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Sermonette: Hilda of Whitby, Abbess
Friday, 19 November 2021 06:41 pmAs preached at the midweek outdoor Eucharist at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Glassboro, NJ on the evening of Wednesday, November 17, 2021.
Ephesians 4:1-6
Psalm 122
Mathew 19:27-29
Hilda of Whitby was born in 614 C.E. into the royal family of a small Anglian kingdom located in modern-day Yorkshire. When she was an infant, her father was poisoned, and when she was a toddler, her kingdom was conquered by a nearby kingdom creating the kingdom of Northumbria, spanning what is now northern England and southern Scotland. Hilda was brought up in the Northumbrian court, and when the King of Northumbria converted to Christianity when Hilda was thirteen, Hilda was baptised along with the entire court. When Hilda was 19, the king died in battle, and Hilda accompanied the widowed Queens to her home in Kent, where she--the queen--founded a convent and became an abbess.
In The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written circa 731 C.E., the Venerable Bede continues Hilda’s biography with these words:
Hilda’s life story is certainly less flashy or romantic than Clare’s, but I think that it is precisely that lack of romance that I find attractive about Hilda. I can admire Clare for having such a firm sense of her own vocation at the age of 19, but at least at this point in my life, I can’t really identify. The life of Hilda, who seems to have been often swept up in the events of the tumultuous political history of 7th-century England without much real opportunity for self-determination, seems much more familiar to me.
And yet Hilda faced each new event in her life with faith, perseverance, and compassion for others. She lived “a life worthy of the calling to which [she had] been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” as St. Paul puts it in our reading this evening. She did what she was able to do when she was able to do it, trusting in God, and with God’s grace that proved to be more than sufficient.
For those of us who have enough difficulty figuring out what God requires of us today or tomorrow, yet alone a decade or several decades from now, I think we can draw inspiration from Hilda to trust in God as we navigate the ebbs and flows, the changes and challenges, of our own lives, to give us the grace sufficient for what God is calling us to do, and the wisdom to discern what to do next.
Amen.
Ephesians 4:1-6
Psalm 122
Mathew 19:27-29
Hilda of Whitby was born in 614 C.E. into the royal family of a small Anglian kingdom located in modern-day Yorkshire. When she was an infant, her father was poisoned, and when she was a toddler, her kingdom was conquered by a nearby kingdom creating the kingdom of Northumbria, spanning what is now northern England and southern Scotland. Hilda was brought up in the Northumbrian court, and when the King of Northumbria converted to Christianity when Hilda was thirteen, Hilda was baptised along with the entire court. When Hilda was 19, the king died in battle, and Hilda accompanied the widowed Queens to her home in Kent, where she--the queen--founded a convent and became an abbess.
In The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written circa 731 C.E., the Venerable Bede continues Hilda’s biography with these words:
When she had resolved to quit the secular habit, and to serve [Christ] alone, she withdrew into the province of the East Angles, for she was allied to the king there; being desirous to cross over thence into Gaul, forsaking her native country and all that she had, and so to live a stranger for our Lord's sake in the monastery of Cale, that she might the better attain to the eternal country in heaven. For [Hilda’s] sister Heresuid, mother to the king of the East Angles, was at that time living in the same monastery, under regular discipline, waiting for an everlasting crown; and led by her example, she continued a whole year in the aforesaid province, with the design of going abroad; but afterwards, Bishop Aidan recalled her to her home, and she received land to the extent of one family on the north side of the river Wear; where likewise for a year she led a monastic life, with very few companions.When I think about Hilda’s life, I can’t help but compare her to another sainted abbess, one roughly equidistant in time between us and Hilda: my own patron, Clare of Assisi. Clare was born into a wealthy Italian family, but ran away from home as a teenager to escape an arranged marriage and join St. Francis’ monastic community in Assisi.
After this she was made abbess in the monastery called Heruteu [and] being set over that monastery, began immediately to order it in all things under a rule of life, according as she had been instructed by learned men; for Bishop Aidan, and others of the religious that knew her, frequently visited her and loved her heartily, and diligently instructed her, because of her innate wisdom and love of the service of God.
When she had for some years governed this monastery, wholly intent upon establishing a rule of life, it happened that she also undertook either to build or to set in order a monastery in the place called Streanaeshalch, and this work which was laid upon her she industriously performed; for she put this monastery under the same rule of monastic life as the former; and taught there the strict observance of justice, piety, chastity, and other virtues, and particularly of peace and charity; so that, after the example of the primitive Church, no one there was rich, and none poor, for they had all things common, and none had any private property. Her prudence was so great, that not only meaner men in their need, but sometimes even kings and princes, sought and received her counsel; she obliged those who were under her direction to give so much time to reading of the Holy Scriptures, and to exercise themselves so much in works of justice, that many might readily be found there fit for the priesthood and the service of the altar. (Trans. A. M. Sellar)
Hilda’s life story is certainly less flashy or romantic than Clare’s, but I think that it is precisely that lack of romance that I find attractive about Hilda. I can admire Clare for having such a firm sense of her own vocation at the age of 19, but at least at this point in my life, I can’t really identify. The life of Hilda, who seems to have been often swept up in the events of the tumultuous political history of 7th-century England without much real opportunity for self-determination, seems much more familiar to me.
And yet Hilda faced each new event in her life with faith, perseverance, and compassion for others. She lived “a life worthy of the calling to which [she had] been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” as St. Paul puts it in our reading this evening. She did what she was able to do when she was able to do it, trusting in God, and with God’s grace that proved to be more than sufficient.
For those of us who have enough difficulty figuring out what God requires of us today or tomorrow, yet alone a decade or several decades from now, I think we can draw inspiration from Hilda to trust in God as we navigate the ebbs and flows, the changes and challenges, of our own lives, to give us the grace sufficient for what God is calling us to do, and the wisdom to discern what to do next.
Amen.
