Saint of the Day Online - St. Willibald. Grace Ministry Mangalore

Saint of the Day Online - St. Willibald

Saint of the Day for Wednesday, June 7th, 2017

07-06-2017

Willibald was born in Wessex on 21 October around the year 700. After studying in a monastery in Waitham, in Hampshire, he went on a pilgrimage to Rome (c. 722) with his father.

Saint Name: St. Willibald
Place: Wessex, England
Birth: 700 AD
Death: 787 AD

Willibald was born in Wessex on 21 October around the year 700. At the age of three, Willibald suffered from a debilitating weakness that made it difficult for him to breathe. The illness nearly took his life, until his parents prayed to God, vowing to commit Willibald to a monastic life if he was to be spared from death. Miraculously, Willibald survived and at the age of five was received into a Benedictine monastery called Waldheim (now Bishop's Waltham) in Hampshire, England.

St. Willibald Bishop and missionary. He was the brother of Sts. Winebald and Walburga and was related through his mother to the great St. Boniface. After studying in a monastery in Waitham, in Hampshire, he went on a pilgrimage to Rome (c. 722) with his father, who died on the way at Lucca, Italy. Willibald continued on to Rome and then to Jerusalem. Captured by Saracens who thought him a spy, he was eventually released and continued on to all of the holy places and then to Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey), where he visited numerous lauras, monasteries, and hermitages. Upon his return to Italy, he went to Monte Cassino where he stayed for ten years, serving as sacrist, dean, and Porter. While on a visit to Rome, he met Pope St. Gregory III (r. 731-741), who sent him to Germany to assist his cousin St. Boniface in his important missionary endeavors. Boniface ordained him in 741 and soon appointed him bishop of Eichstatt, in Franconia. the Site of Willibald's most successful efforts as a missionary. With his brother Winebald, he founded a double monastery at Heidenheim, naming Winebald abbot and his sister Walburga abbess. Willibald served as bishop for some four decades. His Vita is included in the Hodoeporicon (the earliest known English travel book). An account of his journeys in the Holy Land was written by a relative of Willibald and a nun of Heidenheim.