St Cædda (St Chad) is commemorated on March 2nd.
When St Oswald sent to Iona for a monk to open up his people to the love of God in Jesus Christ, the community ultimately sent Aidan (the first monk they sent turned out to be rather disappointing!) Aidan established his monastery on Lindisfarne, in Northumberland, known today as Holy Island. It was made holy, consecrated to God, by the mission St Aidan began. He first trained up 12 Anglo-Saxon boys in the faith, in prayer and in the ways of God. Of these, four were brothers. Two we know of because of their missionary work and because the Venerable Bede wrote of them. St Chad, after a time in the North-East of England, took the Gospel to the Midlands, establishing a church in Mercia at what is now Lichfield. His brother Cedd took the Gospel to Essex and then Lastingham in North Yorkshire. When Cedd died, Chad continued his work there.
Today Chad’s mission and ministry lives on in Lichfield Cathedral and Diocese, in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Birmingham, in parishes and schools dedicated to him and in the College which bears his name in the University of Durham.
I couldn’t find a poem about him, so I wrote this one in honour of his saint’s day today.
Cædda (St Chad)
He found his place of Resurrection
deep in the Mercian woods,
near the church he founded.
Here, angels sang prayers of preparation,
bringing joyful messages from on high.
He heard his Lord, quietly whispering to him.
“Cædda, it is time.
You must come home now.”
It had been a great adventure,
beginning on that far off day when,
with Cedd and Cynbil and Caelin,
he crossed the Northumbrian water
following the calling Cross,
the hymns of birds and seals,
and the lapping mantra of waves,
to a place of welcome and warmth
and the great man who waited for them.
There were twelve in the end,
a band of brothers learning to get on together.
Celtic words taught to Anglo-Saxon minds,
merging with the language of Love.
Excitement and joy,
as slowly, but wonderfully,
they heard the words of God
swirling across the headland:
eddying Gospel syllables
bringing holiness to Cædda’s soul.
It was there, on that far shore,
that he found the dawn of his Resurrection.
[Mr G.]
St Chad’s Day March 2nd 2024
Mr G's Ponderings 