samedi 14 mai 2016

Saint CARTHAGE le Jeune, de LISMORE (MO CHUTU, MOCHUDU, MOCHUDA, CARTHACH),ermite, évêque et confesseur





Côté nord de l'autel funéraire de John et Catherine McGrathin, nef de la St. Carthage's Cathedral. Lismore,  1543, 
de droite à gauche :Sain Carthage, Sainte Catherine et Saint Patrick



Saint Carthach le jeune

ermite et évêque irlandais ( 638)

Carthach le jeune, ermite et évêque irlandais connu sous les noms de Carthage, Cuda ou Mochuda. Il était gardien de porcs puis fut ordonné prêtre et devint ermite vers 590 à Liltulagh puis à Bangor sous Saint Comgall. Il fonda ensuite un monastère de plusieurs centaines de moines et écrivit une règle en vers qui existe encore. On croit qu'il a été évêque de Fircall jusqu'à ce que lui et ses moines soient expulsés par le seigneur local. Il fonda un autre monastère à Lismore et vécut non loin de là dans une grotte sur les rives de la Blackwater.

À Lismore en Irlande, l’an 638, saint Carthag ou Mochuda, qui fut abbé de plus de huit cents moines et fonda le siège épiscopal de Lismore.


Martyrologe romain




SAINT CARTHAG (CARTHACH, MOCHUDA) LE JEUNE, ABBÉ ÉVÊQUE DE LINSMORE ET CONFESSEUR (+ 637)

Carthag le Jeune ou Mochuda, fils de Fingen, naquit vers 555; il fut élevé par Carthag l'Ancien. En 580, il bâtit une cellule à Kiltallagh en vue d'y mener la vie d'un Ermite, passa une année à Bangor. Plus tard, sur l'avis de Saint Colman, il fonda le Monastère de Rathin pour lequel il aurait rédigé une règle monastique. Ce monastère devint une grande école de piété et de science, où les disciples vinrent nombreux tant de Bretagne que d'Irlande. 

Après une quarantaine d'années, c'est-à-dire vers 636, Carthage qui gouvernait alors plus de huit cents Moines, fut obligé de quitter Rathin : alors il alla fonder le siège épiscopal de Linsmore dont il est regardé comme le premier Evêque; il y établit en même temps une grande école qui y fut longtemps prospère. Carthag naquit au Ciel le 14 mai, en 637 ou 638, peu de temps après avoir achevé sa cathédrale. Celle-ci fut placée sous son vocable et la ville elle-même fut appelée Lismore Mochuda.

ou

Né à Castlemaine, Kerry, Irlande; endormi près de Lismore, Irlande, le 14 Mai vers 637. Voici un autre Saint qui est souvent connu par un surnom affectif, comme Simon Bar Jonas était et est toujours appelé Pierre. 

Carthag naquit dans le Kerry, fils d'un chef appelé Fingen et de son épouse Maeve. Ses biographes disent que pendant qu'il surveillait le troupeau de porcs de son père, un groupe de Moines passa, chantant des Psaumes, et le garçon fut si ravi qu'il les suivit jusqu'à leur monastère, où il passa la nuit au dehors à les écouter chanter. Les serviteurs de son père le retrouvèrent le lendemain et le ramenèrent à la maison, mais quand Fingen entendit le motif de la fugue de son fils, il l'envoya à l'Abbaye, demandant qu'il puisse être admis dans la communauté. Il devint disciple de l'Abbé Saint Carthag l'Ancien, qui l'ordonna; c'est ainsi que Carthag le Jeune devint connu par son nom de Baptême, qui était Chud ou Cuddy, auquel l'Abbé ajouta le préfix affectif Mo, en faisant Mochuda.

Vers 590, il devint Ermite à Kiltlaugh puis partit à Bangor sous Saint Comgall.

Après avoir visité différents monastères, Carthag s'installa quelques temps à Rahan en Offaly en 595, où il dirigea cents Moines, attirant par ses enseignements et sa puissance spirituelle. C'est à Rahan qu'un combat de puissance eu lieu, entre lui et un sorcier local, ou druide, combat au cours duquel Mochuda fit pousser des feuilles sur un pommier au coeur de l'hiver, puis le fit fleurir et donner des fruits.

Deux Moines anglais tentèrent de le faire partir, pensant qu'il était temps que le monastère ait un nouvel Abbé. Il fut aussi probablement Evêque de Fircall. Carthag écrivit une règle en versets métriques, dont une version tardive existe encore.

Après quarante ans, la fondation provoqua la jalousie dans des monastères sur des terres adjacentes, et Carthag et ses Moines furent chassés à Pâque en 630, ensemble avec un groupe de lépreux dont ils s'occupaient, par Blathmac, un chef local. Après avoir refusé un site que leur offrait le roi de Cashel, ils parvinrent à la rivière Blackwater et y construisirent un nouveau monastère, qui devait devenir aussi célèbre, Lismore. On rapporte le récit suivant : pendant que le Saint était occupé à construire l'abbaye, une femme lui demanda ce qu'il faisait, et il répondit en irlandais qu'il était occupé à construire une petite "Lios", le terme pour "clôture". La femme répondit "nil se uos beag ach liosnor", "pas une petite clôture, mais une grande", et c'est ainsi que cela sera connu comme Lismore.

Carthag survivra suffisamment longtemps pour donner à ses moines une ferme tradition, à ce qui devrait devenir une des plus célèbres de toutes les écoles monastiques irlandaises. Un de ses disciple sera Saint Cathal, qui sera élu Evêque de Taranto, Italie, à son retour de Terre Sainte.

Saint Carthag fut exceptionnellement strict concernant la propriété; à Rathan, il ne permit pas à la communauté de disposer de chevaux ou de bovins pour aider aux labours. 

Le Saint se retira dans une caverne près de Lismore où il vécut les derniers 18 mois de sa vie en Ermite, mais à sa naissance au Ciel en 637, il fut enterré dans l'église de l'Abbaye à Lismore. A Rahan il y reste trois églises, dont une est devenue une paroisse de l'Eglise d'Irlande. A Lismore, il y eut jusque vingt églises, mais il n'en reste plus que quelques vestiges. La cathédrale de l'Eglise d'Irlande se trouve probablement sur l'emplacement du monastère.

Tropaire de Saint Carthag le Jeune ton 6

Prenant le nom de ton père spirituel au Baptême, Ô Saint Carthag/
tu échangeas un héritage royal mais païen pour la vie monastique./
Comme en ce monde tu pris soin de ceux/ 
qui souffraient en leurs corps de la corruption de la lèpre,/ 
à présent, nous t'implorons, intercède auprès du Christ notre Dieu / 
qu'Il lave nos âmes lépreuses et nous sauve.




Carthage the Younger, Abbot (AC)
(also known as Carthach, Mochuda)

Born at Castlemaine, Kerry, Ireland; died near Lismore, Ireland, on May 14, c. 637; cultus confirmed in 1903. This swineherd was probably named Cuda. He became a disciple of Saint Carthach the Elder who ordained him and from whom he took his name. About 590, he became a hermit at Kiltlaugh and then at Bangor under Saint Comgall.


After visiting several monasteries, Carthage settled for a time at Rahan in Offaly, and then in 595 he founded a monastery there and ruled over 800 monks, two of whom were Britons who tried to drown him because they felt it was time for the monastery to have a new abbot. Carthage wrote a rule in metrical verse, a later version of which still exists. He also was probably a bishop at Fircall.

After 40 years, the foundation provoked the jealousy of monasteries on adjacent lands, and Carthage and his monks were driven away by Blathmac, a local ruler. He led his monks to the banks of the Blackwater and founded a new monastery at Lismore, where he survived long enough to give his monks a firm foundation to what was to become one of the most famous of all Irish monastic schools. One of its students was Saint Cathal, who was elected bishop of Taranto, Italy, during his return from the Holy Land.

Saint Carthage was exceptionally strict about the holding of property; at Rathan he would not allow the community to have horses or oxen to help in the tillage. Nevertheless, the Lismore Crozier is a treasured item of Irish art--now residing in the National Museum at Dublin. The saint retired to a cave near Lismore where he spent his last years as a hermit (Attwater, Benedictines, Carthage, Delaney, Montague).


May 14

St. Carthagh, or Mochudu, Bishop of Lismore


THIS 1 eminent director of souls in the narrow paths of Christian perfection, was a native of Munster in Ireland. The famous monastery of Raithin or Ratheny in Westmeath was founded by him. He drew up a particular monastic rule, which is said to be still extant in very old Irish; but it was afterwards incorporated into that of the regular canons of St. Austin, when the abbey of Raithin adopted that institute, which, though it has been since mitigated, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, seems to have been scarcely less austere than that of La Trappe at present. St. Carthagh is said to have under his direction above eight hundred and sixty monks, who confined themselves to feed on vegetables, which they raised and cultivated with their own hands. In 631, or, according to the annals of Inisfallen, in 636, he was driven out of Raithin, which he had then governed forty years, by king Blathmac, and retired to the territory of Nandesi, or Desies, in Munster. Here, upon the banks of a river, 2 he laid the foundation of a great monastery and school, which flourished exceedingly for many ages. The place before his coming thither was called Magh-Sgiath; it then took the name of Dunsginne, and afterwards Lismore, which name it has ever since retained. 3 St. Carthagh founded here the episcopal see of Lismore, which was united to that of Waterford by Pope Urban V. in 1363, at the request of King Edward III., this latter having only been founded in 1096. The city of Lismore, from the reputation of the sanctity and miracles of St. Carthagh, its first bishop, was esteemed in succeeding ages a holy city, which appellation its great school and monastery continued to maintain. Half of this city was an asylum into which no woman ever dared to enter, it being full of cells and holy monasteries. Thither holy men flocked from all parts of Ireland, many also from Britain, being desirous to remove from thence to Christ. St. Carthagh left an eminent share of his spirit to his disciples and successors, but died himself soon after he had erected his cathedral, on the 14th of May, in 637 or 638. He was buried in his own church at Lismore. See Colgan in MSS. ad 14 Maij; Ware, t. 1, pp. 547, 548, 549; Usher, Primord. Brit. Eccl. p. 910; Allemaigne, Monast. Hibern. introd. et p. 43; Annals of Inisfall. ad an. 637.

Note 1. This St. Carthagh is called the younger, to distinguish him from St. Carthagh the elder, who succeeded St. Kiaran Saigir in Ossory. [back]

Note 2. This river was called Nem; afterwards Abhan-mor, i. e. Great-river; and now has the name of Black-water. [back]

Note 3. Dun signifies a fort, or place seated on an eminence, and sgein a flight; which seems to allude to the flight of the saint to this place, and to the name then given it; for it was before called Magh-sgiath, or the field of the shield. Lismore denotes a great house; Lis, or Lios, in the old Irish signifying a house, or village, and mor, great. [back]

Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73).  Volume V: May. The Lives of the Saints.  1866.



St. Carthage

St. Carthage, whose name is also given as Mochuda, was born of a good family, in what is now County Kerry, Ireland, about the year 555. He spent his youth as a swineherd near Castlemaine, and became a monk in a neighbouring monastery under the guidance of St. Carthage the Elder, subsequently receiving priest's orders. In 580 he determined to lead a hermit's life, and he built a cell at Kiltallagh, where his fame soon attracted pilgrims. After a few years the jealousy of two neighbouring bishops forced him to quit his hermitage, and he proceeded on a visit to Bangor, where he spent a year. On the advice of St. Comgall he returned to Kerry and founded churches at Kilcarragh and Kilfeighney. He then visited Waterford, Clonfert-molua (Kyle), and Lynally, whence, on the recommendation of St. Colman Elo, he settled at Rahan, near Tullamore, in the present King's County.

St. Carthage founded his monastery of Rahan about 590, and soon had hundred of disciples. He was consecrated Abbot-Bishop of the Fercal district, and composed a rule for his monks, an Irish metrical poem of 580 lines, divided into nine separate sections — one of the most interesting literary relics of the early Irish Church. Numerous miracles are also recorded to him. At length, Blathmaic, a Meathian prince, instigated by the neighbouring monks, ordered St. Carthage to leave Rahan. This expulsion of the saint and eight hundred of his community took place at Eastertide of the year 635. Journeying by Saigher, Roscrea, Cashel, and Ardfinnan, St. Carthage at length came to the banks of the River Blackwater, where he was given a foundation by the Prince of the Decies, and thus sprang up the episcopal city of Lios-mor, or Lismore, County Waterford.

Great as was the fame of Rahan, it was completely eclipsed by that of Lisemore, although St. Carthage lived less than two years at his new foundation. He spent the last eighteen months of his life in contemplation and prayer, in a cave near the present St. Carthage's Well. When at the point of death, he summoned his monks and gave them his farewell exhortation and blessing. Fortified by the Body of Christ he died on the 14th of May, 637, on which day his feast is celebrated as first Bishop and Patron of Lismore. Short as was St. Carthage's stay in Lismore, he left an ineffaceable impress of his labours in a famous abbey, cathedral, and infant university, but more so in the shining example of an austere and blameless life. Purity was his transcendent virtue, and to guard it he practised the severest penances. On this account St. Cuimin of Connor thus writes of him in an Irish quatrain:

The beloved Mochuda of mortification
Admirable every page of his history
Before his time there was no one who shed 
Half so many tears as he shed.


Usher had two manuscript copies of the Irish life of St. Carthage; and in 1634 Philip O'Sullivan Beare sent a Latin translation to Father John Bollandus, S.J. The "Vita Secunda" is the one usually quoted. In 1891 the present writer discovered the site of the Relig Mochuda in which St. Carthage was buried.

Sources

Acta SS. 14 May (III); Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae (Louvain, 1645); Lanigan, Eccles. Hist. of Ireland (Dublin, 1829), II; Baring-Gould, Lives of the Saints (London, 1874), V; O'Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints (Dublin, 1889), V; Grattan Flood, St. Carthage (Waterford, 1898); Healy, Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum (Dublin, 1902); Power, Place-Names of the Decies (Waterford, 1907); Hyde, Literary History of Ireland (London, 1901).

Grattan-Flood, William. "St. Carthage." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 14 May 2016 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03384c.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by William D. Neville.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Saint Carthage the Younger

Also known as
  • Carthage of Lismore
  • Carthage of Mochuda
  • Cartaco….
  • Carthach….
  • Carthagus….
  • Mo Chutu mac Fínaill
  • Mochuda….
Profile

Swineherd near Castlemaine, Ireland. Monk. Spiritual student of Saint Carthage the Elder. Priest. Hermit at Kiltallagh, Ireland in 580. He attracted would-be students, founded the monastery in Raithean in County Offaly, Ireland c.590, and served as its abbot. AbbotBishop of the Fercal district. He composed a rule for his monks. Wrote a metrical poem of 580 lines. Exiled from Raithean in 635 with 800 of his brother monks. With them he established a monastery which later became the famous school of Lismore.

Born