Rudyard Kipling’s poem, Eddi’s Service, from which this book takes its title, is a set of verses put into the mouth of Eddius Stephanus, St Wilfrid’s earliest biographer. Set in the tiny chapel at Manhood End, close to Selsey Bill, it tells of a dedicated priest persevering with a midnight celebration despite appalling weather, and with just a donkey and bullock as his companions. Reflecting the challenges of the seventh-century missions to Britain and Ireland, it captures something of how all who would be disciples of Christ must take up their cross and follow him. This book focuses on those challenges in the early missions to these islands, set in the context of Jesus’ passion and, ultimately his crucifixion, in the very first Holy Week of all, in Jerusalem. Each of us is invited to walk that same path in Lent, in Holy Week or at any time in our own life or pilgrimage.
