Genesis 1.1-2.3, Matthew 6.25-34
8 February 2026, The Second Sunday Before Lent , Austwick, Keasden
This week I’ve been watching Black-headed Gulls riding the cool airstreams above the fields behind our house. They’ve reminded me of the tradition on the North Yorkshire coast that says when seabirds fly over Whitby Abbey, they dip their wings in honour of St Hilda. [1]
Hilda was one of the so-called Northern Saints, pioneers who helped to spread the Christian faith through this part of the country, establishing abbeys and monasteries whose missionary monks made their way throughout the North preaching, teaching, and planting churches as they went. Including the forerunners of the churches we worship in today.
You’ll have seen that with today’s Newsletter I’ve included a prayer card for you. It comes from a Church of England initiative called Faith in the North, which aims to celebrate the faith of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries who brought Christianity to our part of the world. [2]
The prayer cards tell us something about the faith of our forebears: that they celebrated the cross of Christ which offers forgiveness and new life to all; that they valued prayer and meditation as ways to stay close to God; that they found God in special holy places which they travelled many miles to reach; and that in their own place too, they found a sense of belonging to God just where they were.
The story of Hilda and the seabirds tells us something else which is common to these early Northern Christians – that they were in touch with nature, that they saw God’s hand at work in all creatures. [3]
There was Cuthbert, who lived on the remote island of Inner Farne, a place of wild nature. Cuthbert befriended the creatures who lived alongside him there. He is famous for protecting the Eider Ducks who nested there so that no-one could disturb them or take them for food: so they are now locally known as Cuddy’s ducks. Cuthbert sometimes prayed standing up to his waist in the cold North Sea, and it is said that otters emerged from the water to warm his feet with their breath and dry them with their fur. [4]
Then there was Cædmon, the earliest known English poet. He was a cowherd at the monastery now known as Whitby Abbey. Legend has it that one evening, while the monks were feasting, singing, and playing a harp, Cædmon left early to sleep with the animals because he wasn’t at all musical himself. There he had a dream in which “someone” asked him to compose a song about “the beginning of created things”. Cædmon’s Hymn, as it became known, praises God, the Creator of heaven and earth. When she heard this beautiful verse, Hilda took Cædmon under her wing and he composed many more acclaimed devotional poems and songs for her over the years. [5]
The early Northern Christians lived close to the land, and relied a lot on their animals. The Venerable St Bede of Jarrow wrote of how the Anglo-Saxons divided up the year with months dedicated to farming practices. November was known as the Blood Month, where cattle were brought in to slaughter and meat was prepared for the coming winter, while May was known as the Milking Month or the Month of Three Milkings where the cattle grazed so much on the spring grass that they could be milked three times. Meanwhile, February was known as Flat Cakes Month. According to Bede the people would make small cakes to honour their deity on the return of the sun after the darkness of the winter months. Does this sound familiar? After all, our next service at Keasden this month is Pancake Praise…. [6]
The faith of these, our ancient forerunners, still speaks powerfully to us today. How they saw the world and how they lived as a consequence – this is our Christian heritage in this land. From them we understand the natural world as having been created by God; and from their example of living humbly on this earth, in respectful fellowship with all the creatures, we learn how we may be at home in this world and know fulfilment in life.
This goes way back to scripture, of course, all the way back to those wondrous words of Genesis which we shared today, and were affirmed by Jesus in his teachings.
“Look at the birds of the air,” he said,“Consider the lilies of the field,” cast your cares aside, and know that God will provide for you, just as he provides for them.
I think there’s a lot to be said for regarding the ways of the Black-headed Gulls. And learning from them the lessons of creation.
Notes
This talk was given during a service using liturgy drawn from the Genesis account of creation: Holy Communion – a Creation Liturgy [PDF]
[1] Beth Ellin, St Hilda of Whitby. Visit Whitby, 22 February 2021.
[2] Pilgrim Places. Faith in the North, accessed 31 January 2026.
[3] Faith in the North: Exploring Anglo-Saxon Spirituality: some prayers to try, 16 July 2025.
[4] St Cuthbert: Stories of a Saint. Faith in the North, 22 November 2024; Dr John Jenkins, St Cuthbert’s ducks, Pilgrimage and Cathedrals blog, 29 October 2015.
[5] Wikipedia: Cædmon.
[6] Escaped animals in the mueum, Jarrow Hall, accessed 3 February 2026; Sam Newton, The Old English Calendar. Wuffings blog, Blotmonaþ AD 2000.
