Holy Hierarch Ceadda the Wonderworker of Lichfield

Saint Ceadda of Lichfield

The second of March is the feast of Saint Ceadda (or Chad – yes, we have a Saint Chad), hierarch and wonderworker – one of the greatest and best-loved saints of the pre-Schismatic English Church. Several holy wells and no fewer than thirty-three churches in England have been dedicated to this great Christian saint, whose life and deeds were recorded by Bede the Venerable in his History of the English Church and People.

Ceadda itself is not an English name, but derives from a Brythonic word cad meaning ‘battle’. (The modern Welsh equivalent of Ceadda’s name would apparently be Cadoc or Cadell. There is a fifth-century British Saint Cadoc after whom Ceadda may have been christened.) Ceadda was one of four brothers, the others of whom were Saint Cedd (abbot at Lastingham, later bishop of London), Saint Cynebill (whose feast is also today) and Cælin. He is associated with the holy isle of Lindisfarne and particularly with Saint Aidan, under whom he studied as a youth. The first prominent mention of Ceadda in Bede’s history is as a humble priest – ‘a holy man, modest in his ways, learned in the Scriptures, and one who was careful to practice all that he found in them’ – under Oswiu King of Northumbria, who loved this priest very dearly and sent him to Canterbury in the company of Éadhæd (later Bishop of Ripon) to be ordained a bishop in Northumbria by Archbishop Saint Deusdedit. However:

On arriving in Kent, they found that Archbishop Deusdedit had died, and that no successor had yet been appointed. They therefore went on to Bishop Wine in the province of the West Saxons, who consecrated Ceadda as bishop with the assistance of two British [i.e., Welsh] bishops. These did not keep Easter at the canonical time, which, as I have often observed, is between the fourteenth and twentieth days of the moon. For at that time Wine was the only bishop in all Britain who had been canonically consecrated bishop.

As a bishop, Ceadda immediately devoted himself to maintain the truths of the Church, and to set himself to practice humility and continence, and to study. After the example of the Apostles, he travelled on foot and not on horseback when he went to preach the Gospel, whether in towns, the countryside, cottages, villages or castles, for he was one of Aidan’s disciples, and always sought to instruct his people by the same methods as Aidan and his own brother Cedd. And when Wilfrið returned to Britain as a bishop, he introduced into the English churches many Catholic customs, with the result that the Catholic Rite daily gained support, and all the Scots remaining in England either conformed to it, or returned to their own land.

The new Northumbrian bishop soon crossed paths with Wulfhere King of Mercia (whose wife Saint Eormenhild was so influential on his repentance and conversion) and Saint Theodore of Tarsus the Archbishop of Canterbury. The legend has it that Saint Theodore, a devout reformer who had set his heart upon tackling and eradicating various abuses within the Church, was so impressed by Saint Ceadda’s personal piety that he confirmed his bishopric on the spot, and asked Oswiu King that he be moved to Mercia to undertake the still-incomplete and -shaky Christianisation of that kingdom. This was before the churchly feud between Saints Wilfrið and Theodore had broken out, and Theodore’s interference was in this case to Wilfrið’s benefit as well as being a shrewd move both politically and from a missionary perspective. Bede continues:

The Mercians at this time were ruled by Wulfhere King, who on the death of Iarumann, asked Theodore to provide him and his people with a bishop. Theodore, however, did not wish to consecrate a new bishop for them, and asked Oswiu King to accept Ceadda as their bishop. The latter was then living quietly in his monastery at Lastingham, while Wilfrið ruled the Bishopric of York, which consisted of all the lands of the Northumbrians and Picts to the border of Oswiu’s realms.

The most reverend Bishop Ceadda always preferred to undertake his preaching missions on foot rather than on horseback, but Theodore ordered him to ride whenever he undertook a long journey. He was most reluctant to forego this pious exercise which he loved, but the archbishop, who recognised his outstanding holiness and considered it more proper for him to ride, himself insisted on helping him to mount his horse. So Ceadda received the Bishopric of Mercia and Lindisfarne, and administered the diocæse in great holiness of life after the example of the Early Fathers. Wulfstan King gave him fifty hides of land to build a monastery at Adbearw – that is, At the Wood – in the province of Lindsey, and evidences of the regular observance that he established remain to this day.

Chad established his episcopal seat in the town of Lyccidfelþ, where he also died and was buried. There he built himself a house near the church where he used to retire privately with seven or eight brethren in order to pray or steady whenever his work and preaching permitted. When he had ruled the church of the province with great success for two and a half years, divine providence ordained a time such as is spoken of in Ecclesiastes: ‘There is a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather them together.’ For heaven sent a plague which, bringing bodily death, bore away the living stones of the Church to the temple in heaven… The hour drew near when Ceadda himself was to pass out of this world to our Lord.

One day he was alone in his house with a brother whose name was Owine, his other companions having had occasion to return to the church. This Owine was a monk of great virtue, who had renounced the world with the pure intention of winning a heavenly reward, so that he was altogether a fit person to receive a revelation of God’s secrets, and one whose word everyone could trust. He had accompanied Æþelflæd Queen from East Anglia, and had been her chief þegn and steward of her household. Growing in devotion to the Faith, he decided to renounce the world, which he did in no half-hearted fashion; for he gave away all his possessions, put on a simple garment, and carrying an axe and trowel, set off for the reverend father Ceadda’s monastery at Lastingham. This he did to show that he was not entering the monastery for the sake of an idle life, as some do, and he demonstrated this in practice; for whenever he found himself unable to meditate on the Scriptures with profit, he undertook a larger amount of manual labour. In short, recognising his reverence and devotion, the bishop admitted him to the monastery among the brethren, and whenever they were engaged in study, he used to busy himself in essential tasks out-of-doors.

One day, while Owine was working outside and the other brethren were in church, the bishop was reading and praying alone in his oratory. Suddenly, as he afterwards related, he heard the sound of sweet and joyful singing coming down from heaven to earth. The sound seemed at first to emanate from the southeast, gradually coming closer to him until it centred over the roof of the oratory where the bishop was at prayer. It then entered the oratory, and seemed to fill both it and the surrounding air. He listened closely to what he had heard, and after about half an hour, the song of joy rose from the roof of the oratory, and returned to heaven as it had come with inexpressible sweetness. Owine stood astonished for awhile, turning over in his mind what this might portend, when the bishop threw open the oratory window, and in his customary way clapped his hands to summon him indoors.

When he hurried in, the bishop said: ‘Go at once to the church, and fetch some of the brethren here, and come back with them yourself.’ On their arrival, he first urged them to live in love and peace with each other and with all the faithful, and to be constant and tireless in keeping the rules of monastic discipline that he had taught them and they knew him to observe, and those that they had learned from the lives and teachings of former abbots.

He then announced his own death was drawing near, saying: ‘The welcome guest who has visited many of our brethren has come to me today, and has deigned to summon me out of this world. Therefore return to the church, and ask the brethren to commend my passing to our Lord in their prayers. And let each prepare for his own passing by vigils, prayers and good deeds, for no man knows the hour of his death.’

Having said this and much besides, he gave them his blessing, and they left him sadly; but the brother who had heard the heavenly music came back alone and flung himself to the ground, saying: ‘Father, I beg you to let me ask you a question.’

‘Ask what you wish,’ Ceadda replied.

‘Tell me, I pray,’ he asked, ‘what was the glad song that I heard coming down from heaven upon this oratory, and that later returned to heaven?’

‘Since you have heard the singing and were aware of the coming of the heavenly company,’ Ceadda answered, ‘I command you in the name of our Lord not to tell anyone of this before my death. For they were angelic spirits, who came to summon me to the heavenly reward that I have always hoped and longed for, and they have promised to return in seven days and take me with them.’

All took place as he had been told, for Ceadda was quickly attacked by a disease which steadily grew worse until the seventh day. Then he prepared for death by receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord, his holy soul was released, and, one may rightly believe, was taken by the angels to the joys of heaven. Nor is it strange that he regarded death with joy as the Day of the Lord, for he had always been careful to prepare for his coming.

As we may expect, the witness of Owine to these wonders led to the immediate local glorification of Saint Ceadda, who was already well-beloved by laypeople and monastics alike. Saint Bede goes on to describe the many virtues and noble qualities of the blessed Bishop of Lichfield: his ‘continence, humility, zeal in preaching, voluntary poverty… fear of God… mindful[ness] of his last end in all that he did’. It is worthy of note that the eschatological thinking of these early English monks was given to neither of the millennialist distortions to which post-Schismatic thought would be prone: the Day of Judgement is, in the mind of Saint Ceadda, coterminous with the day of one’s death. God’s judgement of the person is indeed personal and eschatological, but not to be superimposed onto history in a clumsy or literal way, because ‘no man knows the hour’.

Saint Bede also connects the life of Saint Ceadda with the Frisian missionaries of whom Saints Willibrord and Swiðberht were two, through the person of their master Saint Ecgberht of Ripon, who was a friend and fellow-student with Saint Ceadda when they were both in Ireland. In the wake of his interment, the relics of Saint Ceadda worked various wonders, particularly the healing of mental illness.

Holy Father Ceadda, shining the true light of Christ from the holy isle to the Mercian woods, pray to Christ our God Whom you loved so dearly to save the souls of us, your sinful children!

Receiving divine grace from God on high,
And strengthened by the power thereof, O glorious Ceadda,
Thou didst tread the straight and narrow path of the Gospel,
And didst draw with thee a multitude of the faithful;
Wherefore, dwelling now in the mansions of heaven,
Thou hast received rich recompense for thy labours from Christ,
Whom do thou beseech to save our souls.