Skip to main content

St Chad

All my life
the wind has spoken to me.

The confusion of noise,
the clash of branches,
the crash of thunder
have said to my soul: Beware!
Are you ready?

Behold, the Lord comes.
He is coming with judgement,
He is coming with majesty,
He is coming in power.
Are you ready?

And all my life
I have not been ready.
I have fallen to my knees
and pleaded for mercy
and heard only the blowing of the wind.

But today
the angels have sung to me.

The purity of tone,
the beauty of melody,
the complexity of harmony
have said to my soul: Peace!
You are ready.

Behold, the Lord comes.
He is coming with love,
He is coming with joy,
He is coming with reward.
You are ready.

And today
I am ready.
I have fallen to my knees
and accepted Jesus' mercy
and heard only the song of the angels.




Recently we visited Lichfield Cathedral, which is associated with St Chad.  Chad, or Ceadda, became bishop of Lichfield in the 7th century, when it was part of the ancient kingdom of Mercia, and played a major part in converting the Mercians from paganism to Christianity.

Most of what we know of Chad comes from the writings of Bede, who tells two stories about him.  The first is that, whenever there was a strong gust of wind, he would drop whatever he was doing and pray to God.  If the wind continued, or a storm blew up, his prayers for mercy became more and more earnest; and this he attributed to the reminder of Judgement Day that the wind provided.

The second concerns his death; that seven days before he died, a sweet singing was heard by Chad and a man named Owini.  Moving across the sky, the singing filled the building where Chad was, before returning by the route it had come.  The song, he said, was from angelic spirits, come to call him to his heavenly reward.


St Chad died on the second of March, which is now his feast day.  The Church of England's prayer on this day is:

Almighty God,
from the first fruits of the English nation who turned to Christ,
you called your servant Chad
to be an evangelist and bishop of his own people:
give us grace so to follow his peaceable nature,
humble spirit and prayerful life,
that we may truly commend to others
the faith which we ourselves profess;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
from Common Worship: Daily Prayer

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Models of Contextual Theology: Spiritual Formation Book 7

"A theology that neither issues forth in action nor takes account of the way one lives one's life can hardly be theology that is worth very much." Models of Contextual Theology looks like the most boring book in the world. Dry academic title, weird geometric cover design - you'd definitely only pick this up if you were required to write an essay on it, wouldn't you? Well, I wish the outside did it justice, because the contents are much more exciting than the cover. It asks some very interesting and important questions about how our faith relates to the world around us. Is culture mostly good or bad? Is there such a thing as the "naked gospel", free of context? Do you have to be a trained academic to theologize, or can anyone do it? How much does theology from one culture transfer to a different culture? Bevans describes six models of theology which offer different answers to these questions. All are valid, he says, but they all understand the gospel an

Unto us a son is given...

Did I mention something about life getting back to normal in October? Oh yes, I was just finishing work and looking forward to at least two weeks off to organise the house, stock up the freezer and buy baby stuff. Then little Toby threw a spanner in the works by turning up five weeks early! Which would put his birthday in... let's see... October. So much for normal! For those who would like the gory details, here goes. If you are a mother who had a long and protracted labour, I advise you to skip the next bit - or if you don't, please don't start sending me hate mail. You have been warned. You see, we'd been to all the childbirth classes (yes, just about managed to finish them) and learned all about the different stages of labour, and how many hours each lasted. We learned some relaxation techniques and various things Graham could do to help coach me through long periods of contractions. And then we turned out not to need any of them, because the entire thing

A birthday weekend in York

We were surprised to discover that York is only a 90 minute drive from our house. It's somewhere we'd been thinking of going for a few years, but I'd assumed it was much further away. So when we wanted to go away for the weekend to celebrate my birthday in January, York was the obvious choice. The city did not disappoint us. I'd been to York years ago, and my only clear memory was of a tower on top of a grassy mound. That was Clifford's Tower, owned by English Heritage, and recently updated with a rather snazzy series of platforms and staircases inside. We saw a 13th century toilet which had been inaccessible for 400 years (I think I was more excited about this than the boys) and got a great view of York from the rooftop viewing platform. View from the top of Clifford's Tower Most people's memories of York probably involve the Shambles - an ancient street of shops - and York Minster. Apparently there isn't a clear difference between a minster and a cathe