Feast day: July 7
St. Willibald
An English monk who made a years-long pilgrimage as far as the Holy Land, then joined St. Boniface's German mission and became the first bishop of Eichstätt.
Willibald was an Anglo-Saxon of the early eighth century, born about 700 into a noble West Saxon family extraordinarily rich in saints: he was the brother of St. Winnibald and St. Walburga and a kinsman of the great missionary St. Boniface. As a small child, gravely ill, he was laid by his parents at the foot of a cross and recovered, and was dedicated to God.
As a young man he set out, with his father and brother, on pilgrimage — and Willibald's pilgrimage became one of the most remarkable journeys of the early Middle Ages. Over several years he travelled through Italy and across the sea to the Holy Land, visiting Jerusalem and the holy places, an adventure later recorded by a nun who heard it from his own lips, making him one of the earliest English travel-writers.
After years also spent as a monk at the great Italian abbey of Monte Cassino, he was summoned by the pope and sent to assist Boniface in the evangelization of Germany. Boniface ordained him and, in 741, consecrated him first bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria.
There Willibald laboured for some forty years, founding monasteries and a famous school and building up the young German church, until his death about 787. He is honoured as the founder-bishop of Eichstätt and a pioneer of the Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
His travels — written down by a nun who heard them from his own lips — make him the first known Englishman to visit the Holy Land, and one of the earliest travel writers.
Image: Rensi (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/15644c.htm
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