St Hilda of Whitby, St Hugh of Lincoln, the Martyrs of Paraguay

Celebrated on November 17th

Stained glass window in Chester Cathedral cloister wiki image

St Hilda of Whitby

As a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon abbess, Hilda was one of the most influential Church leaders of her day. At a time when the monasteries and their estates, rather than parishes and dioceses, formed the basic ecclesial structures in Britain, Hilda exercised largely the same administrative powers a bishop. At Whitby in Northumbria, she built up a thriving double-monastery. Here she ruled over, and saw to the education of, both male and female monastics, including five future bishops. Kings and princes sought her advice.

The Synod of Whitby in 664, when it was decided that the English Church should conform to Roman rather than Irish practices, was hosted by Hilda at her monastery.

Hilda was responsible for enabling Caedmon, formerly a cowherd on her estate, to become arguably the first English poet. She took Caedmon into the monastery and arranged for his compositions in Anglo-Saxon English to be set down in writing. It was Hilda who saw and exploited the potential of Anglo-Saxon sung poetry, rather than the usual Latin, for the spread of the Gospel.

Hilda exercised sacramental responsibilities well into the seventh century. As was common practice for abbesses in her day, she almost certainly heard confessions and set penances.

At the age of sixty-six, Hilda died in 680. She was widely acknowledged by the low-born and nobility alike as a person of exceptional holiness and an outstanding spiritual guide, and as Bede testifies, she was immediately recognised as a saint.

The author of this entry is Dr Ann Inman is the author of Hild of Whitby and the Ministry of Women in the Anglo-Saxon World www.amazon.co.uk/Whitby-Ministry-Women-Anglo-Saxon-World/dp/1978700660

and St Hugh of Lincoln

Bishop. Born at Avalon in Burgundy, in 1135, St Hugh came to England at the request of King Henry II, who wanted him to found a Carthusian monastery at Witham in Somerset as part of his reparations for the murder of St Thomas Becket. St Hugh had already been a Carthusian for 17 years. He spent seven years at Witham living a quiet prayerful life.

From time to time King Henry, who is said to have been very overbearing, would call him to the court. After a few years Hugh began to gently refuse to take orders from the King, until he had given compensation and accommodation to a number of people who had been evicted from their homes to make room for the monastery.

After meeting with his king, he would hurry back to his prayers and his pets - which included a tame swan.

In 1186 Hugh had to leave the quiet monastic life to become bishop of the largest diocese in England - Lincoln. The see had been vacant for 16 years and was very neglected.

Hugh proved to be as good a bishop as he was a monk. He fought for the common people against the king's foresters who enforced savage forest laws in the vast royal hunting grounds. At Lincoln and in Northampton he stood up to mobs rioting against the Jews. He also visited the sick, played with children and oversaw a huge rebuilding programme at Lincoln cathedral which had been damaged by an earthquake.

Hugh said he had a 'peppery' temper. His admirers said he was a 'A good man, fearless as a lion'. He calmed the anger of Richard I with a joke. He refused to pay taxes that supported a war against France.

He died at Lincoln's Inn in London, in 1200. St Hugh has been been described as one of the most attractive characters of mediaeval England. John Ruskin said he was: "The most beautiful sacerdotal figure known to men in history." In 1220 he was canonised by Pope Honorius III, the first Carthusian to receive this honour. The Rose window, called the Dean's Eye, at Lincoln Cathedral records his funeral.

Many pilgrims came to his shrine at Lincoln until the Reformation, when it was destroyed. His usual iconography is his tame swan. A picture of him at the charterhouse in Paris became a centre of pilgrimage for mothers and sick children. His white linen stole survives in the charterhouse at Parkminster in West Sussex.

The Martyr of Paraguay

Missionaries. These were three Jesuits: Roque Gonzalez, Alonozo Rodriguez and Juan de Castillo who were involved in the 'Reductions' of Paraguay - depicted in the film The Mission.

The Reductions were settlements of Christian Indians run by the missionaries - not as conquerors but as guardians and trustees of the native people and their ancient traditions. Their opposition to Spanish colonisation, slave traders and the Inquisition led to their suppression in the 18th century.

Roque was born in Asuncion in 1576 to an aristocratic family. He was ordained in 1599 and made vicar general in 1609. For the rest of his life he worked in the Reductions, first in that of St Ignatius, then later founding six more to the east of the Parana and Uruguay rivers. In the course of his work he suffered extreme hunger, exhaustion and insect bites. These discomforts he said were more than offset by the love and friendship of the Indian people.

In 1620 he was joined by Alonzo and Juan and found a new Reduction near the Ijuhu river. The three were killed by a hostile tribe between the 15th and 17th of November that year.

Although evidence was at once collected, it was lost for 200 years. When the documents were discovered in Argentina in the 1930s, the process for beatification began and they were canonised in 1988.

Watch a trailer for The Mission: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU14R9hbUFc