite fossils found in the area. Thus she has given her name to the genus Hildoceras.
Saint Caedmon, a herder at the monastery and later a poet, monk and saint, divinely given the gift of song, wrote verses in praise of Hilda. These do not survive – we have only Caedmon’s first song, in praise of the Creator of all things:
Nu sculon herigean heofonrices Weard,
Meotodes meahte ond his modgeþanc,
weorc Wuldorfæder; swa he wundra gehwæs
ece Drihten, or onstealde.
He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum
heofon to hrofe, halig Scyppend:
þa middangeard moncynnes Weard,
ece Drihten, æfter teode
firum foldan, Frea ælmihtig.
Praise now to the keeper of the kingdom of heaven,
the power of the Creator, the profound mind
of the glorious Father, who fashioned the beginning
of every wonder, the eternal Lord.
For the children of men he made first
heaven as a roof, the holy Creator.
Then the Lord of mankind, the everlasting Shepherd,
ordained in the midst as a dwelling place,
Almighty Lord, the earth for men.




Saint Aidan visits Saint Hilda – Gloucester Cathedral



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