Sainte Brigitte de
Kildare, abbesse
D'origine irlandaise,
elle fut convertie par saint Patrick. Elle se retira à quelques kilomètres de
Dublin, formant avec plusieurs de ses compagnes, l'une des premières
communautés religieuses féminines en Irlande. Elle mourut en 523. Femme d'une
très grande générosité et d'une énergie exceptionnelle, elle est considérée
comme l'une des saintes patronnes de l'Irlande
Sainte Brigitte de Kildare
Abbesse en Irlande (+ 523)
En breton, on la nomme
Brec'hed ou Berhet. D'origine irlandaise, elle fut convertie par saint
Patrick.
Elle refusa tous les
prétendants qu'attirait sa grande beauté.
Elle se retira à quelques
kilomètres de Dublin, formant avec plusieurs de ses compagnes, l'une des
premières Communautés Religieuses féminines en Irlande.
Femme d'une très grande
générosité et d'une énergie exceptionnelle, elle est considérée comme l'une des
saintes Patronnes de l'Irlande.
Son culte s'est étendu
dans le Finistère breton et dans les Côtes d'Armor où deux localités portent
son nom: Loperhet-29213 (Loc-Berhet) et Confort-Berhet. De nombreuses chapelles
lui sont dédiées à Locmariaquer, Noyalo, Merdrignac, etc …
Un internaute nous
signale: l'église de Trigavou, commune de Pleslin-Trigavou (22) est consacrée à
Brigide de Kildare.
Voir aussi:
- Les
saints du diocèse de Quimper et Léon.
- "Brigitte de
Kildare a été consacrée comme Abbesse par l'Évêque Saint Mel à Armagh.
Le Livre de Lismore
contient ce récit :
Brigitte et certaines
vierges allèrent avec elle recevoir le voile de l'Évêque Mel à Telcha Mide. Il
était heureux de les voir.
Par humilité, Brigitte
resta en arrière afin d'être la dernière à recevoir le voile. Une rose rouge
tomba sur sa tête, du faîte du toit de l'église.
L'Évêque Mel dit alors :
"Avance-toi, O Sainte Brigitte, que je puisse orner ta tête du voile avant
les autres vierges."
Elle s'est alors avancée.
Et par une grâce du Saint-Esprit, c'est le rituel d'Ordination épiscopale qui a
été lu sur elle!
Macaille dit que
l'Ordination épiscopale ne devrait pas être donnée à une femme. L'Évêque Mel
répondit : "Je n'ai aucun pouvoir en la matière. C'est Dieu qui a conféré
cette dignité à Brigitte, au devant de toute (autre) femme."
C'est pourquoi depuis
lors les hommes d'Irlande rendent les honneurs épiscopaux au successeur de
Brigitte."
(Source: Sainte Brigitte
de Kildare - Abbesse et Vierge, Thaumaturge, Patronne de l'Irlande - site des
Passionnistes.)
À Kildare en Irlande,
l’an 523, Sainte Brigitte, Abbesse, qui aurait fondé un des premiers Monastères
de l’île et poursuivi l’œuvre d’évangélisation commencée par Saint Patrice.
Martyrologe romain
Si tu veux me contempler
dans ma Divinité infinie, apprends d’abord à me connaître dans mon Humanité souffrante,
car c’est là la voie la plus rapide pour atteindre l’éternelle Béatitude.
Bienheureux Henri Suso –
Le livre de la Sagesse éternelle.
SOURCE : https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/538/Sainte-Brigitte-de-Kildare.html
Sainte Brigitte de
Kildare, Abbesse en Irlande
Brigitte, née vers 453,
est la Sainte patronne d'Irlande. Grande amie des pauvres, elle a fondé
des Monastères et fait des miracles partout dans le pays.
Encore toute jeune-fille,
elle a converti un vieux seigneur païen en lui fabriquant une croix avec des
ajoncs qui couvraient le sol de la maison.
Quinze siècles plus tard,
les Irlandais construisent toujours cette petite croix et vous en trouverez
dans la plupart des foyers irlandais, y compris chez les Irlandais en France.
Issue d’une noble famille du Leinster, probablement convertie par Saint Patrick,
Brigitte, jeune Irlandaise de 16 ans, reçut le voile des vierges des mains de
l’Évêque Macaille.
Sept ou huit jeunes
filles prirent le voile en même temps et se placèrent sous sa conduite.
Son humilité et son désir
d’avancer dans la Vie évangélique attirèrent dans son couvent de nouvelles
recrues.
Elles priaient pour
l’évangélisation de l’Irlande.
Le rayonnement de
Brigitte fut tel qu’elle érigea de nombreux Couvents, dont le plus célèbre est
celui de Kildare, où elle mourut le 1er Février 523.
Une vénération
extraordinaire entoura sa mémoire, non seulement en Irlande, mais dans toute
l’Église occidentale.
C’est sans doute
Landévennec qui propagea son culte en Bretagne dès le haut Moyen Age.
SOURCE : http://lusile17.centerblog.net/6182-images-pieuses-sainte-brigitte-irlande
.jpg)
Saint Brigitte,
fondatrice du premier couvent double
Sainte Brigitte naît en 451 dans la petite ville de Kildare, dans la province
du Leinster. Son père était un roi païen écossais, venu vivre en Irlande après
avoir rencontré sa mère, une esclave chrétienne qui fut d’ailleurs baptisée par
Saint Patrick.
Très rapidement, Sainte Brigitte décide de se consacrer entièrement à la
religion chrétienne, et bâtit une petite masure dépouillée, qui lui sert de
lieu d’habitation mais aussi de culte. Devant cette décision, d’autres
religieuses se regroupent autour d’elles, pour finir par la considérer comme
leur mère.
Devant le rassemblement d’autres adeptes de la religion chrétienne, Sainte
Brigitte a alors l’idée de fonder un couvent double, où moines et moniales
peuvent exercer leur religion en toute tranquillité. Des fidèles accourent
alors de toutes l’Irlande pour gonfler les rangs de ce couvent, et la ville de
Kildare gagne peu à peu en influence, pour enfin devenir un important centre
culturel et religieux.
Sainte Brigitte décède en 525 à Kildara, et son corps est alors inhumé dans la
ville de Downpatrick, aux côtés de Saint Patrick et de Saint Columcille
Depuis ce jour, les irlandais catholiques et orthodoxes commémorent l’existence
de Sainte Brigitte chaque 1er février au cours d’une cérémonie religieuse, et
vont se recueillir sur sa tombe. Une magnifique cathédrale gothique a même été
bâtie en 1223 à sa mémoire, dans sa ville natale.
SOURCE : http://www.guide-irlande.com/culture-irlandaise/personnalites-irlandaises/religieux-irlandais/sainte-brigitte/
BRIGITTE DE KILDARE,
Abbesse et Vierge,
Thaumaturge,
Patronne de l'Irlande,
Sainte
c. 450-c. 525
Née à Faughart (près de
Dundalk) ou Uinmeras (près de Kildare), Louth, Irlande, vers 450 ; morte à
Kildare, Irlande, vers 525 ; fête de sa translation le 10 juin.
Saint Brigitte était une
“originale” ― et c'est ce que chacun de nous est supposé être, une
création originale de l'Imagination Toute-Puissante. Malheureusement, la
plupart d'entre-nous sont captifs du désir de plaire aux autres, d'être
acceptés. Nous nous conformons à la norme, plutôt que de s'ouvrir à la
puissance créatrice de Dieu et de lui offrir le doux et unique parfum de nos
vies. Nous manquons la gloire d'offrir à Dieu le cadeau de qui nous serions
supposés devenir.
Ce défaut manquait chez
Brigitte. Elle a fait ce qu'il fallait faire. Elle a accueilli chacun,
s'efforçant de les aider à être “originaux”, eux aussi. Elle était ainsi si
généreuse qu'elle a donné jusqu'à son manteau. Elle n'a jamais fuit loin du
travail difficile ou de la prière intense. Elle s'écartait des
règles ― même celles de l'Église ― si c'était nécessaire
pour mettre en évidence le meilleur chez autrui. Peut-être pour cette raison,
cette sainte qui n'a jamais quitté l'Irlande est vénérée dans le monde entier
comme prototype de toutes les moniales. Elle a franchit et comblé le fossé
entre les cultures Chrétiennes et païennes.
Brigitte voyait la beauté
et la bonté de Dieu dans toute Sa Création : les vaches lui faisaient
aimer Dieu davantage. De même les canards sauvages, qui arrivaient et se posaient
sur ses épaules et mains quand elle les appelait. Elle était appréciée, d'une
grande popularité parmi ses propres disciples et les villageois des
alentours ; et elle a eu une grande autorité, dirigeant un monastère
double, avec des moines et des moniales.
Sa vertu principale était
sa gentillesse, sa compassion, et sa nature heureuse et dévouée qui a conquit
l'affection de tous ceux qui l'ont connue. Elle était une grande évangéliste,
et donnait la main joyeusement à tous les saints de l'époque qui répandaient
l'Évangile. Elle était si vénérée dans l'ensemble de l'Europe que les
chevaliers médiévaux, cherchant un modèle de perfection féminine, avaient
choisi Brigitte comme exemple.
Les faits historiques sur
la vie de Saint Brigitte sont peu nombreux parce que les comptes-rendus à son
sujet après sa mort ont commencé à être écrits au 7ème siècle. Ils consistent
principalement en des miracles et des anecdotes, dont certaines sont
profondément enracinées dans le folklore païen irlandais. Néanmoins, ils nous
donnent une forte impression de son caractère. Elle est probablement née au
milieu du 5ème siècle en Irlande orientale. Certains indiquent que ses parents
étaient d'origine humble ; d'autres qu'ils étaient Dubhthach, un chef de
clan irlandais de Leinster, et Brocca, une esclave de sa cour. Tous les récits
rapportent qu'ils ont tous les deux été baptisées par Saint Patrick. Certains
indiquent que Brigitte a été amie avec Patrick, bien qu'il soit peu sûr qu’elle
ne l’ait jamais rencontré. La belle Brigitte s'est consacrée très jeune à Dieu.
Elle a reçu le voile de moniale par Saint Macaille à Croghan et consacrée comme
Abbesse par l'évêque Saint Mel à Armagh.
Le Livre de Lismore
contient ce récit :
Brigitte et certaines
vierges allèrent avec elle recevoir le voile de l'évêque Mel à Telcha Mide. Il
était heureux de les voir. Par humilité, Brigitte resta en arrière afin d'être
la dernière à recevoir le voile. Une rose rouge tomba sur sa tête, du faîte du
toit de l'église. L'évêque Mel dit alors : “Avance-toi, O sainte Brigitte,
que je puisse orner ta tête du voile avant les autres vierges”. Elle s'est
alors avancée. Et par une grâce du Saint-Esprit, c'est le rituel d'ordination
épiscopale qui a été lu sur elle !
Macaille dit que
l'ordination épiscopale ne devrait pas être donnée à une femme. L'évêque Mel
répondit : “Je n'ai aucun pouvoir en la matière. C'est Dieu qui a conféré
cette dignité à Brigitte, au devant de toute (autre) femme”.
C'est pourquoi depuis
lors les hommes d'Irlande rendent les honneurs épiscopaux au successeur de
Brigitte.
Cette histoire tient très
probablement au fait que le système diocésain romain était inconnu en Irlande.
Les monastères formaient le centre de la vie chrétienne dans l'Église primitive
d'Irlande. Par conséquent, abbés et abbesses pouvaient avoir tenu certaines des
dignités et fonctions d'un évêque sur le Continent. L'évidence de ceci peut
être également constatée aux synodes et aux conciles, comme celui de Whitby, qui
a été convoqué par Saint Hilda. Des femmes ont parfois dirigé un double
monastère ; dirigeant donc des hommes et des femmes. Brigitte, en tant que
première parmi les abbesses, pourrait avoir rempli quelques fonctions
semi-épiscopales, comme prêchant, recevoir les confessions (sans absolution),
et diriger les Chrétiens de la région.
Elle a commencé sa vie
consacrée comme anachorète, sa sainteté a attiré beaucoup d'autres. Quand elle
eut environ 18 ans, elle s'installa avec 7 autres filles aux mêmes
aspirations près de la colline de Croghan, afin de se consacrer au
service de Dieu. Aux environs de 468, elle a suivi Saint Mel à Meath.
Il y a peu d'informations
fiables sur le couvent qu'elle a fondé aux alentours de 470 à Kildare (à
l'origine Cill-Daire ou 'église du chêne'), premier couvent d'Irlande, et sur
la Règle qui y a été suivie. C'est une des manières par lesquelles Brigitte a
sanctifié le païen avec le Chrétien : le chêne était sacré pour les druides, et
à l'intérieur du sanctuaire de l'église il y avait une flamme perpétuelle, un
autre symbole religieux des croyances des druides, autant que des Chrétiens.
Gerald du Pays de Galles (13e siècle) a noté que le feu était
perpétuellement maintenu par 20 religieuses de sa communauté. Ceci a continué jusqu'en
1220, où il a été éteint. Gerald a noté que le feu était entouré par un cercle
de buissons, où il n'était permis à aucun homme d'entrer.
On pense généralement que
c'était un double monastère, logeant hommes et femmes ― une pratique
courante dans les terres celtiques qui a été parfois emmenée par les
Irlandais sur le Continent. Il est possible qu'elle ait présidé aux 2
communautés. Elle a fondé des écoles pour hommes et femmes. Une autre source
indique qu'elle a installé un évêque appelé Conlaeth, alors que le Vatican
énumère officiellement le siège épiscopal de Kildare comme datant de 519.
Cogitosus, un moine de
Kildare du 8ième siècle, a retravaillé la vie “métrique” de sainte Brigitte, et
l'a mise en versets en bon latin. Ce texte est connu comme “deuxième vie”, et
est un excellent exemple de l'érudition irlandaise du milieu du 8ième siècle.
Ce qui est peut-être le plus intéressant dans le travail de Cogitosus est
sa description de la cathédrale de Kildare à son époque :
“Solo spatioso et in
altum minaci proceritate porruta ac decorata pictis tabulis, tria intrinsecus
habens oratoria ampla, et divisa parietibus tabulatis”.
Le jubé était constitué
de panneaux en bois, largement décorés, et avec des rideaux admirablement
décorés.
La célèbre tour ronde de
Kildare date probablement du sixième siècle.
La sixième vie de la
sainte, imprimée par Colgan est attribuée à Coelan, un moine Irlandais du 8ième
siècle, et elle a une importance particulière du fait qu'elle est préfacée par
un avant-propos de la plume de saint Donatus, lui aussi moine Irlandais, qui
devint évêque de Fiesole en 824. Saint Donatus se rapporte aux vies
précédentes écrites par les saints Ultan et Aileran.
Tout enfant, Brigitte
montrait déjà un amour particulier pour les pauvres. Une fois sa maman l'envoya
lui pour ramener du beurre, l'enfant le distribua entièrement.
Devenue adulte, sa générosité était proverbiale : On a constaté que si elle
donnait de l'eau à boire à un étranger assoiffé, le liquide se transformait en
lait ; et un fût de bière envoyé à une communauté Chrétienne, s'avéra en
satisfaire 17 de plus.
Plusieurs des histoires
la concernant ont trait à la multiplication de la nourriture. Comme par exemple
qu'elle changea son eau de bain en bière pour étancher la soif d'un ecclésiastique
arrivé à l'improviste. Même ses vaches donnaient 3 fois du lait le même jour
pour en fournir pour quelques évêques visitants.
Brigitte voyait les
besoins du corps et ceux de l'esprit comme entrelacés. Dévouée à améliorer
aussi bien la vie spirituelle que matérielle de ceux autour d'elle, Brigitte
fit de son monastère une remarquable maison de formation, comprenant aussi une
école d'art. Les manuscrits enluminés qui en sortirent furent loués, en
particulier le Livre de Kildare, qui fut loué comme un des plus beaux de tous
les manuscrits enluminés Irlandais avant sa disparition il y a 3 siècles.
Une fois, elle s'endormit
durant un sermon de saint Patrick, mais étant de bonne humeur, il lui pardonna.
Elle avait rêvé, et elle le lui rapporta, de la terre labourée largement et au
loin, et de semeurs en blanc qui semaient la bonne semence. Puis arrivèrent
d'autres, habillés de noir, qui arrachèrent la bonne semence et semèrent de
l'ivraie à la place. Patrick lui dit que cela aurait lieu; des faux enseignants
viendraient en Irlande et déracineraient tout leur bon travail. Cela attrista
Brigitte, mais elle redoubla ses efforts, enseignant au peuple à prier et à
louer Dieu, et leur expliquant que la lumière sur l'autel était le symbole de
la lumière de l'Évangile dans le cœur de l'Irlande, et ne devrait jamais
s'éteindre.
On appelle Brigitte la
« Marie des Gaëls » à cause de son esprit de charité, et les miracles
qu'on lui attribue ont en général eu lieu en réponse à un appel à sa piété ou
son sens de la justice. Durant un important Synode pour l'Église d'Irlande, un
des saints pères, l'évêque Ibor, annonça qu'il avait rêvé que la sainte Vierge
Marie apparaîtrait au milieu des Chrétiens assemblés. Quand Brigitte arriva, le
père cria, “Voilà la sainte vierge que j'ai vue dans mon rêve”. D'où
l'origine de son surnom. Ses prières et ses miracles auraient eu une puissante
influence sur la croissance de l'antique Église d'Irlande, et son nom est
bien-aimé en Irlande de nos jours encore.
A sa mort, à l'âge de 74
ans, sainte Brigitte fut assistée de saint Ninnidh, qui fut par la suite connu
sous le nom de “Ninnidh à la Main Propre”, parce que par la suite il eut sa
main droite enfermée dans un gant de métal pour éviter que ne soit souillée
celle par laquelle il avait administré le viatique à la Patronne de l'Irlande.
Elle fut enterrée à
droite du maître-autel de la cathédrale de Kildare, et une tombe fort coûteuse
fut dressée au dessus d'elle. Dans les années qui suivirent, son tombeau fut
l'objet de la vénération des pèlerins, en particulier le jour de sa fête, le
1er février, comme le rapporta Cogitosus. Vers 878, à cause des invasions des
Scandinaves, les reliques de sainte Brigitte furent emportées vers Downpatrick,
où elles furent placées dans la tombe avec celles des saints Patrick et
Columba.
Une tunique lui ayant
appartenu, donnée par Gunhilda, sœur du roi Harold 2, se trouve à
Saint-Donatien à Brugge (Bruges), Belgique. Une relique de sa chausse, faite
d'argent et de cuivre décorée de bijoux, se trouve au Musée National à Dublin.
En 1283, 3 chevaliers prirent la tête de Brigitte pour partir en pèlerinage en Terre
Sainte. Ils moururent à Lumiar, près de Lisbonne, Portugal, où l'église possède
à présent une châsse spéciale avec sa tête dans une chapelle dédiée.
Merci à Jean Michel
Dossogne pour le partage de ce texte
http://www.passioniste.org.pf/brigitedekildare.htm
SOURCE : http://nouvl.evangelisation.free.fr/brigitte_de_kildare.htm
COGITOSUS.
VIE DE SAINTE BRIGITTE
Œuvre numérisée et
traduite par Marc Szwajcer
LES VIES DE SAINTE
BRIGITTE DE KILDARE
Il existe plusieurs Vies écrites
de sainte Brigitte de Kildare (421-525); celle dont nous donnons une traduction
ci-dessous est en général nommée Vita II Sanctae Brigidae, par opposition
à une Vita prima écrite sans doute a posteriori de celle de
Cogitosus.
Il existe en outre d’autres Vies de
cette Sainte.
Cogitosus fut un Moine
Irlandais de Kildare dont on ne sait presque rien : lieu et date de
naissance, date de son décès sont inconnus.
Il vécut sans doute au
VIIe siècle (certains disent au VIIIe) et Cogitosus serait le nom de plume
du nom irlandais assez rare de Toimtenach.
On suppose que la Vita fut
écrite vers 650. Son ouvrage est un panégyrique plutôt qu'une biographie.
Il fournit très peu de détails sur la vie de la Sainte, omet ses dates de
naissance et de décès, le lieu où elle naquit et ne fait aucune mention de ses
contemporains si ce n’est Saint Conlaeth, premier Évêque de Kildare, et un
certain Mac Caille qui lui donne le voile.
Il fournit les noms de
ses parents, mais prend soin de cacher le fait qu'elle était illégitime, et que
sa mère était une esclave.
On estime que Cogitosus
écrit en assez bon latin, et sa description de l'église de Kildare avec ses
décorations intérieures est particulièrement intéressante pour l'histoire de
l'art et de l'architecture irlandais à ses débuts.
Le texte latin traduit
aujourd’hui (novembre 2010) est celui de la Patrologie Migne (PL 72); il a,
depuis son existence, été corrigé et on en trouvera des versions plus modernes
sur Internet.
Pour lire la vie de
Sainte Brigitte de Kildare par Cagitosus, ouvrir ce lien : http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/eglise/cogitosus/brigitte.htm
Also
known as
Brigid of Kildare
Brigid of Cell Dara
Brigid of the Isles
Bride…
Bridget…
Brigit…
Ffraid…
Mary of the Gael
10 June (translation
of relics)
Profile
Daughter of
Dubtach, pagan Scottish king of Leinster,
and Brocca, a Christian Pictish slave who
had been baptized by Saint Patrick.
Just before Brigid’s birth, her mother was
sold to a Druid landowner. Brigid remained with her mother till
she was old enough to serve her legal owner Dubtach, her father.
She grew up marked by her
high spirits and tender heart, and as a child,
she heard Saint Patrick preach,
which she never forgot. She could not bear to see anyone hungry or cold, and to
help them, often gave away things that were Dubtach’s. When Dubtach protested,
she replied that “Christ dwelt in every creature”. Dubtach tried to sell
her to the King of Leinster,
and while they bargained, she gave a treasured sword of her father‘s
to a leper.
Dubtach was about to strike her when Brigid explained she had given the sword
to God through the leper,
because of its great value. The King,
a Christian,
forbade Dubtach to strike her, saying “Her merit before God is greater than
ours”. Dubtach solved this domestic problem by giving Brigid her freedom.
Brigid’s aged mother was
in charge of her master’s dairy.
Brigid took charge ,and often gave away the produce. But the dairy prospered
under her (hence her patronage of milk
maids, dairy
workers, cattle,
etc.), and the Druid freed Brigid’s mother.
Brigid returned to
her father,
who arranged a marriage for
her with a young bard. Bride refused, and to keep her virginity, went to
her Bishop, Saint Mel
of Ardagh, and took her first vows. Legend says that she prayed that her
beauty be taken from her so no one would seek her hand in marriage;
her prayer was
granted, and she regained her beauty only after making her vows. Another tale
says that when Saint Patrick heard
her final vows, he mistakenly used the form for ordaining priests.
When told of it he replied, “So be it, my son, she is destined for great
things.”
Her first convent started
c.468 with
seven nuns.
At the invitation of bishops,
she started convents all
over Ireland.
She was a great traveller,
especially considering the conditions of the time, which led to her patronage
of travellers, sailors,
etc. Brigid invented the double
monastery, the monastery of
Kildara, which means Church of the Oak, that she ran on the Liffey river
being for both monks and nuns. Saint Conleth became
its first bishop;
this connection and the installation of a bell that
lasted over 1000 years apparently led to her patronage of blacksmiths and
those in related fields.
Born
453 at
Faughart, County Louth, Ireland
1
February 523 at Kildare, Ireland of
natural causes
interred in the Kildare
cathedral
relics transferred
to Downpatrick, Ireland in 878 where
they were interred with those of Saint Patrick and Saint Columba
of Iona
relics re-discovered
on 9
June 1185
head removed to Jesuit church
in Lisbon, Portugal
Name
Meaning
fiery arrow (=
brigid)
children
whose parents are not married
Douglas,
Lanarkshire, Scotland
abbess,
usually holding a lamp or candle, often with a cow nearby
abbess with
her hand on an altar
holding a cross with a
flame over her head
Storefront
hand painted medals
– medal 1, medal 2
Additional
Information
Book
of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Book
of Saints and Friendly Beasts, by Abbie Farwell Brown
Book
of Saints and Wonders, by Lady Gregory
Life
of Saint Bridgid, Abbess and Patroness of Ireland
Little
Lives of the Great Saints
Lives
of Irish Saints, by Father Albert
Barry
Lives
of the Saints, by Father Alban
Butler
Our
Island Saints, by Amy Steedman
Saint
Brigid, the Mary of Ireland, by Alice Curtayne
Saints
and Their Symbols, by E A Greene
Saints
of the Day, by Katherine Rabenstein
Virgin
Saints and Martyrs, by Sabine Baring-Gould
The Life of Saint
Bridget, by an Irish Priest
Saint Brigid, Patroness
of Ireland, by Father Joseph A Knowles
books
Battersby’s Registry for
the Whole World
Emblems of the Saints, by
F C Husenbeth and Augustus Jessopp
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
Sacred
and Legendary Art, by Anna Jameson
other
sites in english
1001 Patron Saints and Their Feast Days, Australian
Catholic Truth Society
Catholic Exchange: Fearless Mercy
Christian
Biographies, by James E Keifer
Miniature
Stories of the Saints, by Father Daniel
Lord
Catholic Cuisine
Saint Brigid and Cultured Irish Butter
Irish Cheese Toasties – Egg and Cheese Breakfast for
Saint Brigid
Guinness Caramelized Onion and Irish Cheddar Quiche
images
video
sitios
en español
Martirologio Romano, 2001 edición
fonti
in italiano
spletne
strani v slovenšcini
Readings
I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us.
I would like an abundance of peace.
I would like full vessels of charity.
I would like rich treasures of mercy.
I would like cheerfulness to preside over all.
I would like Jesus to be present.
I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts.
I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me.
I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven’s family drinking it through all eternity.
– Saint Brigid
O Glorious Saint Brigid,
Mother of the Churches of Erin, patroness of our missionary race, wherever
their lot may be cast, be thou our guide in the paths of virtue, protect us
amid temptation, shield us from danger. Preserve to us the heritage of chastity
and temperance; keep ever brightly burning on the altar of our hearts the sacred
Fire of Faith, Charity, and Hope, that thus we may emulate the ancient piety of
Ireland’s children, and the Church of Erin may shine with peerless glory as of
old. Thou wert styled by our fathers “The Mary of Erin,” secure for us by thy
prayers the all-powerful protection of the Blessed Virgin, that we may be
numbered here among her most fervent clients, and may hereafter merit a place
together with Thee and the countless Saints of Ireland, in the ranks of her
triumphant children in Paradise. Amen. – Cardinal Patrick
Francis Moran
MLA
Citation
“Saint Brigid of
Ireland“. CatholicSaints.Info. 12 January 2023. Web. 23 March 2023.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-brigid-of-ireland/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-brigid-of-ireland/
Brigid of Kildare V (RM)
(also known as Bride,
Bridget, Brigit, Ffraid)
Born at Faughart? (near Dundalk) or Uinmeras (near Kildare), Louth, Ireland, c.
450; died at Kildare, Ireland, c. 525; feast of her translation is June 10.
"We implore Thee, by
the memory of Thy Cross's hallowed and most bitter anguish, make us fear Thee,
make us love Thee, O Christ. Amen." --Prayer of Saint Brigid.
Saint Brigid was an
original--and that's what each of us are supposed to be, an original creation
of the Almighty Imagination. Unfortunately, most of us get caught up in the
desire to be accepted by others. We conform to the norm, rather than opening up
to the creative power of God and blooming to render Him the sweet fragrance of
our unique lives. We miss the glory of giving God the gift of who we were
intended to be.
Brigid lacked that fault.
She got things done. She had a welcome for everyone in an effort to help them
be originals, too. She was so generous that she gave away the clothes from her
back. She never shied away from hard work or intense prayer. She would brush
aside the rules--even the rules of the Church--if it was necessary to bring out
the best in others. Perhaps for this reason, the saint who never left Ireland,
is venerated throughout the world as the prototype of all nuns. She bridged the
gap between Christian and pagan cultures.
Brigid saw the beauty and
goodness of God in all His creation: cows made her love God more, and so did
wild ducks, which would come and light on her shoulders and hands when she
called to them. She enjoyed great popularity both among her own followers and
the villagers around; and she had great authority, for she was given the
responsibilities of a bishop.
Her chief virtue lay in
her gentleness, in her compassion, and in her happy and devoted nature which
won the affection of all who knew her. She was a great evangelist and joined
hands gladly and gaily with all the saints of that age in spreading the Gospel.
So great was her cultus throughout Europe that the Medieval knights, seeking a
womanly model of perfection, chose Brigid as the example. This theory maintains
that such was the image of Brigid as the feminine ideal that the word
"bride" passed into the English language. (This is unlikely, however.
The word probably derives from the Old German "bryd," meaning bride.)
Historical facts about
Saint Brigid's life are few because the numerous accounts about it after her
death (beginning in the 7th century) consist mainly of miracles and anecdotes,
some of which are deeply rooted in pagan Irish folklore. Nevertheless, they
give us a strong impression of her character. She was probably born in the
middle of the 5th century in eastern Ireland. Some say her parents were of
humble origin; others that they were Dubhthach, an Irish chieftain of Leinster,
and Brocca, a slave at his court. All stories relate that they were both
baptized by Saint Patrick. Some say that Brigid became friends with Patrick,
though it is uncertain that she ever met him. Beautiful Brigid consecrated
herself to God at a young age, but reports that she was 'veiled' by Saint
Macaille at Croghan and consecrated by Saint Mel at Armagh are unlikely.
The Book of Lismore bears
this story: Brigid and certain virgins along with her went to take the veil
from Bishop Mel in Telcha Mide. Blithe was he to see them. For humility Brigid
stayed so that she might be the last to whom a veil should be given. A fiery
pillar rose from her head to the roof ridge of the church. Then said Bishop
Mel: "Come, O holy Brigid, that a veil may be sained on thy head before
the other virgins." It came to pass then, through the grace of the Holy
Spirit, that the form of ordaining a bishop was read out over Brigid. Macaille
said that a bishop's order should not be confirmed on a woman. Said Bishop Mel:
"No power have I in this matter. That dignity hath been given by God unto
Brigid, beyond every (other) woman." Wherefore the men of Ireland from
that time to this give episcopal honor to Brigid's successor. Most likely this
story relates to the fact that Roman diocesan system was unknown in Ireland.
Monasteries formed the center of Christian life in the early Church of Ireland.
Therefore, abbots and abbesses held the rank and function that a bishop would
on the Continent. Evidence of this can be seen also at synods and councils,
such as that of Whitby, which was convened by Saint Hilda. Women sometimes ruled
double monasteries; thus, governing both men and women. Bridget, as a
preeminent abbess, might have fulfilled some episcopal functions, such as
preaching, hearing confessions (giving absolution?), and leading the
neighboring Christians. There is no evidence, however, that she could or did
ordain priests.
Beginning consecrated
life as a anchorite of sorts, Brigid's sanctity drew many others. When she was
about 18, she settled with seven other like-minded girls near Croghan Hill in
order to devote herself to God's service. About 468 she followed Saint Mel to
Meath.
There is little reliable
information about the convent she founded around 470 at Kildare (originally
Cill-Daire or 'church of the oak'), the first convent in Ireland, and the rule
that was followed there. This is one of the ways Brigid sanctified the pagan
with the Christian: The oak was sacred to the druids, and in the inner
sanctuary of the Church was a perpetual flame, another religious symbol of the
druid faith, as well as the Christian. Gerald of Wales (13th century) noted
that the fire was perpetually maintained by 20 nuns of her community. This
continued until the dissolution of the monasteries during the Reformation.
Gerald noted that the fire was surrounded by a circle of bushes, which no man
was allowed to enter. Some have speculated that Brigid was a high priestess of
a community of druid women, who led the entire community into the Christian
faith, which would have been truly miraculous. Others have tried to claim that
she was an Irish goddess, noting that the name Brig, meaning 'valor' or
'might,' was personified as a goddess, whose fire-cult took place on February
1. The connection, however, is unconvincing.
It is generally thought
to have been a double monastery, housing both men and women--a common practice
in the Celtic lands that was sometimes taken by the Irish to the continent.
It's possible that she presided over both communities. She did establish
schools there for both men and women. Another source says that she installed a
bishop named Conlaeth there, though the Vatican officially lists the See of
Kildare as dating from 519.
Even as a child Brigid
showed special love for the poor. When her mother sent her to collect butter,
the child gave it all away. Her generosity in adult life was legendary: It was
recorded that if she gave a drink of water to a thirsty stranger, the liquid
turned into milk; when she sent a barrel of beer to one Christian community, it
proved to satisfy 17 more. Many of the stories about her relate to the multiplication
of food, including one that she changed her bath-water into beer to satisfy the
thirst of an unexpected clergyman. Even her cows gave milk three times the same
day to provide milk for some visiting bishops.
Brigid saw that the needs
of the body and the needs of the spirit intertwined. Dedicated to improving the
spiritual as well as the material lives of those around her, Brigid made her
monastery a remarkable house of learning, including an art school. The
illuminated manuscripts originating there were praised, especially the Book of
Kildare, which was praised as one of the finest of all illuminated Irish
manuscripts before its disappearance three centuries ago.
Once she fell asleep
during a sermon of Saint Patrick, but he laughingly forgave her. She had
dreamed, she told him, of the land ploughed far and wide, and of white-clothed
sowers sowing good seed. Then came others clothed in black, who ploughed up the
good seed and sowed tares in its place. Patrick told her that such would
happen; false teachers would come to Ireland and uproot all their good work.
This saddened Brigid, but she redoubled her efforts, teaching people to pray
and to worship God, and telling them that the light on the altar was a symbol
of the shining of the Gospel in the heart of Ireland, and must never be
extinguished, and in her church at Kildare, a flame still burns to her memory.
Brigid was called 'Mary
of the Gael' because her spirit of charity, and the miracles attributed to her
were usually enacted in response to a call upon her pity or sense of justice.
During an important synod of the Irish church, one of the holy fathers, Bishop
Ibor, announced that he had dreamed that the Blessed Virgin Mary would appear
among the assembled Christians. When Brigid arrived the father cried,
"There is the holy maiden I saw in my dream." Thus, the reason for
her moniker. (This bishop, too, is said to have consecrated her a bishop.) Her
prayers and miracles were said to exercise a powerful influence on the growth
of the early Irish Church, and she is much beloved in Ireland to this day.
The relics of Saint
Brigid are presumably buried at Downpatrick with those of Saints Columba and
Patrick. A tunic reputed to have been hers, given by Gunhilda, sister of King
Harold II, survives at Saint Donatian's in Bruges, Belgium; a relic of her
shoe, made of silver and brass set with jewels, is at the National Museum of
Dublin. In 1283, three knights took the head of Brigid with them on a journey
to the Holy Land. They died in Lumier (near Lisbon), Portugal, where the church
now enshrines her head in a special chapel.
In England, there are 19
ancient church dedications to her. The most important of which is the oldest
church in London--St. Bride's in Fleet Street--and the parish in which Saint Thomas
à Becket was born-- Bridewell or Saint Bride's Well. In Scotland, East and West
Kilbride bear her name. Saint Brigid's Church at Douglas recalls that she is
the patroness of the great Douglas family. Several places in Wales are named
Llansantaffraid, which means "St. Bride's Church." The Irish Bishop
Saint Donato of Fiesole (Italy) built a Saint Brigid's Church in Piacenza,
where the Peace of Constance was ratified in 1185.
The best-known custom
connected with Brigid is the plaiting of reed crosses for her feast day. This
tradition dates to the story that she was plaiting rush crosses while nursing a
dying pagan chieftain. He asked her about this and her explanation led to his
being baptized. Traditional Irish (Brid agus Muire dhuit, Brigid and Mary be
with you) and Welsh (Sanffried suynade ni undeith, St. Brigid bless us on our
journey) blessings invoke her. A blessing over cattle in the Scottish isles
goes: "The protection of God and Colmkille encompass your going and
coming, and about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms, Brigid of the
clustering, golden brown hair" (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney,
Encyclopedia, Farmer, Gill, Groome, Montague, O'Briain, Sellner, White).
She is usually portrayed
in art with a cow lying at her feet, a reference to a phase in her life as a
cowgirl; or holding a cross and casting out the devil (White). Her emblem is a
lighted lamp or candle (not to be confused with Saint Geneviève, who is not an
abbess). At times she may be shown (1) with a flame over her; (2) geese or cow
near her; (3) near a barn; (4) letting wax from a taper fall upon her arm; or
(5) restoring a man's hand (Roeder).
Brigid is the patron
saint of Ireland, poets, dairymaids, blacksmiths, healers (White), cattle,
fugitives, Irish nuns, midwives, and new-born babies (Roeder). She is still
venerated highly in Alsace, Flanders, and Portugal (Montague), as well as
Ireland and Chester, England (Farmer).
Saint Brigid and the Boar
In those days the ground
around a monastery was enclosed and was considered holy ground; it was a sacred
place where God was worshipped. If a criminal was trying to escape, he could
seek sanctuary in the monastery enclosure and no one could do anything to him
until he himself agreed to leave.
Well the wild animals seemed
to know about this law, too. One day a wild boar was being chased by hunters
and was on the point of being caught. The boar managed to reach Saint Brigid's
convent in Kildare. The huntsmen were forced to draw up outside the gates and
wait. They expected the nuns to chase the boar out to them again, when they
could easily kill it.
Brigid happened to see
the unhappy boar stagger in, so she called to it and then sent a message out to
the hunters, saying that the animal claimed the right of sanctuary just as
people did. They sent back a message saying that animals are only animals and
didn't have the same rights as men. Could they please have their boar? And
Brigid sent back a final message that as far as she was concerned the animal
had the same right of sanctuary.
The disappointed hunters
rode away. Then Brigid turned her attention to the wild boar; it was lying
down, exhausted from its long run and nearly frightened to death. She gave it a
drink and then led it to her own herd of pigs. At once the boar became quite
tame and settled down with the other swine on Brigid's farm for the rest of its
life.
Brigid and the Fox
Brigid had a wonderful
way with animals. One day a friend of the monastery workmen came to her with a
sad tale that the friend had accidentally killed the king of Leinster's pet
fox, thinking that it was a wild animal. The man was arrested. His wife and
children begged the king to spare his life to no avail. The workman asked
Brigid to intercede.
Although Brigid loved
animals, she thought it silly that a man's life should be demanded in return
for the fox's, so she set out for the court. The way lay through a wood, where
the road was a mere track and the horse had to walk. Brigid prayed for the
right words to speak to the angry king to save the life of the woodsman.
Suddenly she saw a little
fox peeping shy at her around a tree and she had an idea. She told the driver
to stop and called the animal to her. Immediately it sprang into the car beside
her and nestled happily in the folds of her cloak. Brigid stroked its head and
spoke to it gently. The little fox licked her hand and looked at her adoringly.
When she reached the
king's castle, the fox trotted after her. She found the ruler still in a mighty
rage. "Nothing," he told her angrily, "nothing in the world
could make up to me for the less of my beloved pet. Death is too good for that
idiot of a workman. He must die as a warning to others like him. Let him
die."
The king stormed on,
"It is no use whining to me about mercy. That little fox was my companion,
even my friend. It was brutally killed for no reason. What hard did I do to
that man? Do you have any notion how much I loved my little fox that I have cared
for ever since it was born?"
The king's furious eyes
met Brigid's loving ones. Yes, indeed, she could well understand it. She was
truly sorry for his loss for she, too, loved all animals and especially tame
little foxes. Look here . . . she beckoned forward her new pet from the woods
that had been crouching behind her.
The king forgot his anger
in this new interest. He and his household looked on delightedly while Brigid
proceeded to put the fox through all kinds of clever tricks. It obeyed her
voice and tried so hard to please her that the onlookers were greatly
entertained. Soon she was surrounded by laughing faces.
The king told her what
his own little fox used to do. "See, it used to jump through this hoop,
even at this height." But so could Brigid's at her first sign of command!
When the king's fox wanted a tidbit, it used to stand on its hind legs with its
fore paws joined as though it were praying . . . why, so could Brigid's! Could
anything be more amusing? When his mood had completely changed, Brigid offered
her fox to the king in exchange for the prisoner's life. Now the king smilingly
agreed and he even promised Brigid that never again would he inflict any kind
of punishment on that workman, whose misdeed he would forget.
Brigid was very happy
when the prisoner was restored to his wife and children. She went back home thanking
God.
But the little fox missed
her sorely and became restless and unhappy. It did not care where Brigid led
him but, without her, the castle was a prison. After a while the king left on
business and no one else bothered much about the new pet. The fox watched for
it chance and when it found an open door, it made good its escape back to the
woods.
Presently the king returned and there was commotion when the pet was missed. The whole household was sent flying out to search for it. When they failed, the king's hounds were sent to help in the search, their keen noses snuffing over the ground for the fox's scent. Then the excited king summoned out his whole army, both horsemen and footmen, to follow the hounds in every direction. But it was all no use. When night fell, the hosts of Leinster returned wearily to their king with news of failure. Brigid's little pet fox was never found again (Curtayne).
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0201.shtml
St. Brigid (452 – 525) was probably born at
Faughart near Dundalk, Louth, Ireland. Her parents were baptized by St.
Patrick, with whom she developed a close friendship. According to legend, her
father was Dubhthach, an Irish chieftain of Lienster, and her mother, Brocca,
was a slave at his court. Even as a young girl she evinced an interest for a
religious life and took the veil in her youth from St. Macaille at Croghan and
probably was professed by St. Mel of Armagh, who is believed to have conferred
abbatial authority on her.
She settled with seven of her virgins at the foot of Croghan Hill for a time
and about the year 468, followed Mel to Meath. About the year 470 she founded a
double monastery at Cill-Dara (Kildare) and was Abbess of the convent, the
first in Ireland. The foundation developed into a center of learning and
spirituality, and around it grew up the Cathedral city of Kildare. She founded
a school of art at Kildare and its illuminated manuscripts became famous,
notably the Book of Kildare, which was praised as one of the finest of all
illuminated Irish manuscripts before its disappearance three centuries ago.
St. Brigid was one of the most remarkable women of her times, and despite the
numerous legendary, extravagant, and even fantastic miracles attributed to her,
there is no doubt that her extraordinary spirituality, boundless charity, and
compassion for those in distress were real. She died at Kildare on February 1.
The Mary of the Gael, she is buried at Downpatrick with St. Columba and St.
Patrick, with whom she is the patron of Ireland. Her name is sometimes Bridget
and Bride. Her feast day is February 1.
http://www.ucatholic.com/saints/saint-brigid-of-ireland/
St. Brigid of Ireland
(Incorrectly known as
BRIDGET).
Born in 451 or 452 of
princely ancestors at Faughart, near Dundalk, County Louth; d. 1 February,
525, at Kildare.
Refusing many good offers of marriage, she became a nun and
received the veil from St. Macaille. With seven
other virgins she settled for a time at the foot
of Croghan Hill, but removed thence to Druin Criadh, in the plains of
Magh Life, where under a large oak tree she erected her subsequently
famous Convent of Cill-Dara, that is,
"the church of the oak" (now Kildare), in the present
county of that name. It is exceedingly difficult to reconcile the statements
of St. Brigid's biographers, but the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Lives
of the saint are
at one in assigning her a slave mother in the court of her
father Dubhthach, and Irish chieftain
of Leinster. Probably the most ancient life of St. Brigid is that by
St. Broccan Cloen, who is said to have died 17 September, 650. It is
metrical, as may be seen from the following specimen:
Ni bu
Sanct Brigid suanach
Ni bu huarach im
sheire Dé,
Sech ni chiuir ni
cossens
Ind nóeb dibad bethath che.
(Saint Brigid was
not given to sleep,
Nor was she intermittent
about God's love;
Not merely that she did
not buy, she did not seek for
The wealth of this world below, the holy one.)
Cogitosus,
a monk of Kildare in
the eighth century, expounded the metrical life of St. Brigid, and
versified it in good Latin. This is what is known as the "Second
Life", and is an excellent example of Irish scholarship
in the mid-eighth century. Perhaps the most interesting feature of Cogitosus's work
is the description of the Cathedral of Kildare in
his day: "Solo spatioso et in altum minaci proceritate porruta
ac decorata pictis tabulis,
tria intrinsecus habens oratoria ampla, et divisa
parietibus tabulatis". The rood-screen was formed of wooden
boards, lavishly decorated, and with beautifully decorated curtains. Probably
the famous Round Tower of Kildare dates from the sixth century.
Although St. Brigid was "veiled" or received by St. Macaille,
at Croghan, yet, it is tolerably certain that she was professed by St.
Mel of Ardagh,
who also conferred on her abbatial powers. From Ardagh St.
Macaille and St. Brigid followed St. Mel into the country
of Teffia in Meath,
including portions of Westmeath and Longford. This occurred about the year
468. St. Brigid's small oratory at Cill-Dara became the
centre of religion and learning, and developed into a cathedral city.
She founded two monastic institutions, one for men, and the
other for women,
and appointed St. Conleth as spiritual pastor of
them. It has been frequently stated that she gave canonical
jurisdiction to St. Conleth, Bishop of Kildare,
but, as Archbishop Healy points out, she simply "selected
the person to whom the Church gave
this jurisdiction", and her biographer tells us distinctly that she
chose St. Conleth "to govern the church along with
herself". Thus, for centuries, Kildare was ruled by a double line
of abbot-bishops and of abbesses, the Abbess of Kildare being
regarded as superioress general of the convents in Ireland.
Not alone was St. Bridget a patroness of students, but she
also founded a school of
art, including metal work and illumination, over which St.
Conleth presided. From the Kildare scriptorium came the
wondrous book of the Gospels, which elicited unbounded praise from Giraldus
Cambrensis, but which has disappeared since the Reformation.
According to this twelfth- century ecclesiastic, nothing that he
had ever seen was at all comparable to the "Book of Kildare", every
page of which was gorgeously illuminated, and he concludes a most laudatory
notice by saying that the interlaced work and the harmony of the
colours left the impression that "all this is the work of angelic,
and not human skill". Small wonder that Gerald
Barry assumed the book to have been written night after night
as St. Bridget prayed,
"an angel furnishing
the designs, the scribe copying". Even allowing for the
exaggerated stories told of St. Brigid by her numerous biographers, it is certain that
she ranks as one of the most remarkable Irishwomen of the fifth
century and as the Patroness of Ireland.
She is lovingly called the "Queen of the South: the Mary of the
Gael" by a writer in the "Leabhar Breac". St. Brigid died
leaving a cathedral city
and school that
became famous all over Europe.
In her honour St.
Ultan wrote a hymn commencing:
Christus in nostra
insula
Que vocatur
Hivernia
Ostensus est
hominibus
Maximis mirabilibus
Que perfecit
per felicem
Celestis vite virginem
Precellentem pro
merito
Magno in numdi circulo.
(In our island of
Hibernia Christ was made known to man by the very great miracles which
he performed through the happy virgin of
celestial life, famous for her merits through
the whole world.)
The sixth Life of the saint printed
by Colgan is
attributed to Coelan, an Irish monk of
the eighth century, and it derives a peculiar importance from the fact that it
is prefaced by a foreword from the pen of St. Donatus, also an Irish monk,
who became Bishop of Fiesole in
824. St. Donatus refers to previous lives by St.
Ultan and St.
Aileran. When dying, St. Brigid was attended by St. Ninnidh, who was
ever afterwards known as "Ninnidh of the Clean Hand" because he had
his right hand encased with a metal covering to prevent its ever being defiled,
after being he medium of administering the viaticum to Ireland's Patroness.
She was interred at
the right of the high
altar of Kildare Cathedral, and a costly tomb was
erected over her. In after years her shrine was an object
of veneration for pilgrims,
especially on her feast
day, 1 February, as Cogitosus related.
About the year 878, owing to the Scandinavian raids, the relics of
St. Brigid were taken to Downpatrick, where they were interred in
the tomb of St.
Patrick and St.
Columba. The relics of
the three saints were
discovered in 1185, and on 9 June of the following year were solemnly translated
to a suitable resting place in Downpatrick Cathedral, in presence
of Cardinal Vivian, fifteen bishops,
and numerous abbots and ecclesiastics.
Various Continental breviaries of
the pre-Reformation period commemorate St. Brigid, and her name is included in
a litany in
the Stowe Missal.
In Ireland today,
after 1500 years, the memory of "the Mary of the Gael" is
as dear as ever to the Irish heart,
and, as is well known, Brigid preponderates as a female Christian
name. Moreover, hundreds of place-names in her honour are
to be found all over the country, e.g. Kilbride, Brideswell, Tubberbride,
Templebride, etc. The hand of St. Brigid is preserved at Lumiar near Lisbon, Portugal,
since 1587, and another relic is
at St. Martin's Cologne.
Viewing the biography of St. Brigid from a critical standpoint we must allow a
large margin for the vivid Celtic imagination and
the glosses of medieval writers,
but still the personality of
the founder of Kildare stands out clearly, and we can with tolerable
accuracy trace the leading events in her life, by a careful study of the old
"Lives" as found in Colgan.
It seems certain that Faughart, associated with memories of
Queen Meave (Medhbh), was the scene of her birth;
and Faughart Church was founded by St. Morienna in honour of
St. Brigid. The old well of St. Brigid's adjoining the
ruined church is of the most venerable antiquity, and still
attracts pilgrims;
in the immediate vicinity is the ancient mote of Faughart. As to St.
Brigid's stay in Connacht, especially in the County Roscommon, there
is ample evidence in the "Trias Thaumaturga", as also in the
many churches founded
by her in the Diocese of Elphim. Her friendship with St.
Patrick is attested by the following paragraph from the "Book of
Armagh", a precious manuscript of
the eighth century, the authenticity of
which is beyond question: "inter sanctum Patricium Brigitanque Hibernesium
columpnas amicitia caritatis inerat tanta, ut unum cor consiliumque haberent
unum. Christus per illum illamque virtutes multas peregit".
(Between St.
Patrick and St. Brigid, the columns of the Irish,
there was so great a friendship of charity that they had but one
heart and one mind. Through him and through her Christ performed
many miracles.)
At Armagh there was a "Templum Brigidis"; namely the
little abbey church known
as "Regles Brigid", which contained some relics of
the saint,
destroyed in 1179, by William Fitz Aldelm. It may be added that
the original manuscript of Cogitosus's "Life
of Brigid", or the "Second Life", dating from the closing years
of the eighth century, is now in the Dominican friary at Eichstätt in Bavaria.
Sources
Acta SS.; Acta
Sanct. Hib. ex Cod. Salmant.; COGLGAN, Trias Thaumaturga (Louvain,
1647); STOKER, Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore; ID., Three
Middle Irish Homilies; O'HANLON, Lives of the Irish Saints (1
February), II; TODD, Liber Hyumnorum; Stowe Missal; Leabhar
Braec; MESSINGHAM, Florilgium; ATKINSON, St. Brigid in Essays (Dublin,
1892); HEALY, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars; STOKES, Early
Christian Art in Ireland; HYDE, Literary History of Ireland (1900);
KNOWLES, Life of St. Brigid (1907). Cf. CHEVALIER, Bio-bibliogr.
(Paris, 1905, 2nd ed.), s.v.
Grattan-Flood, William. "St. Brigid of Ireland." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton
Company,1907. 1 Feb. 2016 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02784b.htm>.
Transcription. This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Michael T. Barrett. Dedicated to
Angelia Harris.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin
Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02784b.htm
Cong
St. Mary of the Rosary Window St. Brigid Detail St. Brigid holding her Lamp
On Feb. 1 Catholics in
Ireland and elsewhere will honor Saint Brigid of Kildare, a monastic
foundress who is – together with Saint Patrick and Saint Columcille – one of
the country’s three patron saints.
St. Brigid directly influenced several other future saints of Ireland, and her
many religious communities helped to secure the country's conversion from
paganism to the Catholic faith.
She is traditionally associated with the Cross of St. Brigid, a form of the
cross made from reeds or straw that is placed in homes for blessing and
protection. Some Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians also
celebrate her feast, on the same date as the Roman Catholic Church.
St. Brigid has been profiled many times by both ancient and modern writers, but
it is notoriously hard to establish the historical details of her life, and the
various accounts make many conflicting claims. According to one of the more
credible biographies of Brigid – Hugh de Blacam's essay in “The Saints of
Ireland,” on which the following account is based – most historians place her
birth around the year 450, near the end of Saint Patrick's evangelistic
mission.
Brigid was born out of wedlock, the daughter of a pagan cheiftain named
Dubthach and a Christian slave woman named Broicsech. The cheiftain sold the
child's pregnant mother to a new master, but contracted for Brigid to be
returned to him eventually. According to de Blacam, the child was probably
baptized as an infant and raised as a Catholic by her mother. Thus, she was
well-formed in the faith before leaving Broicsech's slave-quarters, at around
age 10, to live with Dubthach and his wife.
Within the new circumstances of the cheiftain's household, Brigid's faith found
expression in feats of charity. From the abundance of her father's food and
possessions, she gave generously to the poor. Dubthach became enraged,
threatening to sell Brigid – who was not recognized as a full family member,
but worked as a household servant – to the King of Leinster. But the Christian
king understood Brigid's acts of charity and convinced Dubthach to grant his
daughter her freedom.
Released from servitude, Brigid was expected to marry. But she had other plans,
which involved serving God in consecrated life. She even disfigured her own
face, marring her beauty in order to dissuade suitors. Understanding he could
not change her mind, Dubthach granted Brigid permission to pursue her plan, and
material means by which to do so. Thus did a pagan nobleman, through this gift
to his illegitimate daughter, play an unintentional but immense part in God's
plan for Ireland.
While consecrated religious life was part of the Irish Church before Brigid's
time, it had not yet developed the systematic character seen in other parts of
the Christian world by the fifth century. Among women, vows of celibacy were
often lived out in an impromptu manner, in the circumstances of everyday life
or with the aid of particular benefactors. Brigid, with an initial group of
seven companions, is credited with organizing communal consecrated religious
life for women in Ireland.
Bishop Mel of Ardagh – St. Patrick's nephew, and later “St. Mel” – accepted
Brigid's profession as a nun. According to tradition, the disfigurement she had
inflicted on her face disappeared that day, and her beauty returned. St. Mel
went on to serve as a mentor to the group during their time at Ardagh.
Around the time of his death in 488, Brigid's community got an offer to
resettle. Their destination is known today as Kildare (“Church of the Oak”),
after the main monastery she founded there.
Brigid's life as a nun was rooted in prayer, but it also involved substantial
manual labor: clothmaking, dairy farming, and raising sheep. In Ireland, as in
many other regions of the Christian world, this communal combination of work
and prayer attracted vast numbers of people during the sixth century. Kildare,
however, was unique as the only known Irish “double monastery”: it included a
separately-housed men's community, led by the bishop Saint Conleth.
From this main monastery, Brigid's movement branched out to encompass a large
portion of Ireland. It is not clear just how large, but it is evident that
Brigid traveled widely throughout the island, founding new houses and building
up a uniquely Irish form of monasticism. When she was not traveling, many
pilgrims – including prominent clergy, and some future saints – made their way
to Kildare, seeking the advice of the abbess.
Under Brigid's leadership, Kildare played a major role in the successful
Christianization of Ireland. The abbess' influence was felt in the subsequent
era of the Irish Church, a time when the country became known for its many
monasteries and their intellectual achievements.
St. Brigid of Kildare died around 525. She is said to have received the last
sacraments from a priest, Saint Ninnidh, whose vocation she had encouraged. Veneration
of Brigid grew in the centuries after her death, and spread outside of Ireland
through the work of the country's monastic missionaries.
SOURCE : http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=134
Thurles
Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thurles, County
Tipperary, Ireland
21st
stained glass window in the ambulatory (beginning from the left on the western
side), depicting Saint Brigid. Manufactured by Wailes of Newcastle.
SAINT BRIGID: THE MARY OF
THE GAEL
Author: Hugh de
Blacam
CHAPTER II : BORN IN BONDAGE
1. The Name Of Brigid
Until the past
half-century, every Irish family had a Patrick and a Brigid. These were the
most common names in Ireland throughout the Penal days, when the race bound
itself to its persecuted tradition by constantly invoking Patrick, Brigid, and
Columcille. Nowadays, Patrick is the second most common man's name in Ireland.
The late Rev. John Woulfe, author of the standard work on Irish names and
surnames,[1] analysed a baptismal list of 1000 children in County Limerick. In
this list, there were 94 Johns and 65 Patricks, with Michael as the third
commonest name (51), and William as the fourth (43); Colum did not appear at
all, since the name of the third Irish Patron long since has fallen into
neglect, save in Columcille's native Donegal. The list, in respect of girls'
names, showed Mary 150 times, for our Lady's sacred name is borne by the eldest
girl in virtually every family. Margaret came next (75), then Catherine (45),
Nora (40), Johanna or Siobhan (35), and Brigid only sixth, with 30 baptisms,
the same number as Julia, and only five more than Elizabeth and Ellen, which
numbered 25 each.
The decline in the
popularity of the long-beloved name of Brigid is due to the corruption of the
name into the undignified Biddy in the anglicised nineteenth century. In times
when what we call the stage—Irish tradition was in vogue, "Irish
Paddy" and "Irish Biddy" were figures of fun, symbols used in
anti-Irish caricatures by the ill-bred, and it needed the Gaelic revival of the
present century to restore the associations of the name which once stood in
such high honour.
Another circumstance told
against the Irish name. In the Penal age and far into the past century, the
English-speaking world knew virtually nothing of the saint, whose written
records were locked up in the unprinted, forgotten old Gaelic books, and whose
traditional memory was cherished only in the secret world of Gaelic speech, by
a race that lacked schools, printing press, political freedom, and worldly
respect. Accordingly, when there was any mention of St. Brigid in the
English-speaking world, it was common to confuse her with St. Bridget of
Sweden, who died in 1373; it often happened, for example, that people seeking
holy pictures of St. Brigid were supplied from Germany with images of the
Scandinavian saint through the ignorance, in continental centres of
ecclesiastical art, of the existence of any other saint of such a name. The
Scandinavian spelling came into vogue; and Irish children were called Bridget,
when the intention was to name them after Brigid. Apparently, the pronunciation
of Bridget with a <j> sound came in with the Swedish spelling. It is not
agreeable, and the beauty of the Irish name suffered.
The Irish name ought to
be pronounced with a hard <g>; that is, as "Brigg-id," not as
"Bridjit." In its most ancient form, the name was spelt with a final
t, Brigit, and was Latinised Brigitta. From an early time, however, and down
the ages, it was spelt Brigid; Latin form, Brigida. However, the complicated
matter of orthography is not ended at this point; for in Modern Gaelic—the
language as spoken for the past seven centuries—the <g> becomes silent,
and the name usually is spelt in Gaelic Brighid (<genitive> Brighde),
with a pronunciation "Bree-id." From this it will be seen how
Kilbride and St. Bride's are derived.
Accordingly, in writing
English we adhere to Brigid as the correct historic and literary form. Let us
pronounce it "Briggid," although we often hear people nowadays, under
the influence of the revived Irish language, saying "Breeid," which
is, as we have shown, fully permissible. In Munster, the pronunciation
"Bride" has come into use, and often the name is written Bride,
instead of Brigid. Since this development is native and natural, we can make no
objection to it, and would be glad to find children christened Bride as well as
Brigid, whenever a due respect for our saint is recovered. The colloquial pet
form is not the ugly Biddy, but Bridie.
Before we leave the
history of the name, something must be said of its origin. Most scholars hold
that the saint was given the name of Brigit from a goddess in Celtic mythology,
who was so named, and they interpret the word as signifying Fiery Arrow. Over a
thousand years ago, a Gaelic glossary was written, in which it was explained
that Brigit was daughter of the Dagda (the Celtic Zeus), and was goddess of the
poets, From this, writers of the Evolutionary school hold that the Christian
saint was no other than the pagan goddess transmogrified. "Brigit is one
of the Irish saints as to whose relationship with a pagan divinity there can be
no doubt," writes one great scholar,[2] whom we are surprised to find
taking this unorthodox view. "Certain aspects of her character and career
must be based on the myth or the ritual of a goddess, probably a goddess associated
with a fire cult"—alluding to the perpetual fire which was kept burning in
St. Brigid's Abbey at Kildare. In support of the Evolutionary theory, its
champions point out that very little is told of the Christian abbess to account
for the wide cultOur answer is simple. We say that Brigit was a name among the
pagans, and we accept its interpretation as Fiery Arrow. We think that our
saint may have received the name that originated with a pagan goddess just as
Pope Pius XI as a child received the name of Achille, from the pagan hero
Achilles. If some alien scholar in distant future ages should discover that the
pope famed for his intrepidity bore the name of an intrepid warrior of the
Greeks, and should say that the heroic pope was a Christian development of a
heathen myth, we would consider that just as reasonable as the theory which
makes the great nun who carried on Patrick's holy Catholic work a mere
development of a poetic myth.
As to the scantiness of
the records of St. Brigid's life and work, we shall see that certain cataclysms
in history interrupted our records; and apart from that, we cite two modern
examples. The mighty Santa Teresa of Spain, whom a great nation honours as its
second patron, was a nun, like Brigid, whose life was relatively uneventful,
but whose influence and whose cult are prodigious. If Santa Teresa had not
written her own autobiography and her mystical <Mansions of the Soul>, we
would know almost as little of her life-story as of Brigid's. Again, that
little Carmelite nun, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, who died when scarcely
out of her girlhood at Lisieux in our own days, was she not "the Star of
the Pontificate" to Pius XI, and has she not won a world-wide cult like
Brigid?—yet the acts and deeds of her life could be related in half a chapter.
The Catholic mind, therefore, finds no difficulty in realising that a soul may
make history and move the world, though leaving little to tell concerning its
passage through this world. Our Lady's own life on earth was almost wholly hidden.
Finally, ere we pass from
Brigid's name to Brigid's story, we must speak of her title, "the Mary of
the Gael." This is attached to her in the most ancient records. It can be
traced back to her own century, when the legend arose that a Druid prophesied before
her birth that she should be "another Mary, mother of the great
Lord." It is attached to her, down the ages, in native writings.
Here, once again, we are
met by the misinterpretations that abound in authors who lack the Catholic way
of thinking, and who devise fantastic scientific explanations for things that
we find simple. Some of these writers tell us that the old Irish lacked
devotion to the Blessed Virgin, but created, as it were, a mental substitute
for her in Brigid. They support this theory by citing an old fable in which
Brigid is supposed to have been nurse to the Infant Jesus. For us, the fable,
which makes Brigid present at Bethlehem five hundred years before her own
birth, is a delightful fancy, springing from some poetic mind; but we do not
regard our ancestors as fools who believed in impossibilities. We dismiss an
argument that could detain nobody save an untraditional evolutionary theorist,
and we return to fact.
Examining fact, we
discover that the olden Gaels reverenced our Lady so devoutly that they did not
give her name to their girl children any more than they would give the name of
Jesus to boys. They used such names as Maol-Iosa and Giolla-Iosa, signifying
servant of Jesus, and they used Maol-Muire ("Myles") and Giolla Muire
(Gilmurry), signifying Mary's servant. In modern times, when Mary came into
common use and at last, as we have noted, exceeded all other names in the
number of baptisms, the traditional reluctance of the Gael to make common use
of a sacred name expressed itself in the Irish-speaking districts thus: that
girls named Mary in English were called Maire ("Maurya") in Irish,
but our Lady never was called Maire; instead, the ancient form Muire
("Mwirra") was preserved, to designate her, and her alone.[3]
Now consider what is
implied by the former popularity of the name Brigid, far outnumbering Mary,
among Irish girls and women, and the description of Brigid as the Mary of the
Gael. The phrase puzzles those alien minds which do not know, from the Catholic
life, what Mary means to the inner life of the Church. To the mind which thinks
traditionally, the phrase is eloquent and illuminating. It could rise only
among people who were devoted to the Mother of God. We realise at once that as
the old Irish and the Gaels down the ages so reverenced the Mother of the
Redeemer that they classed her name with the Holy Name, not to be used freely,
so they regarded Brigid, the first Irish nun and the mightiest exemplar of
Christian womanhood among their saints, as being the exponent of the virtues
and glories of Mary—that is, we may say, as our Lady's representative, the
Irishwoman who was nearest to her, truest to her, most like her.
The phrase means that, or
it means nothing, and nobody with the Catholic way of thinking ever was puzzled
by it. As holy women everywhere aspire to resemble Mary and as we recognise our
Lady's ways in the sanctified souls of the cloister, so the Gaels saw in Brigid
the likeness of our Lady, and called this remarkable Child of Mary, "the
Mary of the Gael."
2. Faughart Hill
The wide, rich, level
loamy farmlands of Leinster end at Dundalk Bay where, beyond a sluggish river
and a sandy plain, the highlands of Ulster rise in a long, coloured array. The
river is crossed now by Dundalk bridge, but in olden times the high road from
Tara into Ulster went through the river at a near-by place named
<Ath-na-gCarbad>, the Ford of the Chariots. Two miles beyond the water
way, the road rises through a district crammed with cromlechs and stone circles
and pillar stones, relics of a remote age when the men of the Bronze Age
settled just above the uncleared lowland forest and the marshes.
Here, to the left, a
foot-hill of the mountains is the first height, some 400 feet high. It is
conspicuous to the eye of travellers in the motor coaches which pierce into the
mountains to cross high Killeavy moor into the north. On the summit of the
green dome are ruins of an ancient church, beside an ancient tumulus. In 1315,
Edward Bruce, lately crowned King of Ireland—brother of the Scottish Robert—was
buried in these church precincts on the height after losing the Battle of
Faughart which ended, for that time, the hope of Irish freedom. This, then, is
Faughart Hill, and the tumulus is said to mark the home of St. Brigid's father,
and the place where her girlhood was spent.
It is needful to utter a
caution at this point. Tradition in Ireland is almost overwhelming in
designating Faughart as the home of Brigid's father. A stream which glitters
down the slope has been visited by untold multitudes of pilgrims, for her sake,
down the centuries, and to-day is the centre of authorised annual devotions. In
that region, the cult of Brigid always has been exceptionally strong. There is
not a country house in North Louth or South Armagh (the districts which meet at
the hill) which does not put St. Brigid's Cross of rushes in the rafters, year
after year, at her feast-day: of which observance we will say more later.
Against this identification of Brigid's early home must be set the fact that
early documents make her belong to Offaly, in the Midlands, and some even to
the south of Ireland. There is no early documentary evidence for Faughart. On
this ground, using the argument from silence, a scholar of considerable
consequence[4] holds that some other and minor saint lived at Faughart and was
identified in error as St. Brigid.
If we choose to stand by
tradition against a cleverly argued case from documentary silence, it is
because argument from silence has been disproved so often in other causes. What
is universally known is often omitted from record because contemporary writers
take the known for granted. Time passes, and what once was obvious becomes
obscure. Then, seeking for documents to confirm tradition, the historian finds
none; and, if he is a true Modernist, he proclaims that tradition is
unconfirmed and therefore false. Yet tradition, we may safely say, usually is
vindicated in the long run; and we who have lived in sight of Faughart Hill,
amid traditional memories of Brigid, find it hard to doubt what so many
generations have believed.
Dubthach, of the sept of
Eochaidh Find Fuath Airt—that is, a descendant of the High-King Felim, of the
second century—such was the pagan lord whose stronghold was, if the Faughart
tradition is right, at this place. The name Dubthach (pronounced "Duffach")
means the Dark One. It is one of the commonest and most ancient of Celtic
names. Known today in the form Duffy, it may be traced in ancient Gaul as
Divitiacus, the name of a Druid mentioned by Caesar. Dubthach was master of
Faughart in Patrick's last years, but he was one of those who refused the new
faith. Faughart was pagan still when Patrick ended his labours.
In Dubthach's household
there was one of those members of Patrick's flock over whom the aged Bishop
grieved. Recall what the old man wrote, in his retirement at Saul of poor
bondswomen who were baptised Christians but lived under pagan masters.
"But they who are kept in bondage suffer most," Patrick wrote.
"They constantly endure even unto terror and menaces; but the Lord gave grace
to many of my handmaids, for although they are forbidden they bravely follow
the example of the others"—the others being the "Virgins of
Christ" whom the Apostle describes in an earlier paragraph. For the sake
of Christian women, his converts, living in slavery to the heathen, Patrick
stayed in Ireland with his flock to the end, he says.
One such woman lived and
suffered in that rich man's household which the Bishop passed whenever he
journeyed between Armagh and Louth or on to Tara. She was named Broicsech
(pronounced "Brocksheh"), which in Latin is rendered as Brocessa. The
name is formed from <broc>, Gaelic for a badger, as kitty is formed from
cat.
Was poor Broicsech a
convert from Patrick's own apostolate—some humble woman among the numbers whom
the missionary baptised during his labours in the frontier country between
Louth and Ulster?—or was she, as some have thought, a captive of Christian
British stock? The evidence is scanty and conflicting. We cannot be certain of
more than this—the Brocessa was a Christian slave of a pagan master.
By her, Dubthach had a
daughter who was born about the year 450 according to most historians, although
one of the books of Annals, the <Chronicon Scotorum>, puts the birth in
439. Before the child was born, Dubthach's wife obliged her lord to send the
bondswoman away. Dubthach sold the Christian woman to a poet in Connacht—in
some mountainous district of the west. A poet, in olden Ireland, as always
among the ancient Celts, signified a scholar who recorded historical events and
genealogies in verse; he was a professional man of the standing of a modern
lawyer, who has custody of family records.
Here we are moved to
consider the problem of distances in ancient Ireland. How did Dubthach come to
sell his slave to a buyer in another province? To this a simple answer suggests
itself. The transaction could, and probably would, take place at one of those
great assemblies which were held periodically at such places as Tara, Tailtinn,
Uisneach, where, from immemorial times, people gathered for religious rites,
the making of laws, the holding of games, and the transaction of business.
These <feiseanna>, or great fairs, would provide markets for human
chattels as well as for the rarities that Gallic merchants brought from oversee
to exchange for Irish gold and wolfhounds. Whole provinces hosted to the
<feds>. We can imagine the assemblies for the Tailtinn Games of old when,
nowadays, we attend the Galway races at the end of July and see tens of
thousands of people from all the west of the Shannon encamped on the wide
commons for two or three days. Now, Tailtinn is but one day's chariot journey
from Faughart, and there, if Dubthach attended the <feds>, as a man of
his rank would certainly do, he would meet people from near parts of Connacht
who had a yet shorter distance to travel. We, therefore, find no difficulty in
Dubthach's trading with a Connacht buyer in the sale of a valued bondswoman.
We conjecture that this
place of Brocessa's second bondage was in the region that we call County Cavan.
Though Cavan for the past three centuries is reckoned as part of Ulster, it
belonged in olden days to Connacht. If Brocessa was sold into Cavan, her
bondage was in Connacht, and the old record is satisfied. East Cavan is less
than 30 miles from Faughart.
3. In The House Of The Druid
Dubthach did not sell the
child who was to be born; the child was to be rendered to him when reared. An
old story says that Bishops Mel and Melchu (two of Patrick's prelates) were
guests, when on a journey, at Dubthach's house, and foretold rare distinction
for the bondswoman's child. Can it be that the churchmen, pitying a Christian
slave and anxious for her offspring, intervened with the pagan father, using
some plea which came to be spoken of as a prophecy? The story seems strongly founded,
whatever its real origin. Another dim story from those distant, strange days
says that a Druid in Dubthach's household prophesied "a fair birth, a fair
dignity . . . who shall be called from her great virtues the truly pious
Brigid; she will be another Mary, mother of the great Lord" (<Bid
alaMuire mar-Choimded Mathair>).
This supposed Druidic
prophecy, as we have noted already, is recorded in the most ancient record of
Brigid, dating back to her own century; from which we deduce that, in some manner,
Brigid's birth caused considerable stir.
The poet to whom Brocessa
was sold, sold her in turn to a Druid, who brought her to his house; and there,
in a slave's hut, Brigid was born as humbly as our Lord Himself. The story
tells of angels and pillars of fire about that wretched birthplace—visible,
perhaps, to the inward eye when a priest was brought by the bondwoman's wish to
baptise the infant girl. So moving an act of faith and loyalty well might move
the Christian priest (himself, perhaps, one of Patrick's Gauls) who was called
by a miserable woman in a byre to bring her babe the first sacrament of life.
When the babe was left sleeping in the byre by Brocessa, who went out to milk
cattle for her master, the cowdung seemed to be aflame, but when the people of
the house ran to extinguish it, and "thought that they would not find one
beam against another," behold!—the strange blaze was harmless, and the
babe slept there smiling, "like one who listens to a melody."
A white red-eared cow was
set aside for the child's sustenance, the old <Lives> say. A white cow
was a rarity in Ireland in those days, when the native black cattle, that we
call the Kerry breed, were all but universal; and the homely story conveys that
an unusual respect was yielded to the infant Brigid.
The Druid's maternal
uncle was a Christian. One day, when little Brigid had reached the stage of
beginning to speak, the Druid and his uncle heard the low voice of the child at
the side of the house. The Druid sent his Christian relative to hear what she
was saying; and behold, the infant was lying with arms extended in the
"cross-vigil," praying. In olden Ireland (as still to-day in
old-fashioned, holy places) devout people used to stand or kneel with arms
extended like the Crucified, as they prayed. This was called the
<crois-fhigil>, the cross-vigil.
The Druid's uncle asked
the infant to speak to him.
"This place will be
mine," she said. The Druid interpreted the strange infantile prophecy.
"This is what she said," he declared: "that she will possess
this place till doom's day, and so it will be. This land will be hers."
Thereafter, the Druid
travelled into Munster. The Druids and poets formed, as it were, a national
guild, overpassing the frontiers of the states of Ireland, and it was common
with them to travel the land. In Munster Brigid lived for years in the Druid's
household; but when she was reared, she asked to be sent to her father. Word
was sent to Dubthach; he came for his daughter and carried her back to his
home.
Thus did Brigid come to
Faughart, according to tradition.
Chapter III
THE GIRLHOOD OF A SAINT
1. On Faughart Hill
The faint, fantastic
picture which is growing before us shows a land of mixed violence and
gentleness; of paganism and Christianity living under one roof, and of Druids
yielding a grudging homage to the new faith and its ministers. The next
glimpses of Brigid's life are equally strange, and mingle homeliness with pagan
cruelty. The maiden, strong-willed even at this early age of maybe ten or
eleven years, insists on going to her father, and we behold her now at
Faughart, at the gates of the north.
In every age, that
meeting-place of highland and lowland, with the watery frontier between them,
has been a place of frequent conflict. It was there that the Iliad of Ireland
was fought out, in the century before Christ, when the warrior-queen, Meave of
Connacht, daughter of the King of Tara, brought her monstrous army to invade
Ulster. Like a child who is reared on the plain of Troy, or at Waterloo or
Bunker's Hill or Aughrim, little Brigid would hear again and again the stirring
battle—legend of the place. From the top of Faughart the eye overlooks the
ancient battle-ground as if it were an outspread map. Southward are the green
plains of Leinster over which Meave's legions came marching. Marsh and forest
made the foreground impassable to armies in olden times, but eastward the river
spreads and finds a shallow course across wide miles of sand, from which the
tide retreats to the distant horizon. Across this strand Meave's hosts advanced
with chariots and brazen spears and swords, to invade the hilly district that
we call Cuailgne or Cooley. Through the shallow river, by the Ford of Chariots,
they made their way.
Ah!—but those wooded
hills of Cuailgne, hunting-ground of a young warrior, were strangely defended.
Cuchulainn was this warrior's name; he was the Achilles of Ireland, the most
famous Irish hero of all time. Armed with a curious weapon named the
<crann-tabaill>, which we suspect to have been a boulder-throwing catapult
brought into Ireland from the Roman world, he kept the large army at bay, and
wrought havoc on the encampment precariously made on the sea-shore. He
challenged the chiefs in turn and slew them in duels at the ford, and so at
length forced proud Meave, the Queen of the West and High-King's daughter, to a
truce.
Then followed the waking
of the Men of the North, as "Rise up, ye men of Ulster!" the cry went
forth. Young Cuchulainn, covered with wounds, was bound to his bed yonder in
Doolargy, lest he should force his way to the renewed battle; and that happened
indeed, when Ulster's King Conchobar was pressed in the strife and his stricken
shield groaned loud and was heard by Cuchulainn in his sleep of suffering, so
that the hero, in wrath, burst his bonds and rushed from the tent to the fray,
and led in the overwhelming defeat of the enemy, driving the panic-stricken
rout through havoc into the red tide.
This story, which the
poets of Ireland sang for two thousand years, down to our own day, must have
been familiar to Brigid, who daily trod the scene of young Cuchulainn's defence
of his homeland. To her, as a Christian, it would have a further interest,
because Emania of King Conchobar had become, somewhere about the date of her
birth, Armagh, the capital of the Church in Ireland. Her heroic soul would stir
as she heard of Cuchulainn's heroism, and her courage surely fed on the bravery
of olden days. Of another of the ancient epic tales of Ireland, a priestly
scholar has written:[5] "It is a large and brilliant picture of a
civilisation which was to be the nursing-ground of the higher Christian one
that followed. We see in it whence, in the natural order, the Irish monk
derived those heroic qualities of endurance which made him the Christian
pioneer of western Europe, and which enabled him to adopt a rule so strict that
it had to be relaxed to suit his weaker brethren on the Continent."
A child nurtured amid
such heroic traditions was not likely to be soft-tempered or yielding, even if
Brigid lacked a higher inspiration than that of natural virtue.
2. The Giving Hand
The strength of Brigid's
character was demonstrated in a homely but effective manner. She began to give
away her father's property. Charged with the kitchen and the dairy, she gave
food to the poor with an open hand, till Dubthach talked of being beggared by
her liberality; but she defied him. We see him, as was true of the kings and
lords of that pastoral civilisation, as a big farmer, and Brigid acting as his
housekeeper.
Here is another touch of
the curious pagan compromise with that faith which could not be resisted. An
old pious woman, one of those whom Patrick describes as living the religious
life in the world (for there were as yet no convents), lived near Dubthach's
home, and came to him to beg that Brigid might attend some religious assembly
or congress—something in the nature of a mission, no doubt—which was attended
by twenty-seven eminent clergy. Brigid went. The Bishop Ibor was relating a
vision of our Lady which he had seen in a dream; and just as he was telling
this, the old religious woman and Brigid arrived.
"This is the Mary
who was seen by me in a dream," the Bishop said, struck by the saintly
look of the maiden.
What is behind this
curious old tale may be some early recognition of Brigid's gifts. Is it that
the old religious woman brought Brigid to the conference in order to disclose
the young woman's zeal for the sisterhood of the faithful?
Before Brigid's days
under her father were done, another remarkable episode occurred. She insisted,
in defiance of Dubthach and his wife, on going to visit her mother, the
bondswoman. Seeing that Dubthach was bringing up Brigid as the daughter of his
house, this visit displeased the proud chief—it was a slight to his generosity.
Brigid cared little for rank or comfort, and she went without her father's permission.
She found her mother working at a dairy in the foot-hills, and suffering from a
disease of the eyes. Dubthach's daughter took the work upon herself-turned
bondswoman in her poor mother's place, and toiled at servile tasks.
The old story tells that
the Druid's charioteer used to be herding the cattle. He found Brigid, at every
churning, dividing the butter into thirteen portions, one much larger than the
rest.
"What is your
purpose in that?" asked the charioteer.
Brigid answered that she
did it in honour of the Lord and His twelve disciples. She gave the large
portion to the poor; "<ar bid Crist i persaind cech bocht iressach>,
for Christ is in the person of every poor person who believes."
"And do you not save
up some of the butter?" the servant asked—"for that is done by every
dairy-woman."
"I find it
hard," said Brigid, "to deny Christ His own food."
The Druid and his wife
asked the lad how the maiden managed in the dairy, and he told them how the
calves were growing and the butter abounding. The pagan couple went to the
dairy and the woman required Brigid to measure her produce. From one churning
and a half (for the rest had been given away) Brigid filled an immense creel
with butter. Her pantry seemed to be overflowing with provisions, so little had
her generosity to the poor told against her providence and industry.
She had a little song of
which she sang one verse every time that she visited the pantry, and every time
she sang it, the pantry was full. O God, bless my pantry! Pantry which the Lord
has blessed, never be lacking in aught! Mary's Son, my Friend, come and bless
my pantry, let there be abundance ever on the board!
The Druid and his wife
marvelled at what they saw, and were so much affected by Brigid's charity that
the Druid said: "This butter that abounds, and these cows that you milk, I
bestow them on you, and your liberty with them. You shall be my servant no
longer, but the servant of the Almighty."
Brigid answered:
"Keep you the cows, but give me my mother's freedom."
The Druid said:
"Your mother is free, and you shall have the cows."
Brigid forthwith gave the
animals "to the poor and afflicted of God." The Druid was baptised.
"<Deo
gratias!>"—said Brigid.
This story, so much like
one of those familiar folk-tales that are born in the innocent hearts of
children as they herd cattle on the moor, adds that the Druid followed Brigid
and remained in her service always.
According to one old
account, Brigid's mother belonged to a family of high standing in the north. It
is not easy to reconcile this with the fact of her servitude. Possibly,
Brocessa's people were some humble family, and the "high standing"
was added by biographers in a complimentary sense. If it be true that Brocessa
came from the north, and that Brigid took her mother back to Ulster, this would
agree with the legend of the girl Brigid's presence at Clogher when Patrick was
preaching in those parts.
According to this legend,
related in our study of St. Patrick,[6] the Bishop was preaching at great
length, and a young woman in the entranced audience fell asleep. Patrick would
not let her be awakened; but, at the end of the discourse, she woke. She was
Brigid, who as yet was too young to be a nun. Patrick asked her what she had
seen in her dream. She replied:
"I beheld four ploughs
in the northeast which ploughed the whole island, and before the sowing was
finished the harvest was ripened and clear wellsprings and shiny streams came
out of the furrows. White garments were on the sowers and ploughmen.
"I also beheld four
other ploughs in the north which ploughed the island athwart and turned the
harvest again, and the oats which they had sown grew up at once and were ripe,
and black streams came out of the furrows, and there were black garments on the
sowers and on the ploughmen."
This curious vision
Patrick explained to Brigid thus:
"The first four
ploughs which you saw, those are you and I, who sow four books of the Gospel
with a sowing of faith and belief and piety. The harvest which you saw are they
who come unto that faith and belief through our teaching.
"The four ploughs
which you beheld in the north are the false teachers and the liars who will
overturn the teaching which we have sown."
Most scholars doubt the
tradition of this meeting, since it assumes that Brigid had attained maturity
while the Apostle was still active in the mission; yet it is within the bound
of possibility by the longer reckoning of Brigid's lifetime.
After winning her
mother's freedom from her Druid owner, and taking Brocessa home to her people,
Brigid returned to her father. She had grown imperious now, and did as she
would with the chieftain's goods. Her boundless generosity angered Dubthach's
wife, who now accused Brigid of stealing everything in the house for the
benefit of God's poor (<do cheilib De>)—and so the chieftain decided to
get rid of this embarrassing daughter.
3. Freedom
One of the Gaelic texts
describes in detail what followed. Dubthach took Brigid in his chariot, and
said he:
"Not for a favour or
a pleasure to you are you getting a ride in a chariot; but I am taking you to
sell you to Dunlang mac Enda, King of Leinster."
Plainly Brigid's father
was in a hot temper, after some exceptionally generous bestowal of his goods.
They came at length to
the stronghold of the Leinster King, and we are reminded of a big farmer
driving his trap or buggy when we read that Dubthach went in, leaving Brigid in
the chariot at the gate while he settled the business. He left his sword in the
chariot.
By came a leper; for
those unfortunates abounded in Ireland in those times. He begged alms of the
girl in the chariot, as a beggar would of a farmer's daughter left in a fine
car while her father made a call. Brigid handed the leper Dubthach's sword, the
only movable object in her reach.
Meanwhile, Dubthach was
asking Leinster's King if he would buy "a bond maid, namely my
daughter."
Naturally enough, Dunlang
asked his visitor why he wished to sell his own daughter. "Nothing will
stop her," Dubthach replied, "from selling my goods and giving to the
poor." The king said: "Bring her in."
So out went Dubthach for
his daughter, and he found Brigid in the chariot and his valuable sword gone;
the leper, wisely enough, had made off with his prize. Dubthach was furious. He
brought Brigid to Dunlang, and doubtless he said, as he brought her, "This
has settled it, my girl!"
King Dunlang received the
maiden. Perhaps he was struck by her presence, and realised at once the nature
of her. He said: "You take your father's wealth and distribute it. How
much more would you take my wealth and my cattle, seeing that I am nothing to
you, and give them away?"
Brigid's answer is
recorded. It has her unmistakable touch. "The Son of the Virgin
knoweth," she said, "that if I had your might, with all Leinster and
all your wealth, I would give them to the Lord of the Elements."
Always, mark, she spoke
of acts of charity being done to God, in His creatures. In all the
half-fantastic tales of Brigid her love of God burns clear. Like Patrick, she
was always the mystic living in the world by standards that are not of the
world. This King Dunlang evidently realised. A Christian, he could recognise
that Dubthach did not understand the motive of the girl's strange ways.
To Dubthach, the King said:
"You and I are not fit to bargain about this maiden. Her merit is higher
before God than before men."
He counselled Dubthach to
give Brigid her freedom, and he consoled the chieftain for his lost sword by
giving him one with a hilt of ivory.
"And so was the
Virgin Brigid redeemed from slavery," says the ancient book.
4. Brigid Gets Her Wish
Brigid's status as a free
woman now made her one of the clan (to use a much abused but here appropriate
word)—that is, one of the three-generation family unit recognised by the law.
When she reached the years of womanhood, the other members wished her to marry.
A substantial gift was due from the bridegroom to the three-generation clan
from which he took his wife; so Brigid's "brethren," who included
cousins by our modern reckoning, had an interest in her marriage.
She was beautiful. Her
best biographer draws a pen portrait of the Irish racial beauty which must have
been hers. "We know from her manner of life," Miss Curtayne
writes,[7] "that she must have had that bloom and grace which are acquired
only in the open air, and with which Nature rewards those who keep her company.
There are counterparts of Brigid yet, though you will have to seek long before
you find them. If you meet the type, look long at it, for it is something
disappearing from the earth. I have seen it but a few times in my life along
the lonely roads of the Kerry <Gaeltacht>"—the district where Irish
speech and life linger on, unbroken. "A girl, perhaps driving home the
cows in the evening, barefoot, dressed in such nondescript garments one is
uncertain what they comprise—an old coat, a frock—or whether their colour be
black or brown; garments anyhow that were never fashionable and that have
served for seasons beyond memory. Yet, instead of having to dress in order to
acquire distinction, this girl wears her dun garb with such regal grace as actually
to confer splendour upon it. She carries out her task thoughtfully,
self-possessedly, humbly, but with a carriage that is to be envied, not
imitated, with a poise not seen in city drawing-rooms; with one of those faces,
at once brilliant and still, that appear to reflect the very light of day, in
which all tranquillity seems to end: such, in appearance at least, was
Brigid."
A poet came to Dubthach's
house to ask for Brigid's hand. The old book says that the poet was that
Dubthach moccu Lugair who had been Patrick's advisor, but he would be an old
man, if living at all, at this date. Perhaps it was one of that great old
scholar's sons. However that may be, the match was one that most girls would
think good, but Brigid would not marry.
"I have consecrated
my virginity to the Lord," she said. "But I will give you
advice," she went on, and she told the poet how he would find a beautiful
maiden dwelling in a wood to the west of his house, a girl who would make him
an excellent wife. She promised him her blessing on "his face and his
speech" when he went seeking the lass.
Brigid's kinsmen of the
clan were angered by her refusal to marry. Some of them followed her, as she
went with a load of gifts to some poor folk near Dubthach's house, and pursued
her with ridicule. One said to her: "That beautiful face of yours will be
some man's though you do not like it."
Brigid, so the old books
say, thereupon disfigured her own features—destroyed her own beauty—to prove
her resolve never to wed. "I think it unlikely that anyone will ask for a
girl as ugly as this," said she.
Plainly there was no
taming of this strong-willed girl to her kinsfolk's wish or will. Dubthach
yielded to her wish. "Take the veil, my daughter," he said; "for
this is your set desire. Distribute this property to God and man"—giving
her means for her religious purpose.
"<Deo
gratias!>" said Brigid.
How well we recognise the
tenacity of an Irish girl who has heard the call of the convent! A daughter of
rich folk asked, while young, to be allowed to enter the most austere of
religious sisterhoods. Her parents forbade the sacrifice. One year, two years
and more passed, and the girl was obedient and seemed content. Then at
Christmastime, her father asked her to name whatever present she desired. "I
want nothing in the world, Father, but your permission to go into the
convent." Such are the daughters of Brigid, in whom we see the mind and
manner of that first Irish nun.
Chapter IV
ABBESS OF KILDAIRE
1. In A Lucky Hour
Aged Patrick, as we saw
in his <Confession>, found his greatest consolation in the attachment of
great numbers of the women of Ireland to the religious life. Daughters of
kings, like those maidens whom he baptised at Clebach's well and who died of
rapture by the Beatific Vision, were among the souls whom he gave to heaven.
Yet there were no religious houses for women in Ireland for long after
Patrick's death. Most women who entered the religious life continued to dwell
in the homes of their people, who might be pagans still, as Patrick himself
tells; others lived in priests' households, having no other means of protection
in a country but partly reclaimed from paganism.
Now, the purpose of
intrepid Brigid was to establish the religious life for women in community. It
was this for which she had been striving and for which she won funds from her
wealthy pagan sire.
She had seven
companions—girl comrades, no doubt, whom she had inspired with her project for
the establishment of conventual life in Ireland. With these, who were to remain
her lifelong comrades, she travelled to a place named Cruachan Bri Ele (Croghan
Hill) in Offaly, having heard that Bishop Mel was there.
St. Mel, let us recall,
was one of the foreign bishops whom Patrick had set in an Irish diocese, namely
Ardagh. He is said to have lived to the age of ninety. It may be that he had
been a known advocate of the convent system—had been known to wish to see it
set up in Ireland—and that Brigid sought him out on that account. Whatever her
motive, she was anxious to receive "the order of penitence" from this
veteran prelate of the Patrician mission; and, finding that he was not at
Croghan to meet the little sisterhood, followed him whither he had gone,
northward. Bishop MacCaille was her guide; and the company went "northward
over Moin Faichnigh, Boughna Bog; and God so wrought that the bog became a
smooth flowering mead"—so easy, we may take this to mean, did the saint's
holy zeal make even the roughest journey.
The place where Brigid
and her seven comrades came into the presence of Bishop Mel is given as Mag
Teloch, which is thought to be the present barony of Fartullagh in Westmeath.
"Now, when they drew
nigh to the place wherein was Bishop Mel, Brigid made MacCaille place a veil
over her head so that she might not go to the clerics without a veiled head; as
the verse says:
<Fo huair congab
MacCaille
Caille os cinn Sanct Brigte>
—that is, "In a
lucky hour MacCaille held the veil over Brigid's head."
"After she had
arrived at the house wherein was Bishop Mel, a fiery column flamed out of her
head up to the ridge-pole of the church; and Bishop Mel beheld that and asked:
"'Who are the nuns?'
"MacCaille said to
him: 'That is the famous nun from Leinster, even Brigid.'
"'My welcome to
her,' said Bishop Mel. 'It was I who foretold her when she was in her mother's
womb.' Again: 'Wherefore have the nuns come hither?' he asked.
"'To have the order
of Penitence conferred,' said MacCaille.
"'I will confer it,'
said Bishop Mel.
"So therefore the
orders were read out over her...."
Bending down at the words
of consecration, Brigid held the ash beam which supported the altar. The
long-seasoned wood, it is said, became green afresh, and though the church was
burnt down several times in the following centuries, that beam never suffered,
but remained fresh and intact beneath the ashes.
It is related that the
disfigurement of Brigid's beauty disappeared as she was professed. From that
day she was fair to behold.
2. The Shepherdess
Where did Brigid and the
sisterhood of seven first live in community? Apparently, at Ardagh, with Bishop
Mel as their patron and guide. The last great survivor of Patrick's Gaulish
missionaries seems to have taught these maidens of the new Gaelic Christendom
the ways of the religious life. Aptly, therefore, is it written in the Book of
Armagh that Patrick and Brigid were "the columns on which all Ireland
rested."
It was not at Ardagh,
however, that Brigid's life-work was to be done, but at Kildare-CillDara, the
Church of the Oak. At some date, about 480 or 490, the king of Leinster offered
the young nun this favoured site on the Liffey plain. "A very high oak
tree" stood at that place, "which Brigid loved much, and
blessed." Long afterwards, the trunk of the tree that Brigid loved and
under which she built her convent was preserved and revered.
Kildare county lies
twenty miles westward of Dublin, athwart the roads that lead from the sea to
the south of Ireland and the Midlands. It extends from the fair highlands of
Wicklow in the south to the bog of Allen—that expanse of heath and heather and
peat which looks from a Kildare hill, like a vast red sea reaching to the
sunset. Most of the county is kindly pasture land, and notable for its horses;
for here is that emerald grass growing on limestone which makes Irish livestock
the best in the world. On the verge of the bog, and blown over by its
exhilarating air, is the vast, rolling, and unfenced expanse of the Curragh,
where sheep graze in great flocks and army horses are exercised. From
immemorial time the Curragh always has been used for horse-racing. Travellers
making for the southwest cross the Curragh by one of the main trunk roads, and
are lucky if they ascend the last green wave of land towards sunset, when the
rose light of the western sky sparkles upon the Round Tower and the roofs of
Kildare town. That Round Tower, a relic of olden Christian Ireland, stands on
the site of Brigid's convent, whereof no other sign remains.
Fable says that when
Brigid asked for the site beside the green Curragh, the land was grudged. She
said that she would be content with what her mantle would cover. The King
assented to that modest request; but, when the mantle was thrown down, it began
to spread until it covered the wide undulations of the Curragh itself, and
seemed likely to grow till it would cover Ireland. This legend is plainly some
jest that was made to describe Brigid's audacity. When she wanted this or that
for God or God's poor, her demand stopped at nothing.
Her mantle was famous. It
passed into poetry and proverb.
<A Bhrigid, scar os mo
chionn
Do bhrat fionn dom anacal>
sang one who made a hymn
in her praise long ago—O Brigid spread
Above my head
Your mantle bright
To guard me.
As a symbol of
protection, people traditionally put their friends <fd bhrat Bhrighde>,
"under Brigid's mantle," and an old Anglo-Scottish nursery rhyme
speaks of:
Seynt Brigid and her brat
Seynt Colum and his cat as if the mantle were the unmistakable token of the
saint. In Bruges, to this day, what is said to be the authentic mantle of
Brigid is preserved and venerated as a holy relic. This garment is a large
semicircular cloak, apparently dyed with Tyrian blue.
The habit of Brigid and
her nuns, it is thought, was of natural-coloured homespun wool, a fabric like
that of the bawneen coats which western countrymen still wear, agreeable to the
eye, durable and virtually waterproof by reason of the wool's natural state.
Brigid is described in one ancient text as the first in Ireland to spin and
weave cloth; the saying indicates that the nuns produced their own fabric, and
were famous, perhaps, for its quality—like the Charity nuns of Foxford in Mayo,
who to-day produce much of the best blankets and tweeds in Ireland.
The character of
craftswoman and dairywoman is attached to Brigid always, and tradition
sometimes calls her The Shepherdess. She pastured her flocks on the Curragh.
When St. Brendan "came from the West of Ireland to visit Brigid in the
Liffey Plain," the mediaeval Gaelic text relates, "<ten Brigit
on—a caerchuib do fhailte fri Brenaind>—Brigid came from her sheep to
welcome Brendan."
Wherever the cult of
Brigid is known, she is invoked as the protector of flocks and herds. The relic
of her head, preserved at Lumiar in Portugal, is the centre of a devotion among
country people who annually commend their sheep and cattle to her protection.
"The Wallon peasantry also come to invoke the saint's aid for their
livestock in the chapel dedicated to her which looks down on the town of
Fosses," writes Dom Gougaud, O.S.B.[8] ". . . Four parochial churches
and seven chapels of the diocese of Cologne are dedicated to the virgin of
Kildare under whose protection the local farmers place their domestic
animals." The like is told of places in France and Italy.
Perhaps Highland Scotland
presents the best example of how Brigid the Shepherdess was honoured in lands
beyond Ireland. Carmichael[9] records many traditional Highland Gaelic verses
like these:
I
<Cuiridh mi an ni seo
romham
Mar a dh'orduich Righ an domhain>—I will place this flock before me
As was ordained by the King of the world,
Bride to keep them, to watch them, to tend them,
On ben, on glen, on plain....
Mary Mother, tend thou
the offspring all, Bride of the fair hands, guard thou my flocks, Kindly Colum
thou saint of many powers, Guard thou the breeding cows, bestow on me herds.
II
A Herding Croon
The cattle to-day are
going a-flitting,
<Hill-in-ruin is o h-ug o!>
Going to eat the grass of
the church-land,
Their own herdsman there to drive them,
Tending them, fending them, turning them back,
<Hill-in-ruin is o h-ug o!>
Be Bride Ever—Bright
milking them, Gentle Mary keeping them, And Jesus Christ at journey's end.
<Hill-in-ruin is o h-ug o!>
At the shearing of the
sheep, the Scots Gael has a verse to invoke Brigid—and the Scots weaver, by the
way, also invokes her as he chooses his coloured wools. In Scotland and in
Ireland, wherever peat is burned, her name is used at the smooring of the fire
at night—the covering of the red turf with grey ash, to keep the heart glowing
till the next day comes.
Such was the universal
memory of Brigid as an exemplar of good housewifery. This Irish nun was like
the religious of all the great Orders; she taught the dignity of manual work
among animals, in the dairy, and in crafts and housework. Perhaps, it was her
example: a noble lady in a rural land, acting through the Irish missionaries
abroad, that planted the tradition of manual work in the later religious
communities far and wide.
3. A Patron Of Travellers
The community at Kildare
grew prodigiously. Innumerable persons of both sexes sought out Brigid to go
under her direction, and a double monastery, unique in Ireland, grew up at
Kildare, with a community of monks and a community of nuns.
Subordinate houses were
founded far and wide; the old accounts say that Brigid's convents reached from
sea to sea and were occupied by nuns numbering over ten thousand. Allowing for
pious exaggeration, it is certain that Brigid's convents were many and far
spread and that they received high particular privileges from the heads of the
Church in Ireland. This is proved by the canonical records at Armagh, which
recognise Brigid's authority throughout her province. Like Santa Teresa in this
as in so many other characteristics, Brigid was a notable traveller. In some
places abroad, in later ages, Brigid was invoked as a patron of travellers.
Her journeys took her
into distant parts of Ireland. She is said to have set up a community in Kerry,
at the request of St. Erc, first bishop of that diocese. Patrick never entered
Kerry, but he sent Benignus thither—so tradition says. Although the dates make
difficulty, Bishop Erc is claimed to be the same as that convert
"sweet-voiced brehon," St. Erc of Slane, who was the
"judge" in Patrick's household, praised by Patrick for his great
rectitude. If the Bishop Erc who sent to Brigid for nuns was Patrick's Erc, we
have one more bond between Patrick and Brigid.
Many anecdotes of
Brigid's life concern adventures of the road. She suffered accidents, as when
her two-horsed chariot, "a vehicle similar to the gig still used in the
Irish countryside,"[10] was overthrown, or again, when it was stayed only
on the verge of a precipice; once or more the horses bolted with the chariot
and the three nuns who travelled in it. On some religious journeys the nuns
were accompanied by a priest, who administered to the sick or poor or penitent
whom Brigid visited, and who acted as charioteer on the road. So homely were
the practical ways of the Abbess.
In Roscommon, west of the
Shannon—the region where the royal maidens had met Patrick by the well of Clebach—Brigid
founded several convents. It is told that the boatmen of Athlone, who knew a
trick of some boatmen of to-day even in those uncommercial times, demanded an
excessive payment before they would ferry the Sisters across the Shannon on the
homeward journey. At the instance of one of the nuns, Brigid blessed the great
river and it shrank to such an ebb that the religious company were able to
drive across from Connacht to the Meath shore. Some great drought, apparently,
lowered the river enough to baffle the profiteers.
In the plain of Longford,
as they drove homeward, the nuns encountered poor folk whose cattle were dying
of thirst; for that season's remarkable drought had sealed up all the springs
and the animals had been driven far in search of water. Brigid, like a diviner,
found water underground, directed the Sisters to dig at a certain spot, and so
opened up a gushing source of refreshment. Furthermore, she unyoked her horses
from the chariot and presented the beasts to the poor folk to relieve their
poverty and to help them on their way home.
Soon afterwards, some
travelling prince reached the place and was surprised and delighted to find
plentiful water for his steeds. He observed the Sisters and their horseless
chariot and therewith made them a gift of two unbroken horses. As soon as the
turbulent animals were yoked, they became obedient to the will of that strange
indomitable woman.
On these journeys from
convent to convent, Brigid left memories of her vivid, joyous nature. Once,
with the Sisters she halted at the stronghold of some king of what is now
County I,imerick. The king was absent, but his sons provided food and talked
with their religious visitors. Brigid saw harps hanging on the wall and asked
for music. The lads lamented that the bards were absent with the king, but
asked her to bless their own unskilled fingers. This she did; and behold you,
the lads found themselves able, with Brigid's blessing, to perform wondrously,
so that the king, arriving at last, was astonished to find his boys
entertaining the holy women with music of the best.
Sometimes on her journeys
Brigid turned preacher; for though the old pagan generation was passing away,
there were obdurate or ignorant folk whom the holy woman found means to
instruct. On one such occasion, according to tradition, Brigid first made that
cross of green rushes which is imitated in many places to this day. A pagan
chief lay dying and sent to Kildare begging that the great Abbess should visit
him before the end. Brigid hastened to his stronghold, eager to bring the dying
man the gift of the faith. She found him in a desperate state, raving, so that
his servants feared to approach; but in her silent and commanding presence the
wretched man grew calm.
Brigid took from the
floor a handful of rushes, which in those days served for floor-covering, and
set to work weaving a cross in a peculiar ingenious mode, something like
basket-work. Our drawing shows how the four arms are interlocked at the centre
and the ends of the arms closed in small knots, or with bonds of thread.
"What are you
making?"—the sick man asked, as he watched the skilful fingers of the
craftswoman abbess.
"This is a cross,
which I make in honour of the Virgin's son, who died for us upon a cross of
wood."
Brigid went on to tell how
Christ came to save mankind by His death, and the dying man was touched in
heart and believed, and asked for baptism.
So runs the legend that
is told when strangers ask why the cross of rushes is made by Irish
country-folk before St. Brigid's day every year. In former times a lovely
traditional ritual was observed. A girl named Brigid would carry an armful of
the crosses from house to house, accompanied by other maidens. At every door
she would be welcomed with a Gaelic greeting to Brigid the saint, whom she was
supposed to personify, and after an exchange of prayers she would bestow one of
the crosses on that dwelling. The crosses were fastened in the rafters, to
remain there in honour of St. Brigid for the ensuing year.
This lovely custom, of
untold antiquity, throve in the Penal centuries as one of the best-loved
popular devotions. When King William's invading army passed through the country
near Faughart in 1690, and the people fled to the hills, soldiers entered the
deserted cottages and saw in every one the green cross of rushes, which they
supposed to be set there for protection against themselves. The Gaelic ritual
died out with the popular Gaelic speech, but its words are on record. The
making of the cross never ceased. It is kept up in schools in many places, and
has spread in recent years to such modern spots as the suburbs of Dublin, while
many city dwellers receive gifts of St. Brigid's cross from the old-fashioned
country places. Thus does the symbol serve to keep the cult of Brigid alive
after fourteen centuries.[11]
4. The Healer
We need not doubt that
Brigid sometimes exercised miraculous powers, but we cannot judge how far the
many wonders related of her on her journeys amount in truth to the miraculous.
In the house of a Leinsterman she is said to have healed two dumb girls; elsewhere
a dumb boy. Two lepers followed her, and quarrelled through jealousy; she bade
them make friends and do penance, after which she cured their leprosy.
Certain other lepers
begged her chariot from Brigid. "O Brigid, give us your chariot, for
Christ's sake." The great giver could not refuse the request, but she
begged that the vehicle be left with her until she had conveyed a sick man to
the convent. The lepers would not grant the use of their prize even for an
hour; so Brigid let them drive away, but the sick man was healed immediately by
her strange power. Once, as she washed the feet of the poor, she healed four of
them—a paralytic, a blind man, a leper, and a lunatic—as she performed the act
of humility. The shadow of her chariot healed an old sick woman by the
roadside. A madman, running through the land, was brought to her; and the sight
of her made him sane. Holy water that she gave to a man whose wife hated him,
being sprinkled on the woman, restored her love.
Two blind Britons,
travelling with a sick Irish boy, asked Brigid to heal them.
"Wait awhile,"
said she.
They complained:
"You have healed the sick of your people and you neglect strangers; but at
least heal this boy of ours, who is one of your own folk."
She healed them all
forthwith.
Tales of her turning
water into milk and multiplying malt and other provisions when there were
visits of high clergy, may be memories of her thrift and capability.
5. Brigid's Guests
As in her father's home
and in the home of the slavemaster, so at Kildare, where she was mistress of a
growing community, Brigid was famed for her generosity, which would be
extravagant in anyone else. When Bishop Conleth (of whom we will be reading
soon) brought precious vestments to Kildare from Rome, Brigid made alms of
them. When the Queen of Leinster gave Brigid precious ornaments, they went to
the poor. When someone brought the community a gift of ripe apples, Brigid gave
the goodly fruit to the lepers—"for what is mine is theirs."
She entertained the
nobles of State and Church and wielded the influence of a mighty personality in
the affairs of both. The age was one of strife; for the boundaries and balance
of power in Leinster were being hammered out in arms as the new Christian
nation took shape. Brigid is recorded as acting the peacemaker between rivals.
Princes yielded to the persuasion of this remarkable woman, strong minded as
the hardest fighter among them, but seeking naught save peace. Once, with some
of the Sisters, the great nun followed one of those large flying columns which
constituted a prince's army and tenaciously refused to depart until a warlike
project was abandoned.
To Kildare came the
greatest of the saints and mystics and bishops of that age, to consult the
famous Abbess; for that was her rank. We have mentioned the visit of St.
Brendan of Clonfert, Brendan the Navigator, whom Brigid came from her sheep to
welcome. The old tale says that, as she came in, she hung her wet cloak on the
sun's rays to dry. Brendan's servant twice tried to hang his master's cloak in
the same fashion, and Brendan himself succeeded in the feat at a third attempt.
This is some fantastic way of saying that Brigid, the masterful, made the
weather wait on her. Of the conversation of the saints, this brief dialogue is
recorded: "It is my custom never to cross more than seven ridges without
meditation on God," said Brendan. "Since my mind was once set on God,
it never departed from Him," said Brigid. Brigid's best biographer[12]
comments: "Is this the Illuminative Way that mystical writers, centuries
later, endeavoured so laboriously to explain?" This visit of Brendan must
have taken place when he was but a young man and Brigid an aged woman; for she
died when he was in his teens. Possibly Bishop Erc, who was Brendan's director,
commended the holy boy to Brigid when he was forming his vocation. If he would
attain to the mystical goal, he must be wholly undistracted; that was the
counsel of the aged woman mystic of Kildare, and we see how Brendan interpreted
her advice when we contemplate the oratory on the summit of Mount Brandon,
where, at the end of the dizzying "Pathway of the Saints," he built
his lonely oratory between the infinities of the ocean and the sky. St. Kevin
of Glendalough, most gentle and lovable of all the saints of Ireland—he in
whose almost fleshless hand (the legend goes) a bird nested, and the mystic in
his rocky bed over the mountain lake would not move, lest he disturb the bird,
until the young were hatched—he came to Brigid, like Brendan, in his youth. It
was Brigid's counsel that directed Kevin to his life of extreme austerity.
Veterans of Patrick's mission came, such as St. Fiacc of Sletty, he who
composed the Apostle's panegyric. A bishop arrived at Kildare, with his
attendants, and said that the company was hungry. "We are hungry, too, for
your teaching," said Brigid. "Preach first and eat
afterwards."——As an offset to that story is one of seven bishops who came
from what now is County Dublin, where they lived in community. Brigid found the
dairy empty and her hospitable soul was stricken with dismay; but, when she had
prayed fervently, the cows gave milk a second time. Whatever is true in these
old, odd stories, the visit of St. Finian of Clonard had historic importance.
This great monk, afterwards called the Tutor of the Saints of Ireland, was the
link between the Patrician period, that of the First Order of Saints, and the
second great period of the Irish Church. His pupils were those saints of the
Second Order who, in the sixth century, made Ireland the Isle of Saints and
Scholars. This chief of Irish teachers, we see, learnt from Brigid—learnt
partly from her administration of Kildare how to organise his biblical
university by the Boyne, perhaps, and learnt, too, from her rare spirituality.
At an assembly of clergy in Magh Femin in Munster, St. Ibar the Bishop, her
neighbour and advisor, invited Brigid to compose a hymn—"to make a feast
for Jesus in her heart." So the story goes, and a poem is extant which
purports to be Brigid's composition on this occasion. The Gaelic is of the
eighth century, but it may be based on an older text, and the lost original may
be some ancient poet's shaping of actual sayings of St. Brigid. Certainly the
strange imagery belongs to that old, old world wherein kings and bishops,
abbots and saints, were not far removed from the simplicity of the mountain
shepherds. Brigid's plainness and abounding generosity are here, in queer,
vivid lines. We slightly adapt O Curry's translation:[13]<Robad maith lem
corm find mor>I would like a great lake of ale for the King of the kings; I
would like the people of heaven to be drinking it through time eternal. So the
poem begins; and it is needful, perhaps, to explain that the old Irish
<corm>, translated ale, was a beverage as light as tea. If we reflect how
often poets write of <the wine of life, the wine of poetry>, and so
forth, Brigid's native symbol of <corm> for the community of saints will
seem less strange than at first reading.
Brigid continues:
2
I would like the viands of faith and pure piety;
I would like the flails of penance in my house.
3
I would like the people of Heaven in my house;
I would like the baskets of peace to be theirs.
4
I would like the vessels of charity to distribute,
I would like caves of mercy for their company.
5
I would like good cheer in their drinking,
I would like Jesus, too, to be among them.
6
I would like the Three Marys of illustrious fame,
I would like the people of Heaven there from all parts.
7
I would wish that I were a rent-payer to the Lord,
That I should suffer distress, and that He would bestow on me a good blessing.
Some translators omit the
curious first verse and modify the rest; but, with the old-world imagery, the
atmosphere of that pastoral age is lost. We understand Brigid's times and her
mind best when we conceive her desiring the ale of the age for her clerical
visitors, and penitential flails for herself.
6. Brigid's Coadjutor
Brigid's first
biographer, Cogitosus, who wrote a little more than a century after her
lifetime, describes the most remarkable feature of that great spiritual power
house of Kildare. It was this: that Brigid invited a bishop to take up
residence there and to cooperate with her in all her extensive undertakings.
"Wishing to provide
in a wise manner and properly in all things for the souls of her people,"
Cogitosus writes, "and anxious about the churches of the many provinces
that had attached themselves to her, Brigid realised that she could not do
without a bishop to consecrate churches and supply them with clergy in various
grades. She sent accordingly for an illustrious and solitary man (i.e., an
anchorite), who was adorned with all virtues and by whom God wrought many holy
works; and summoning him from his hermitage and solitary life, went herself to
meet him and brought him to govern the church with her in episcopal dignity, in
order that nothing in the priestly order should be lacking. And thereafter the
anointed head and chief of all bishops, with the most blessed chief of virgins,
with happy mutual concord and the direction of all the virtues, erected the
principal church; and by the virtues of them both, that See, at once episcopal
and virginial, spread like a fruitful vine with growing branches, and took root
in all the Irish island."
The hermit-bishop who
joined Brigid at Kildare was St. Conleth, now revered as patron of the diocese
of Kildare. He was a craftsman in metal; a crozier, said to be of his
workmanship, is extant. "Brigid's brazier," he was called, in old
writings. Under him a community of monks grew up which excelled in the making
of beautiful chalices and other metal objects needed in the church, and in the
writing and ornamentation of missals, gospels, and psalters.
This double monastery, as
we have said, was unique in Ireland. It continued in existence for several
generations. Cogitosus, who wrote the life of Brigid at the request of the
sisterhood in the seventh century, describes the great monastic church at
Kildare as it existed in his own time, when the bodies of Conleth and Brigid
lay entombed at the Gospel and Epistle sides of the altar, "deposited in
monuments which were decorated with various embellishments of gold and silver
and precious stones, with crowns of gold and silver hung above them."
Saving the tombs, the
description of the church in the days of Cogitosus probably applies to the
building as it stood when Conleth and Brigid built it. We gain an interesting
picture of the ancient Irish churches of timber, of the larger kind.
"The church occupied
a wide area," Cogitosus says, "and was raised to a towering height,
and was adorned with painted pictures. It had within it three spacious
oratories, separated by plank partitions, under the one roof of the greater
house, wherein one partition, decorated and painted with figures and covered
with linen hangings, extended along the breadth of the eastern part of the
church from one wall of the church to the other." That means that the
sanctuary was shut off by an ornamented screen like the <iconostasis> in
a Greek church. "The partition," Cogitosus continues, "has at
its end two doors. Through one, the bishop enters the sanctuary, accompanied by
his monks and those who are to offer the Dominical sacrifice; through the
other, placed in the left of the same cross-wall, enter the Abbess with her
virgins and faithful widows to enjoy the feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ."
Cogitosus goes on to tell
that a central partition reaches from the lower end of the church to the
cross-wall before the sanctuary, dividing the nave into two portions. These
divisions are entered by separate, ornamental doors, at right and left of the
church; men occupy the right (or Gospel) half, women the left. "Thus in
one very great temple, a multitude of people in different order and ranks,
separated by partitions, but of one mind, worship Almighty God."
The extraordinary
arrangement by which Brigid was Abbess of a great double community, and a
Bishop, as it were, her coadjutor in all save his strictly episcopal functions,
was not likely to be copied. It rested on the unique foundation of a unique
personality. The matter may be presented in a simple way thus: that, in a still
half-missionary and unsettled country, an immense spiritual settlement grew up
round Brigid, and the Bishop who was needed there made his See there. While the
great Nun lived, she inevitably would be at least coequal with the Bishop in
the direction of Kildare; and it is recognition of this which gave rise to the
grotesque fable that Brigid received episcopal orders. When people thought of
Kildare, they thought of that remarkable nun, rather than of the holy Bishop.
If they wanted a favour, they went to Brigid rather than to Conleth. She
dominated the scene. That is the sum-total of the matter.
The Rev. John Ryan,
S.J.,[14] points out that the arrangement "has few parallels in the
history of the Church; but some analagous instances have arisen, one indeed
such as puts the power exercised by the lady-abbess of Kildare completely in
the shade."
Dr. Ryan then cites, from
the Spanish, a description of the Abbess of Las Huelgas in Castile: "Lady
and mistress of sixty-four villages, she conferred benefices, took action when
necessary against preachers, punished seculars, received official documents
directly from the Holy See, decided matrimonial and civil cases, visited pious
institutions, examined candidates for the legal profession, approved
confessors, gave faculties for preaching, presided at synods; and annually,
like St. Bernard at the motherhouse of Citeaux, sat at the head of the
congregation of Abbesses from Perales, Gradefes, Carrizo, Fuencaliente,
Torquemada, San Andres de Arroyo . . . and other monasteries, which since the
end of the twelfth century were subject to her rule. In Las Huelgas were
interred Alfonso VIII of Castile, Princess Leonora of England, Sancho VII . . .
and some thirty other princes. There Alfonso XI and Enrique of Trastamara were
crowned; Ferdinand the Saint and Edward of England were knighted; royal
marriages and State ceremonies of all kinds were numbered by the
thousand."
When we learn that the
Abbesses of Las Huelgas enjoyed such honours and wielded such influence down to
the nineteenth century, we are enabled to understand, and to picture to
ourselves, Kildare under the mighty Brigid.
7. The Undying Fire
The poet Moore sings of
The bright flame that
burned
In Kildare's holy fane
And gleamed through long ages
Of darkness and storm.
alluding to one of the
wonders of olden Ireland. For centuries after St. Brigid's day a sacred fire
burned in an enclosure at the great convent, never failing for a night. The
enclosure was hedged by a circular fence. No man was allowed to enter. Twenty nuns,
with Brigid at their head, guarded the fire night by night in turn, feeding it
with wood and fanning it with bellows, but never the breath. After Brigid's
death the nun who watched on the nineteenth night would cry: "Brigid,
guard your own fire, the next night belongs to you."
Gerald the Welshman, who
gives us this description, writing just after the Anglo-Norman Invasion, says
that the ashes of the fire never increased. It never had been extinguished in
his time since Brigid lit it six centuries earlier; but, a few years later, the
flame was quenched.
This happened in 1220,
when Henry de Londres, who came over with the invaders, was Archbishop of
Dublin in succession to the brokenhearted, patriot prelate, St. Lorcan O Toole.
This Norman archbishop was unfriendly to the old, strange, Irish observance,
and ordered the extinction of the fire. Later the fire was kindled anew, and
burnt for nearly four centuries more, until King Henry VIII undertook the
extinction of monastic life and the historic fire was extinguished forever,
under that pervert archbishop Browne who had <Bachall rosa>, St.
Patrick's staff, destroyed.
This is all that is known
of the Fire of Kildare; its purpose and meaning are not recorded. Archbishop
Healy[15] threw out the suggestion that the nuns of Kildare may have
anticipated western Christendom in maintaining a perpetual flame before the
Blessed Sacrament. This seems to us unlikely; firstly, because of Gerald's
description of a hedged enclosure, which does not agree with a tabernacle lamp,
and secondly, because so excellent a devotion, had it originated in Kildare,
would have been copied in all Brigid's convents and would have spread
throughout the land. Dr. Healy admits that his suggestion is only barely
tenable and prefers the theory that the fire burnt before Brigid's tomb in her
memory. The second theory also seems unlikely, since Cogitosus, who, as we have
seen, describes the tomb, would have described the fire if it burnt in the
church.
Many writers of the
modernist school try to make us believe that the sacred fire was some pagan
survival—that the nuns of Kildare succeeded Irish Vestals. It is hardly needful
to spend time on the refutation of this theory, so characteristic of the
Evolutionary mind. It assumes the existence of vestals in pagan Ireland, of
whom we have no other evidence whatever; and it supposes that Christian bishops
and nuns, building up a new order, would take over a superstition from the
order that they were seeking to supplant and obliterate. Only those who can imagine
a bishop or Reverend Mother of their acquaintance taking a pagan rite into
their rule of life will credit this absurdity.
What the fire symbolised,
or what it was maintained in order to commemorate, we do not know, but we do
know that the maintenance of an undying fire is a gesture which commends itself
to piety in all ages. It is used in Catholic Christendom as a means to express
the unsleeping devotion of the Church to the Eucharist. It has been adopted by
modern men as a symbol of undying remembrance at the grave of an Unknown
Warrior. It was instituted at Kildare, in like fashion, to symbolise devotion
and continuity; and if we do not know to what particular aspect of the faith it
was directed, or what sacred event it commemorated, yet that fire which burnt
from the sixth to the sixteenth century with only one brief interruption,
always will be to the Irish mind a splendid emblem of the loyalty of the Irish
of old to the faith, and to the great Nun of Kildare.
Let us hazard a bold
conjecture. Among Brigid's visitors at Kildare, as we have seen, was Bishop St.
Fiacc of Sletty, one of the two who rose to their feet when Patrick entered
Tara away back at Easter in 433. He would describe the Fires of Slane that
announced the challenge of the faith. Suppose that at some Easter he lit the
Pashal Fire at Kildare. Might not Brigid resolve that the fire lit by Fiacc
should be perpetuated as a symbol or reminder of the fire lit by Patrick? This
is a guess, such as a story-teller might make; but it is plausible enough to
show how simple the true explanation would be if the record ever were
discovered. Some such event, some such observance, is the secret of that famous
fire.
Chapter V
HAEC EST VIRGO SAPIENS
1. Last Years
Such is all that we can
tell of the deeds and sayings of the Abbess of Kildare, piecing her life-story
together from anecdotes. The records which have come down are not so much
formal <Lives> as materials for sermons, little tales of Brigid's wonders
and charities which were written for people who lived when tradition was
unbroken, and when the main facts of the saints career were known. People who
listened to sermons in the churches of ancient Ireland did not need or want to
be told what convents Brigid founded, or how she moulded history; these things
were familiar knowledge. They wanted to be told how she prayed, how she loved
the poor—reasons to love and imitate her.
Those old generations
knew Mother Brigid as Spaniards know Mother Teresa. They knew what we need to
discover and visualise, that in Brigid's lifetime, which overlapped Patrick's
by a dozen or fifteen years and lasted about sixty more, the work of the
Apostle of Ireland was completed. Ireland had become a land as fully Christian
as it is to-day. Patrick and Brigid (as an ancient writing said) were the
pillars on which Christian Ireland stood. We have been able only to gain
glimpses of Brigid's toils; but we know, what was vivid memory to olden
Ireland, that she had filled Leinster and many outlying regions with nunneries,
and that the convents of the holy women of Ireland, whether founded and ruled
by her or prompted by her example, had brought about the emancipation and
exaltation of womanhood. The virtues of Mary were established in Irish
Christendom by this feminine revolution, of which the Abbess of Kildare was the
leader. Doubtless we may thank this wondrous nun for that reverence for
chastity which always was conspicuous in the "most faithful
nation."[16]
Brigid, then, saw the
great change of Ireland completed, from a rugged paganism to a settled
Christian order in which scholarship as well as sanctity was soon to flourish.
Her last years were gladdened by the spectacle of a great harvest saved and
garnered. Like Santa Teresa, she had worked mainly within walls, but her
uneventful days of the tremendous spiritual action had swayed a nation and were
to influence a world. The age of the "Saints and Scholars" was about
to begin.
We have no record of
Brigid's own scholarship. The old <Lives> represent her as using many a
Latin phrase, <Deo gratias>, and the like. She must have acquired
somehow, perhaps by Bishop Mel's instruction, no inconsiderable learning. Yet
we suspect that she resembled Santa Teresa here again in gaining knowledge by
fiery mental energy rather than by a laboured education. She was a poet, as
Teresa was a vigorous prose-writer, in her country's vernacular. The poets,
scribes, historians of later times invoked her as a friend to learning. For
reasons that have faded, but at which we thus guess, she was honoured especially
by men of letters. <Adjuva Brigitta>, the Gaelic scribes wrote at the
head of their manuscripts, "O Brigid help me!"
2. Contemporaries
As Patrick's mighty
personality eclipsed great men, his contemporaries—without whose gifts,
perhaps, he could not have carried out his life-work—so the brilliant figure of
Brigid, so generous, joyous, vivid, eclipsed many eminent figures who, without
her, would occupy the records of the period. To some of these contemporaries,
much of what was achieved in Ireland in her age must be credited.
Chief of Brigid's
contemporaries was St. Enda of Aran, whose lifetime closely coincided with her
own. He was a prince, and, like St. Germanus, a warrior. Converted by the
sudden death of a young religious woman, he was not content to become a
Christian, but sought out the way of austerity. He became a monk at Candida
Casa (now Whithorn, in Scotland), where several other eminent Irish Religious
got their training, and then founded a monastery in the largest of the Aran
Islands, off Galway. With his own hands he dug and built on that wild Atlantic
site. He pursued a life of extreme rigour—set the example, in fact, of that
prodigious penitential austerity, in which the Irish were to excel all other
western monks. The heroism of his "white martyrdom" so appealed to
what was best in the race that heroic souls flocked to Aran to share the
rigours of the prince turned monk.
"The life of Enda
and his monks," writes Archbishop Healy,[17] "was very frugal and
austere. The day was divided into fixed periods for prayer, labour, and sacred
study. Each community had its own church and its village of stone cells, in
which they slept either on the bare ground or on a bundle of straw covered with
a rug, but always in the clothes worn by day. They assembled for their daily
devotions in the church or oratory of the saint under whose immediate care they
were placed; silently they took in a common refectory their frugal meals, which
were cooked in a common kitchen, for they had no fires in their <cloghauns>
or stone cells, however cold the weather or wild the seas.
"They invariably
carried out the monastic rule of procuring their own food and clothing by the
labour of their hands,'" Dr. Healy proceeds in this pen picture of the
austere and simple Gaelic Christendom that grew up in Brigid's lifetime.
"Some fished around the islands; others cultivated patches of oats or
barley in sheltered spots between the rocks. Others ground it or kneaded the
meal into bread and baked it for the use of the brethren. So, in like manner,
they spun and wove their own garments from the undyed wool of their own sheep.
They could grow no fruit in these storm-swept islands; they drank neither wine
nor mead, and they had no flesh meat, except perhaps a little for the
sick."
Enda's was the first of
the Irish monastic schools. With this famous foundation it is considered that
"monasticism in the strict sense (embracing vows, complete seclusion from
the world, and a stern system of discipline) began in Ireland."[18] Among
Enda's pupils was St. Ciaran, who founded that monastery at Clonmacnois on the
Shannon which was the chief centre of Gaelic learning in later days. Enda's own
monastic school was surpassed in importance in the next generation by St.
Finian's at Clonard in Meath, and we have seen how the youthful Finian is said
to have taken counsel with Brigid.
Before we leave Brigid's
great contemporary at Aran we must note how, in our own age, Padraic Pearse, as
he sought to revive the heroic tradition, named his own remarkable school at
Rathfarnham St. Enda's. He declared[19] that Ireland, even in pagan times,
possessed a peculiarly humane ideal in education. "It persisted into
Christian times," he wrote, "when a Ciaran or an Enda or a Columcille
gathered his little group of foster-children (<dalta>, the old word was
still used) around him; they were collectively his family, his household, his
<clann>; many sweet and endearing words were used to mark the intimacy of
that relationship. It seems to me," Pearse goes on, "that there has
been nothing nobler in the history of education than this development of the
old Irish plan of fosterage under a Christian rule, when to the pagan ideals of
strength and truth there were added the Christian ideals of love and humility.
And this, remember, was not the education system of an aristocracy, but the
educational systems of a people. It was more democratic than any educational
system in the world to-day.... To Clonard or to Aran or to Clonmacnois went
every man, rich or poor, prince or peasant, who wanted to sit at Finian's or at
Enda's or at Ciaran's feet and to learn of his wisdom. Always it was the
personality of the teacher that drew them there; and so it was all through
Irish history. A great poet or a great scholar had his foster-children who
lived at his house or fared with him through the country."
Enda, then, seems to have
done for men what Brigid did for women, in that development which soon was to
make Ireland a land of monasteries. It must not be thought, however, that Enda
was the sole leader of monks or Brigid of nuns. While Enda's foundation was
attracting so many to Aran, St. Buite was building up a monastic school, later
of high importance, at Monasterboice, near the Boyne; and while Brigid was
doing her life-work in Kildare and its daughter-houses, at least one other
great nun was founding a great tradition. This nun was St. Darerca, better
known as St. Monenna. She was Brigid's friend, and visited her at Kildare
before going to Ulster to found her own convent in Killeavy, on the bleak slopes
of Slieve Gullion, not far from Faughart.
From the <Life> of
St. Darerca we get glimpses of the primitive Irish convents which supply
details lacking in the accounts of Kildare. Darerca's monastery "became
very popular with the people and soon had a reputation for wealth. Though the
biographer relates that the Abbess for many years never looked a male in the
face, he admits that she was often abroad visiting the sick and redeeming
captives. She travelled by night rather than by day, and was ready on occasion
to sup with her nuns in the home of a pious layman.
"The rule of the
monastery was severe. Prayer and vigils were incessant; fasts were frequent;
sleep was taken on the hard ground; and the land was tilled by their own toil,
as in the days of the ancient hermits. Food was at times so scarce that the
community was in danger of death through starvation."
To this day, every
summer, the people of Killeavy keep Monenna's "pattern," with prayers
at the holy well marked by an enormous cross, on the mountainside.
St. Ita, whose convent
was in our County Limerick, was a third great nun whom we must mention, since
she was the greatest daughter of the conventual movement. She had entered the
religious life before Brigid's death; but there is no record of contact with
Brigid. Ita was called the "Foster-Mother of the Saints of Ireland,"
since many of the pupils at her school for small boys, such as Brendan of
Clonfert, lived to be numbered among the great saints of the Second Order. She
was a personality comparable to Brigid in many ways. Her summary of the ideals
that she taught survives:
"True faith in God
with purity of heart; simplicity of life with religion; generosity with
charity."
Of Ita, the legend tells
that in some mystical moment the Infant Jesus lay in the holy nun's arms; and
an old poem sets forth the lullaby, with a pet name for the Infant, that she is
supposed to have uttered:[20]
<Isucan
Alar lium im disirtan>
Jesukin Dwells my humble
cell within; What were wealth of cleric high? All were lie but Jesukin.
Such were the souls who
with Brigid sanctified Ireland when the land of epic warriors was being
transformed into the Island of Saints and Scholars.
3. The Last Sacraments
Our last anecdote of
Brigid is one more curious tale from her pastoral time, as we find it in the
Book of Lismore:
Brigid (<we read>)
was once with her sheep on the Curragh, and she saw a son-of-reading (that is,
a student) running past her—the scholar Nindid.
"What makes you so
uneasy, O son-of-reading?" says Brigid. "What are you seeking in that
hurry?"
"O nun," says
the scholar, "I am hurrying to heaven."
Mark Brigid's apt reply
to the flippancy. "The Son of the Virgin knoweth," Brigid said,
"that happy is he who goes that journey. For God's sake, will you pray for
me that I may find the way?"
The flippant student
seems to have been moved by the rebuke in the humble request. Together with
Brigid, he said a <Pater Noster>, "and he was devout thenceforward."
A remarkable privilege
was to be this cleric's. Brigid told him that he should give her the Last
Sacraments when she should come to die; and it is told that he always kept his
right hand gloved because of this service that it was to perform.
At length the call came
to Nindid. It was about the end of the first quarter of the century, when the
Abbess was aged about seventy-five years, that death came. Nindid was in Rome,
but the summons reached him, either by a hurried message or, as an old account
says, by an intuition. We read:—"Now that the last moments of Brigid drew
near, when she had founded many churches and religious houses and built many
altars, and, in a life of charity and mercy had wrought miracles more numerous
than the sea-sands or the stars of Heaven, Nindid of the pure hand returned
from Rome and gave the Communion and Sacrament to her, and her pure soul went
its way to Heaven."
Because of Nindid's
sanctification by Brigid's influence, and his sacred service to her at life's
end, "it came to pass," an ancient text says, "that the
comradeship of the world's sons-of-reading is with Brigid, and the Lord gives
them through Brigid every perfect good they ask."
No more is told of
Brigid's death than we learn from this passage about the scholar-priest who was
with her as her soul passed to heaven. The Annals indicate that the date was
between the years 523 and 526. The season was that at which most old people in
Ireland die, when the wet and sunless Irish winter has brought vitality low,
and the first rifts and gleams in the sky are but a chill promise of Spring.
The first of February is Brigid's feast-day.
The great Abbess was
buried, as we have seen, at the Epistle side of the altar in the great church
at Kildare. Bishop Conleth, who is said to have been slain by wolves, was
buried at the other side of the altar a few years earlier.
4. Triumphant Brigid
The wide cult of Brigid
in Europe can be understood from the distinction of her character, as we have
tried to show it forth, the greatness of her work, and the importance of her
example. The missionaries of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries carried
her fame through Britain and Central Europe; they cherished devotion to her in
their hearts, and poets made many hymns in her praise.
We can conceive how
churchmen who had to deal with the warrior-peoples newly settled in the lands
of the fallen Empire—fierce Goths and Burgundians, Alans and Suevi, Huns and
Lombards—found inspiration in Brigid and preached her example. Born in slavery,
yet of regal ancestry, sympathetic with the sufferers and intolerant of
subjection, she had subdued violence with her woman's will, and had established
houses of chastity and prayer in the midst of war-worn lands. "Be like
Sancta Brigitta!"—the Irishmen would say, as they preached to their
warlike flocks; and, as they talked of the Shepherdess, half-royal, half-slave,
and all saint, her cult became rooted in continental Christendom.
So highly did the Irish
churchmen exalt the homely saints of Ireland, and especially Brigid, that at
least one German satirist of the Middle Ages[21] charged them with making
Brigid the Mother of God; and he tells how certain Irishmen replied by quoting
the words of the Saviour: "My mother and my brethren are they who hear the
word of God, and do it." (Luke 8:21), surely an apt and sufficient reply
to the objections that we have cited to the title "Mary of the Gael."
A century and a quarter
after Brigid's death, her <Life> was written in Latin by a churchman
named Cogitosus, apparently at the request of her community in Kildare. We have
quoted from this brief document. It has for us the same defect as the six
<Lives> written in Irish later, that it assumes in the reader knowledge
that has been lost. It was the first biography of a saint written in Ireland,
and marks the strength of her cult at that date.
The Gaelic hymns in
Brigid's honour, made in the age of saints and scholars, have more of the
fervour with which she was remembered and reverenced. They dwell on the thought
that her religious stronghold at Kildare had supplanted the strongholds of the
pagan armies, and that she worked a spiritual revolution.[22] Thus:
<Borg Ailinne nallach>
The proud citadel of Alenn Has perished with its warlike host; Great is
victorious Brigid, Fair is her populous Rome.
Here Rome is the Gaelic
synonym for a sacred place. Again, in another poem:
<Slan seise, a Brigit
co mbuaid>
Sit thou safely enthroned, triumphant Brigid,
On the side of the Liffey far as the strand of the ebbing sea;
Thou art the sovereign lady with banded hosts (of monks and nuns).
God's counsel at every
time concerning virgin Erin
Is greater than can be told;
Glittering Liffey has been the land of others in turn,
It is thine to-day.
How strange the utterance
to burst from the mind of an Irish poet in, probably, the eighth century, as he
thought of what a nun in a convent had achieved for the past and for the
future!—<God's counsel concerning virgin Erin . . . is greater than can be
told.>.
Epilogue
FROM THE OFFICE OF ST.
BRIGID, VIRGIN
Collect: O God, who cost
gladden us this day by the yearly festival of Thy holy virgin Brigid: vouchsafe
in Thy mercy that we who are enlightened by the example of her chastity, may be
aided by her merits—<The Roman Missal>
Endnotes
1 Rev. J. Woulfe,
<Irish Names and Surnames.>2 James F. Kenny, PhD., in <Sources for the
Early History of Ireland>, Vol. I-<Ecclesiastical.>
3 The distinction among
Gaelic speakers between <Muire>, the name of our Lady, and <Maire>,
for Mary, in common use, has a distant origin. In ancient Ireland, the Latin
Maria, with a short a was taken into Gaelic, yielding <Muire>. This
remained in use in literature down to the present day for the biblical Marys,
and became reserved in speech to our Lady. When the Normans entered Ireland, they
introduced the custom, hitherto not practiced among the Irish, of using our
Lady's name in baptism. Their Norman-French Marie, with the long a, was
adopted, becoming in <Gaelic Maire-Vide> G. Murphy in <Eigse>, Vol.
I, Part III.
4 Rev. Felim O Briain, O.F.M.,
<Saint Brigid of Ireland.>
5 Rev. P. M. MacSweeney,
<The Warlike Career of Conghal Clairing-neach.>
6 <Saint Patrick,
Apostle of Ireland>, Chapter X.
7 Alice Curtayne,
<Saint Brigid of Ireland.>
8 Dom Louis Gougaud,
O.S.B., <Gaelic Pioneers of Christianity.>
9 Alexander Carmichael,
<Carmina Gadelica.>
10 Curtayne, <op.
cit.>
11 The traditional Gaelic
ritual of the conferring of St. Brigid's cross has been recorded by Rev.
Laurence Murray, historian of the Archdiocese of Armagh, in the <Louth
Archaeological Journal.>12 Curtayne, op. cit.
13 O Curry, <MS.
Materials of Irish History>.
14 Rev. J. Ryan, S.J.,
<Irish Monasticism.>
15 Archbishop Healy,
<Life and Writings of St. Patrick.>
16 Title conferred on
Ireland by Pope Pius XI.
17 Archbishop Healy, in <Catholic
Encyclopedia,> article "The Monastic School of Aran."
18 Ryan, <op. cit.>
19 Padraic Pearse,
<Political Writings.>
20 Eleanor Hull, <The
Poem-Book of the Gael.>
21Dom Louis Gougaud,
O.S.B., <Gaelic Pioneers of Christianity.>
22 Kuno Meyer, <Saint
Brigit.>
Taken from "The
Saints of Ireland: The Life-Stories of SS. Brigid and Columcille" by Hugh
de Blacam, published by The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee.
Provided Courtesy of:
Eternal Word Television
Network
5817 Old Leeds Road
Irondale, AL 35210
www.ewtn.com
SOURCE : http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/BRIGID.htm
Santa Brigida d'Irlanda
(di Cell Dara) Badessa
Fochairt, Irlanda, 452
circa – 524 circa
San Brigida fu fondatrice
e badessa di uno dei primi monasteri irlandesi, presso Kildare, nonché
prosecutrice dell’opera di evangelizzazione dell’isola intrapresa dal vescovo
San Patrizio. La sua leggendaria figura costituisce una sorta di anello di
congiunzione tra il mondo pagano celtico ed il cristianesimo appena agli
esordi.
Patronato: Irlanda,
Poeti, Fabbri, Guaritori
Etimologia: Brigida
(come Brigitta) = alta, forte, potente, dall'irlandese
Emblema: Mucca
Martirologio
Romano: A Kildare in Irlanda, santa Brigida, badessa, che fondò uno dei
primi monasteri dell’isola e si ritiene che abbia continuato l’opera di
evangelizzazione iniziata da san Patrizio.
La santa Brigida commemorata in data odierna dal Martyrologium Romanum non è innanzitutto da confondere con l’omonima celebre santa regina svedese. Santa Brigida d’Irlanda, il cui culto nell’isola è secondo solo a quello tributato al vescovo San Patrizio, visse invece alcuni secoli prima ed appartiene a quel genere di personaggi indubbiamente esistiti storicamente, ma la fama è stata tramandata grazie a narrazioni leggendarie e simboliche, piuttosto che grazie ad accurate biografie.
Brigida nacque probabilmente verso la metà del V secolo presso Fochairt, presso Dundalk. Secondo le tradizionali datazioni attribuite alla vita della santa, ella avrebbe avuto solamente sei anni alla morte di San Patrizio e secondo l’usanza del tempo si consacrò al Signore sin dalla tenera età. Ricevette il velo dalle mani di altri santi e poi sarebbe addirittura stata ordinata vescovo. Per tributare i massimi onori alla sua chiesa di Kildare, alcune tradizioni asseriscono perfino che Brigida avrebbe ricevuto il “pallium”, segno distintivo degli arcivescovi metropoliti.
In realtà pare semplicemente che fu badessa del monastero maschile e femminile di tale città, a sessanta chilometri a sud ovest di Dublino. Era infatti cosa abbastanza comune nella Chiesa celtica che una donna in qualità di superiora governasse entrambi i rami di un monastero. Secondo parecchie antiche “Vite”, Brigida esercitò molta influenza sulla vita delle chiese celtiche, che tornarono alle antiche strutture tribali pagane e rimasero pressoché isolate dalla vita ecclesiale romana. Se nel mondo latino venivano esaltati la ricchezza ed il potere dei campioni cristiani, i santi celtici rifulgevano invece per le loro qualità pastorali, come dimostrò santa Brigida nel donare la spada di suo padre ad un lebbroso, sottolineando così come la sua autorità spirituale risiedesse non nel potere e nell’aggressività e nel potere, bensì nella misericordia e nella compassione.
I racconti circa la vita di questa santa, come d’altronde molti altri
riguardanti santi celtici e medioevali, seguono uno schema che ricalca
grossomodo gli episodi evangeli della vita di Gesù: la sua nascita fu
preannunciata da un druido ed in vita ebbe quali preziose guide San Maccaille e
San Mel. Divenne poi essa stessa consigliera e guida spirituale per il
prossimo, radunando attorno a sé numerosi discepoli. Le furono attribuiti dei
miracoli che, proprio come nel caso di Gesù, costituivano in larga misura delle
risposte ai bisogni dell’uomo, come quando, simulando l’episodio delle nozze di
Cana, nel Meath “spillò birra da un solo barile per diciotto chiese, in
quantità tale che bastò dal Giovedì Santo alla fine del tempo pasquale”, come
ricorda il Breviario di Aberdeen.
Proprio a questo singolare episodio si rifà una deliziosa “preghiera di
Brigida”:
“Vorrei un lago di birra per il Re dei Re.
Vorrei che la famiglia celeste fosse qui a berne per l’eternità […].
Vorrei che ci fosse allegria nel berne.
Vorrei anche Gesù qui.”
Oltre a queste analogie con l’esistenza terrena del Cristo, alla memoria di
Santa Brigida furono collegate innumerevoli tradizioni celtiche, oggi
facilmente bollabili come rigurgiti del paganesimo ed inutili superstizioni,
che tra le altre cose hanno dato origine ad una variegata iconografia sul suo
conto. In realtà in Irlanda ancora oggi resiste la consuetudine di porre un
lumino sulle finestre delle case e numerosi sono i pellegrinaggi ai luoghi
legati alla sua memoria. La devozione nutrita nei suoi confronti dai numerosi
pellegrini irlandesi che nel Medioevo percorrevano l’Europa contribuì alla
diffusione del suo culto in nuove zone, soprattutto della Francia. Essi
erano soliti ripetere un’invocazione in gallese: “Santa Brigida, custodiscici
nel nostro viaggio”.
Merita infine una delucidazione una parte del titolo della presente schede, cioè il nome Cell Dara. Esso non è altro che la versione gallese della città di Kildare e significa “cella della quercia”: fa riferimento ad un altare poggiante su una trave di legno massiccio, a cui furono attribuiti poteri miracolosi, ma questo non è che uno dei tanti collegamenti suddetti tra paganesimo e cristianesimo.
La sua morte giunse all’incirca verso l’anno 524. Data della sua festa fu da sempre il 1° febbraio, giorno in cui è ancora oggi ricordata anche dal martirologio ufficiale della Chiesa Cattolica, che nel delineare un brevissimo profilo della santa riporta i pochissimi dati certi sulla sua vita: badessa e fondatrice di uno dei primi monasteri irlandesi, nonché prosecutrice dell’opera di evangelizzazione intrapresa da San Patrizio.
Autore: Fabio Arduino
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/39300
Voir aussi : http://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/02/a-commentary-on-life-of-saint-brigid-by.html
