Hilda of Whitby, Abbess

Today the Church commemorates Hilda of Whitby, who became a wise Mother to her community and nurtured the gifts of God in those entrusted to her.

Hilda was born in 614 into the royal family of Northumbria. At thirteen, she was baptized by Paulinus, together with King Edwin and his household. When she was thirty-three, she decided to enter religious life.

Her sister had gone to a monastery at Chelles, in Gaul, and Hilda intended to join her. While Hilda was preparing to travel, Bishop Aidan called her back to Northumbria. He gave her a small piece of land beside the River Wear. There, with a few companions, she began to learn the discipline of a religious community.

After a year, Hilda took charge of the monastery at Hartlepool. Aidan and other teachers visited her and helped her to establish its common life. In 657, she became Abbess of the new monastery at Whitby, above the sea. Women and men lived there under her government, sharing a life of prayer, study, and work.

Hilda required peace and charity among them. Their possessions were held in common, so that none could claim riches while another suffered poverty. She taught justice and self-restraint, and she encouraged the study of Scripture. Five men formed in her community became Bishops. Others came to her for counsel in the conduct of their lives, including rulers who needed wisdom for public affairs. They called her Mother.

Among those who worked at Whitby was Cædmon, a man who had never learned to sing. At feasts, when the harp passed from one person to another, he left before it reached him. One night he went out to the stable, where it was his turn to care for the cattle. He fell asleep, and someone appeared to him in a dream and asked him to sing.

Cædmon said that he could not. That was why he had left the feast. But the visitor again told him to sing. When Cædmon asked what he should sing about, he was told to sing the beginning of created things. He began to praise the Creator in words he had never heard before.

When he woke, Cædmon remembered the song and added more verses. He told his overseer, who brought him to Hilda. She gathered learned members of the community to hear his dream and his poetry. They gave him a passage of sacred history to turn into verse. The next morning he returned with a new song.

Hilda recognized the gift and invited Cædmon to enter the monastery. The brothers taught him the Scriptures, and he made songs in the English language about creation, the life and Passion of Christ, and the hope of judgment and resurrection. Those who had instructed him listened in turn to his songs.

Whitby also became the meeting place for a dispute that divided the Church. Christians trained in the Irish tradition and Christians following Roman practice used different calculations for the date of Easter. At the royal court, some were keeping the Easter feast while others were still observing the fast.

In 664, King Oswiu called a synod, a council of the Church, at Hilda’s monastery. Hilda supported the practice she had learned from Aidan. After hearing the arguments, the King decided for the Roman reckoning. Hilda accepted the decision and continued to govern her community in the unity of the Church.

For the last six years of her life, Hilda suffered from a persistent fever. She continued to teach and to give thanks to God. Her weakness did not prevent others from receiving her counsel.

Hilda received Holy Communion around cockcrow on November 17, 680. She called the sisters to her and urged them to keep the peace of the Gospel with one another. Then she died. She was sixty-six.

At Hackness, another community she had founded, a nun named Begu was asleep. She heard the sound of a bell and saw the roof of the house open. Light poured down, and angels carried Hilda’s soul upwards. Begu woke and went to the woman who governed the house. The sisters rose and prayed for Hilda with psalms. In the morning, messengers arrived from Whitby and told them that their Abbess had died at the hour of the vision.

Hilda heard God’s gift in Cædmon’s song and helped him to offer it to the Church. We pray for wisdom to recognize the grace at work in others and to help them grow in it.