THE MASS RETURNS TO WHITBY ABBEY

To celebrate 13th centenary of St. Hilda's arrival
nN Sunday Bishop Brunner of Middlesbrough will sing Pontifical High Mass in the ruins of Whitby Abbey to celebrate the 1,300th anniversary of the arrival there of St. Hilda, the first Abbess.
It will be the first Mass to be celebrated there since the Reformation. And, for the first time since Henry VIII expelled their predecessors, Benedictine monks will sing within the walls of the abbey.
Archbishop-elect Heenan will preach the sermon.
In the year 657, St. Hilda undertook to "arrange a monastery" at Whitby, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. A princess of the royal house of Northumbria, she had been baptised by St. Paulinus, Bishop of York, when she was 13.
Called by God to the religious life. she was on her way to Gaul to join her sister in a convent there when she received a message from St Aidan -entreating her to gtay in the North.
DOUBLE
Whitby was a double abbey, composed both of monks and nuns. They met only --in church, where they were separated into two choirs. Under St. Hilda's rule the abbey soon became an acknowledged seat of learning, where several future Bishops were trained, and a powerful centre of missionary activity.
It was here that Caedmon, the poor herdsman who became the ""Father of F,nglish Poetry", sang large portions of the Scriptures in the Saxon tongue at the bidding of an angel.
The year 669 saw the historic Synod of Whitby, which decided to follow the Roman custom in observing Easter, and publicly acknowledged the primacy of the See of Peter.
St. Hilda died about 680, when one of the nuns is said to have seen angels bearing the soul of the Abbess to Heaven. The abbey continued to flourish until the middle of the ninth century, when the Danish invaders destroyed it completely and the town of Whitby with it. The Abbot, Titus, fled to Glastonbury, taking with him St. Hilda's relics.
After the Norman Conquest, William de Percy, ancestor of the earls of Northumberland, refounded Whitby Abbey. Reinfrid, a monk of Evesham, was appointed Prior and William the Conqueror granted it a charter of privileges.
DISASTER
As a Benedictine house, the abbey grew in vigour and influence, suffering the occasional raids from pirates to which it was exposed by its vulnerable position on the coast.
Then came Henry VIII. Realising what the fate of Whitby must be. the Abbot resigned rather than hand over the abbey to the King. The surrender was made by the Prior on December 14, 1540.
Both Whitby Council and the local Anglicans celebrate the centenary.
June 30 has been chosen for the Catholic celebration because it is the Sunday nearest St. Peter's feast; it is to him that Whitby Abbey was dedicated.