Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Sunday, 2 March 2014

St Chad's Day


Were it not Quinquagesima today would be the feast of St Chad, who died in 672. Formerly Bishop of York he became the apostle of Mercia, founded the mother church of the western part of the kingdom at Lichfield, where he was enshrined until the reformation and is today the principal patron of the Catholic archdiocese of Birmingham, in whose cathedral his surviving relics are preserved above the High Altar.


 St Chad - a modern icon 

Image:aidanharticons.com


My previous posts about him can be seen at St Chad and his relics, Relics of St Chad,The Lichfield Angel, St Chad at York and on devotion to him in Churches of St Chad.

May St Chad continue to intercede for the Church in England.



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