The Funeral of Dame Hilda Wood 27.02.1934-03.09.2025
Readings: Wisdom 3: 1-6, 9
Psalm 26/27 ‘The Lord is my light and my help’
2 Cor 4: 14-5:1
John 6: 51-58
22 September 2025
Venus, shining low in the eastern sky, ushered in a perfect September day for today’s gathering to honour and pray for Dame Hilda Wood who died peacefully on 3 September. It seems fitting that D. Hilda should make her journey to God during the apple harvest for she was a country woman and spent much of her monastic life working in the garden. The photo with this post shows her in the orchard at Stanbrook Abbey in Worcester.
The season of ‘mellow fruitfulness’ also resonates with D. Hilda’s very full life which touched the lives of many others, as seen by the kind tributes which have been received since her death.
About thirty-five people gathered for the Requiem Mass, including brethren from Ampleforth, oblates, and friends from near and far, some having set out very early for the 9am start. The main celebrant was Fr Chad Boulton while Fr Mark Butlin – D. Hilda’s long-time co-worker at A. I. M. – and Fr Bernard McInulty concelebrated.
The ordinary and proper of the Mass were Gregorian chant as D. Hilda would have wished and the whole service simple and dignified.
In his deep and thought-provoking homily Fr Chad described a funeral as an occasion which witnesses to the relationship between life and death, and which celebrates the eternal dimension of life. A Christian funeral has a forward dynamic: it is a real ‘send-off’. We were invited to think of the diminishment which often marks the final stage of life on earth as a ‘chrysalis’ phase on the cusp of the great transition to the fullness of life.
Having worked closely with nature for so many years, for example as bee-keeper, D. Hilda was attuned to the transitions in the natural world.
The homilist highlighted a phrase from the first reading, ‘slight was their correction, great will their blessing be’ (Wisdom 3: 3) which was echoed in the second reading, ‘this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory’ ( 2 Cor 4:17). Already, here on earth, in the Eucharist, we have a real foretaste of the eternal life to come, as today’s Gospel from the Bread of Life discourse in John 6 shows: the bread and wine transitioning us to our mutual indwelling in Christ.
The procession to the cemetery under the bluest of skies, warm sunshine and a silence broken only by the chanting of psalms of praise and a pheasant’s refrain, seemed to give a glimpse of that glory to come.
After the committal, the assembly returned to the monastery for refreshments and enjoyed exchanging memories of D. Hilda.
Someone noted that today, 22 September, marks the Autumn Equinox this year; the day when all places on earth receive almost equal hours of daylight and night. No detail is insignificant in the passing of a person to God, and perhaps the conjunction of the Equinox and D. Hilda’s funeral says something about the new life into which we hope she is moving. A life where, in the words of John Donne:
‘…there shall be no cloud nor sun, no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence but one equal music; no fears nor hopes but one equal possession…’ (Sermon XV).
From the House Chronicle
We hope to print a full obituary of D. Hilda in the next full number of Stanbrook Benedictines in 2026.