St. Chad of Lichfield

St. Chad was a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon churchman, one of four brothers who all embraced the religious life, among them St. Cedd. He was formed in the monastic tradition as a disciple of St. Aidan at Lindisfarne and also studied in Ireland, and he served as an abbot before being drawn into the wider work of the English Church during the age of its conversion.

After a period as bishop of the Northumbrians, marked by a question over the validity of his consecration which he humbly submitted to correction, he was made bishop of the Mercians about 669, establishing his see at Lichfield in the English midlands. Renowned for his humility, gentleness, and zeal, he traveled his vast diocese on foot to preach, until St. Theodore of Canterbury bade him ride, and he built up the Church among the Mercians in the few years given him. He died at Lichfield in 672, and his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. The Venerable Bede recorded his holiness, and he is venerated as a saint, his memory kept on 2 March.