Columba banging on the gate of Bridei, son of Maelchon, King of Fortriu. Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, Scotland's Story,
1906. J. R. Skelton (Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton; 1865–1927) (illustrator), erroneously credited as John R. Skelton
Saint Colomba
Abbé d'Iona (+ 597)
ou Columba.
Abbé dans l'île d'Iona au
large de l'Écosse. L'un de ses successeurs trace de lui ce portrait:
"Nature d'élite, brillant dans ses paroles, grand dans ses conseils, plein
d'amour envers tous, rempli au fond du cœur de la sérénité et de la joie du
Saint-Esprit."
Il fonda plusieurs
monastères en Irlande avant de fonder celui d'Iona en Écosse, monastère célèbre
qui fut une pépinière de saints moines et de missionnaires.
Il est vénéré en Irlande
à l'égal de saint Patrick et de sainte Brigitte de Kildare, cette Irlande qu'il
chantait: "Sur chaque branche de chêne, je vois posé un ange du ciel...
tout y respire la paix, tout n'y est que délice."
Ascèse, prière
contemplative et charité sont les grandes réalités de sa vie comme de sa règle;
celle-ci franchira la mer et sera suivie par les ermites et les moines bretons.
(diocèse de Quimper et Léon - saint Colomba)
Dans l’île d’Iona, en
Écosse, vers 597, saint Colomba ou Colum Cille, prêtre et abbé. Né en Irlande
et formé aux préceptes de la vie monastique, il établit son monastère dans
cette île, qu’il rendit célèbre par la discipline de vie et le culte des
lettres. Enfin, recru de vieillesse et prévoyant son dernier jour, il mourut
devant l’autel du Seigneur.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/1296/Saint-Colomba.html
St.
Patrick's Cathedral of the Church of Ireland, Armagh, County Armagh, Northern
Ireland
Detail of the stained glass window W12 in the south aisle (4th from east), depicting Saint Columba. The window is signed “Leadlines & David Esler” in the lower right corner of this panel. (See W. R. H. Carson, The Stained Glass Windows of the Cathedral Church of St. Patrick Armagh, p. 20; gloine.ie.)
Saint Saint Colomba
d’Iona
Saint Colomba d’Iona (521-597)
est un irlandais qui participa à l’évangélisation de l’Irlande, de l’Écosse et
du Nord de l’Angleterre. Considéré comme l’un des saint patron des irlandais,
Saint Colomba mena tout au long de sa vie un combat en faveur de la conversion
complète de peuples n’ayant pas encore été évangélisés par le christianisme en
Irlande, en Écosse et en Angleterre.
Biographie de Saint
Colomba d’Iona
Un irlandais qui
participe à la christianisation de l’Irlande
Saint Colomba naît le 7
décembre 521, au sein d’un riche clan irlandais : les O’Neill de Tyrconnel, une
famille royale régnant à cette époque sur le Donegal. Son père, Feidlimid mac
Fergus Cendfota mac Conall Gulban est le fondateur même du clan, et fils du roi
suprême (Ard ri Érenn) Niall Noigiallach (399-432).
Durant sa jeunesse, Saint
Colomba découvre le christianisme et entre à l’Abbaye de Clonard, et travaille
sous l’influence de son mentor, Saint Finian de Clonard. Très vite, Saint
Colomba crée plusieurs monastères et écoles dans toute l’Irlande, dont :
un monastère à Derry en
545,
un monastère à Durrow en
553,
un monastère à Kells en
554
Egalement très impliqué
dans le domaine politique, Saint Colomba est parfois au centre de conflits et
rivalités au sein même de sa famille. Son engagement est tel, qu’il devient
alors dérangeant, et se voit forcé à l’exil en Écosse. Selon la légende, il
partit donc avec 12 compagnons (en analogie au Christ est ses apôtres), pour
l’île d’Iona en 563, et bénéficie dès lors de la protection du roi d’Écosse
Conall mac Comgaill de Dalriada.
Il fait alors de l’île de
Iona son QG pour participer à la christianisation de l’Écosse et du Nord de
l’Angleterre. Il convertit le peuple Picte, étend le christianisme sur l’ensemble
de l’Écosse, et devient une figure emblématique religieuse.
Saint Colomba décède le 9
juin 597, et est rapatrié en Irlande, à Downpatrick où il est enterré au
cimetière du village aux côtés de 2 autres saints : Saint Patrick (385-461) et
Sainte Brigitte (451-525).
De nos jours, les
irlandais commémorent Saint Colomba le 9 juin de chaque année au travers de
cérémonies religieuses.
SAINT COLOMBA
Le pèlerin du Christ
Né dans le comté de
Donegal, de la famille royale irlandaise des Tirconaill, Colomba reçut son
éducation à Moville (où il devint diacre), à Leinster et à l’école monastique
de Clonard sous l’autorité de saint Finnian. Il fut probablement ordonné prêtre
avant de partir pour Glasnevin. Quand la peste ravagea le pays en 543, les
moines furent dispersés et Colomba passa les quinze années qui suivirent à
voyager à travers l’Irlande : il fondait des monastères (Derry en 546),
prêchait et convertissait la population. Un jour, une dispute survint entre
Colomba et saint Finnian : le premier avait copié un psautier appartenant au
second, lequel, soucieux de réserver ses droits de reproduction, revendiqua la
copie en question. Colomba en appela au roi Diarmaid qui lui donna tort. Ce fut
la première ébauche de la législation sur le copyright. L’affaire n’en resta
pas là. Colomba incita sa famille à se battre contre les troupes de Diarmaid.
Ses hommes gagnèrent la bataille mais ce fut un massacre. Certains racontent
que ce fut le remords qui poussa Colomba à partir en Écosse.
L'Écosse
Colomba s’embarqua pour
Iona en 563 avec douze compagnons. Il y fonda un monastère très célèbre, centre
de la Chrétienté celtique. Iona fut une base pour les missions chez les Pictes
du Nord. Il fit grande impression sur le roi Brude en faisant sortir le monstre
du Loch Ness. On lui attribue aussi la conversion du roi irlandais Aidan de
Dalriada. Colomba resta à Iona jusqu’à la fin de sa vie, mais il visita
l’Irlande à plusieurs reprises. Il fonda tant d’églises dans les Hébrides qu’on
lui attribua le nom gaélique Colmcille (colombe des églises). Les traditions
monastiques d’Iona furent suivies dans l’Europe entière, l’ordre bénédictin
finit par s’imposer à quelques-unes. Colomba passa beaucoup de temps à la fin
de sa vie, à transcrire des livres. Il mourut à Iona le 9 juin 597.
Le portrait du saint
« Il avait, dit saint
Adamman, une figure angélique : c’était une nature d’élite ; il était brillant
dans ses paroles, saint dans ses actions, grand dans ses conseils. Il ne
perdait pas un moment, toujours à prier, à lire ou à écrire ; il supportait le
poids des jeûnes et des veilles sans répit. »
Faits et gestes
Toute sa vie porte
l’empreinte d’une ardente et spéciale sympathie pour les travailleurs des
champs. Pendant un des derniers étés, en revenant de moissonner les maigres
récoltes de leur île, les religieux s’arrêtèrent émus et charmés. Baïthen,
l’économe du monastère, ami et successeur de Colomba, leur demanda : «
N’éprouvez-vous ici rien de particulier ? - Oui, vraiment, répondit le plus
ancien, tous les jours à cette heure, je respire un parfum délicieux, comme si
toutes les fleurs du monde étaient ici réunies ; je sens aussi comme la flamme
d’un foyer qui ne me brûle pas, mais me réchauffe doucement ; j’éprouve enfin,
dans mon cœur, une joie si inaccoutumée, si incomparable, que je ne sens plus
ni chagrin ni fatigue. Les gerbes que je porte sur le dos ne pèsent plus rien,
il me semble qu’on me les enlève des épaules.
Qu’est-ce donc que cette
merveille ? Et tous de raconter une impression identique. « Je vais vous le
dire, reprit l’économe, ce qu’il en est. C’est notre vieux maître Colomba,
toujours plein d’anxiété pour nous, qui s’inquiète de notre retard, qui se
tourmente de notre fatigue et qui ne pouvant plus venir au-devant de nous avec
son corps, nous envoie son souffle pour nous rafraîchir, nous réjouir et nous
consoler. »
Saint Colomba est fêté le
9 juin
Les Saints, Alison Jones
; éd. Bordas, 1995.
SOURCE : http://www.orthodoxie-celtique.net/saint_colomba.html
Saint Columba
Saint Columba (également
connu sous le nom Columcille, qui signifie "Colombe de
l'Église") est né à Donegal sur le7 Décembre 521 de nobles parents
irlandais. Il devint moine et fut bientôt ordonné prêtre. La Tradition affirme
qu'aux environs de 560, il y eut un litige sur le droit de copier une édition
du Psautier Le différend a finalement conduit à la bataille de Cul Dremhe en
561, au cours de laquelle beaucoup d'hommes furent tués. Comme pénitence pour
ces morts, il fut ordonné à Columba de faire le même nombre de nouveaux
convertis que d'hommes qui avaient été tués dans la bataille. Il lui fut aussi
ordonné de quitter l'Irlande et d'être assez éloigné pas ne pas voir son pays
natal.
Il alla en Écosse, où il
est réputé, il débarqua à la pointe sud de la péninsule de Kintyre, près de
Southend. Toutefois, étant encore en vue de sa terre natale il déménagea plus
au nord jusqu'à la côte ouest de l'Écosse. En 563, il fonda un monastère sur
l'île de Iona au large de la côte ouest de l'Écosse, lieu qui devint le centre
de sa mission évangélisatrice vers l'Ecosse.
Il y a beaucoup
d'histoires de miracles qu'il accomplit au cours de sa mission pour convertir
les Pictes, peuple qui vivait en Écosse à cette époque. Dans une histoire de sa
vie, en 565 le saint rencontra un groupe de Pictes qui enterraient un homme tué
par un monstre qui vivait dans les eaux du Loch Ness, et il fit revenir l'homme
à la vie. Dans une autre version, il aurait sauvé l'homme alors qu'il était
attaqué, chassant le monstre avec le signe de la Croix.
La principale source de
la vie de saint Columba est la Vie de saint Columba, hagiographie de saint
Adamnan d'Iona.
Saint Columba est censé
être enterré avec saint Patrick et Saint-Brigitte de Kildare, à Downpatrick
dans le comté de Down, au fond de la célèbre colline de Down.
Sa fête est au 9 juin.
Version française Claude
Lopez-Ginisty
d'après
http://www.oodegr.com/english/biographies/arxaioi/Columba_Iona.htm
SOURCE : http://orthodoxologie.blogspot.ca/2010/04/saint-columba-higoumene-diona-597.html
St
Columba statue, St Cuthberts
Also
known as
Apostle of the Picts
Apostle to Scotland
Coim
Colmcille
Colum
Columbkill
Columbkille
Columbus
Columcille
Columkill
Combs
6
January as one of the Twelve
Apostles of Ireland
17
June (translation of relics)
Profile
Born to the Irish royalty,
the son of Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill clan. Bard. Miracle worker. Monk at
Moville. Spiritual student of Saint Finnian. Priest.
Itinerant preacher and teacher throughout Ireland and Scotland.
Spiritual teacher of Saint Corbmac, Saint Phelim, Saint Drostan, Saint Colman
McRhoi and Saint Fergna
the White; uncle of Saint Ernan. Travelled to Scotland in 563. Exiled to Iona on
Whitsun Eve, he founded a monastic community
there and served as its abbot for
twelve years. He and the monks of Iona,
including Saint Baithen
of Iona and Saint Eochod,
then evangelized the Picts, converting many,
including King Brude.
Attended the Council of Drumceat, 575.
Legend says he wrote 300
books.
Born
7
December 521 at
Garton, County Donegal, Ireland
9
June 597 at Iona, Scotland,
and buried there
relics translated
to Dunkeld, Scotland in 849
—
—
Youngstown, Ohio, diocese of
—
Pemboke,
Ontario, Canada,
city of
Additional
Information
Book
of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Book
of Saints and Heroes, by Leonora Blanche Lang
Book
of Saints and Wonders, by Lady Gregory
Catholic
World: An Irish Saint
Folk-Lore
and Legends of Scotland
Legends
of Saints and Birds, by Agnes Aubrey Hilton
Little
Lives of the Great Saints
Lives
of the Saints, by Father Alban
Butler
Our
Island Saints, by Amy Steedman
Roman
Martyrology, 1914 edition
Saint
Columba, Apostle of Scotland, by A C Storer
Saints
of the Day, by Katherine Rabenstein
Life of Saint Columba, by
Mother Frances Alice Monica Forbes
Life of Saint Columba,
by Saint Adamnan
of Iona
download in EPub format
Summary of Principal
Events in the Life of Saint Columba, by Wentworth Huyshe
books
Battersby’s Registry for
the Whole World
Our
Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
Patron
Saints and Their Feast Days, by the Australian Catholic
Truth Society
other
sites in english
British
Broadcasting Corporation
Christian
Today: Saint Columba’s cell discovered by scientists on Scottish island of
Iona
Saint
Columba of Iona Orthodox Christian Monastery
images
audio
The
Life of Saint Columba, Apostle of Scotland – audio book
video
ebooks
Life
of Saint Columba, Apostle of the Highlands, by John Smith, DD
Saint
Columba, Apostle of Caledonia, by Charles Forbes, comte de Montalembert
sitios
en español
Martirologio
Romano, 2001 edición
fonti
in italiano
Readings
My Druid is Christ, the
son of God, Christ, Son of Mary, the Great Abbot, The Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost. – Saint Columba
O Lord, grant us that
love which can never die, which will enkindle our lamps but not extinguish
them, so that they may shine in us and bring light to others. Most dear Savior,
enkindle our lamps that they may shine forever in your temple. May we receive
unquenchable light from yo so that our darkness will be illuminated and the
darkness of the world will be made less. Amen. – Saint Columba
The holy Columba was born
of noble parents, having as his father Fedelmith,
Fergus’ son, and his mother, Ethne by name, whose father may
be called in Latin “son of a ship,” and in the Irish tongue Mac-naue.
In the second year after the battle of Cul-drebene, the forty-second year of
his age, Columba sailed away from Ireland to Britain, wishing to be a pilgrim
for Christ. Devoted even from boyhood to the Christian novitiate and
the study of philosophy,
preserving by God‘s
favour integrity of body and purity of soul, he showed himself, though placed
on earth, ready for the life of heaven; for he was angelic in aspect, refined
in speech, holy in work, excellent in ability, great in counsel. Living as an
island soldier for thirty-four years, he could not pass even the space of a
single hour without applying himself to prayer, or to reading, or to writing or
some kind of work. Also by day and by night, without any intermission, he was
so occupied with unwearying labours of fasts and vigils that the burden of each
several work seemed beyond the strength of man. And with all this he was loving
to everyone, his holy face ever showed gladness, and he was happy in his inmost
heart with the joy of the Holy
Spirit. – Adomnan, from his biography of Columba
MLA
Citation
“Saint Columba of
Iona“. CatholicSaints.Info. 6 April 2021. Web. 9 June 2021.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-columba-of-iona/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-columba-of-iona/
William Hole (1846–1917), Saint
Columba converting King Brude of the Picts to Christianity, circa 1899, Mural
painting in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, photographed by uploader
Book of Saints –
Columba – 9 June
Article
COLUMBA (COLUMBUS, COLM,
COLUMBKILL) (Saint) Abbot (June 9) (6th century) Of the blood of Irish
chieftains, born in Donegal (December 7, A.D. 521), Columba was destined to be
the founder of a hundred monasteries and the Apostle of Caledonia. From boyhood
devoted to the study of Holy Scripture and day-by-day advancing in sanctity of
life, he was ordained priest at the age of twenty-five. After founding Derry,
Durrow and other religious houses, he with twelve disciples, crossed in the
year 563 to Scotland, and landed in the Island of I or Hy (now called Iona),
where he built the world-famed monastery which was for two centuries the
nursery of Bishops and Saints. For thirty-four years Columba travelled about
evangelising the Highlands of Scotland. At last, weighed down by age and
infirmities, he died kneeling before the Altar (June 9, 597), and was buried at
Iona. But in the ninth century his relics were translated to Down in Ulster,
and laid by the side of those of Saint Patrick. Saint Adamnan, one of his
successors at Iona, has left us an important and interesting Life of Saint
Columba.
MLA
Citation
Monks of Ramsgate. “Columba”. Book of Saints, 1921. CatholicSaints.Info. 12 October 2012. Web. 12 December 2024. <http://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-columba-9-june/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-columba-9-june/
Calendar
of Scottish Saints – Saint Colum Cille or Columba, Abbot
Article
A.D. 597. The apostle of
the northern regions of Scotland was born in Ireland in A.D. 521. Both father
and mother were of royal race. Though offered the crown of his native province,
Columba preferred rather to enrol himself in the monastic state. He studied in
the schools of Moville, Clonard, and Glasnevin, and in course of time was
ordained priest. At twenty-five years of age he founded his first monastery at
Derry; this was to be the precursor of the hundred foundations which Ireland
owed to his zeal and energy. In these monasteries the transcription of the Holy
Scriptures formed the chief labour of the inmates, and so much did Columba love
the work that he actually wrote three hundred manuscripts of the Gospels and
Psalms with his own hand.
But Columba was not
destined to remain in Ireland. From his earliest years he had looked forward to
the time when he might devote himself to missionary efforts for the benefit of
those who knew not the Christian faith. In the forty-second year of his age he
exiled himself voluntarily from his beloved country to preach the Gospel to the
pagan Picts. The story of his having been banished from Ireland for using his
influence to bring about a bloody conflict between chieftains is rejected by
the greatest modern historians as a fable. Early writers speak of the saint as
a man of mild and gentle nature.
On Whit Sunday, A.D. 563,
Saint Columba landed with twelve companions on the bleak, unsheltered island
off the coast of Argyll, known as Hii-Coluim-Cille or Iona. For thirty-four
years the saint and his helpers laboured with such success, that through their
efforts churches and centres of learning sprang up everywhere, both on the
mainland and the adjacent islands. Iona became the centre whence the Faith was
diffused throughout the country north of the Grampians. The monastic
missionaries were untiring in their efforts. They penetrated even to Orkney and
Shetland.
On Sunday, June 9, A.D.
597, Saint Columba was called to his reward. He died in the church, kneeling
before the altar and surrounded by his religious brethren. His remains, first
laid to rest at Iona, were afterwards carried over to Ireland and enshrined in
the Cathedral of Down by the side of those of Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget.
All these relics perished when the cathedral was burned by Henry VIII’s
soldiers.
Saint Columba was a man
of singular purity of mind, boundless love for souls, and a gentle, winning
nature which drew men irresistibly to God. His labours were furthered by Divine
assistance, which was evidenced by numerous miracles. Among the saints of
Scotland he takes a foremost rank, and in Catholic ages devotion to him was
widespread. The churches dedicated to him are too numerous to mention. He
himself founded no less than fifty during his residence in the land which he
had chosen as the scene of his labours. Annual fairs were held on his feast at
Aberdour (Fife), Dunkeld each for eight days Drymen (Stirlingshire), Largs
(Argyllshire), and Fort-Augustus (Inverness-shire). Saint Columba’s holy wells
were very numerous, for an old Irish record relates of him: “He blessed three
hundred wells which were constant.” In Scotland they are to be traced at Birse
(Aberdeenshire), Alvah and Portsoy (Banffshire), Invermoriston
(Inverness-shire), Calaverock (Forfarshire), Cambusnethan (Lanarkshire), Alness
(Ross-shire), Kirkholm (Wigtonshire), and on the islands of Garvelloch, Eigg
and Iona.
MLA
Citation
Father Michael
Barrett, OSB.
“Saint Colum Cille or Columba, Abbot”. The
Calendar of Scottish Saints, 1919. CatholicSaints.Info.
28 May 2014. Web. 12 December 2024.
<https://catholicsaints.info/calendar-of-scottish-saints-saint-colum-cille-or-columba-abbot/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/calendar-of-scottish-saints-saint-colum-cille-or-columba-abbot/
New Catholic
Dictionary – Saint Columba
Article
(521-597) Confessor,
apostle of the Picts, Abbot of
Iona, born Gartan, Ireland; died Iona, Scotland.
He entered the monastic life
at Moville, studied under Saint Finnian,
and was later ordained by Bishop Etchen
of Clonfad. In 563 he
left Ireland;
journeyed to Scotland, and founded a large monastery on
the island of Iona. He made numerous conversions among the Picts,
having won over their king, Brude. During his exile he returned twice to Ireland,
and was prominent at the Council of Drumceat, 575.
The Benedictine rule
has, since Columba’s time, replaced his monastic rule, which was prevalent
in Germany, Gaul,
Britain, and northern Italy.
Besides his missionary work, he is said to have written 300 books. Patron
of Ireland and
Scotland. His remains are interred at Downpatrick with those of Saint Patrick
and Saint Brigid. Feast, 9
June.
MLA
Citation
“Saint Columba”. New Catholic Dictionary. CatholicSaints.Info. 16
September 2012.
Web. 12 December 2024. <http://catholicsaints.info/new-catholic-dictionary-saint-columba/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/new-catholic-dictionary-saint-columba/
St. Columba
Abbot of Iona,
b. at Garten, County Donegal, Ireland,
7 December, 521; d. 9 June, 597. He belonged to the ClanO'Donnell, and was of
royal descent. His father's name was Fedhlimdh and that of his
mother Eithne. On his father's side
he was great-great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages,
an Irish king
of the fourth century. His baptismal
name was Colum, which signifies a dove, hence the
latinized form Columba. It assumes another formin Colum-cille, the
suffix meaning "of the Churches". He was baptized at
Tulach-Dubhglaise, now Temple-Douglas, by a priest named
Cruithnechan, who afterwards became his tutor or foster-father. When
sufficiently advanced in letters he entered the monastic school of
Movilla under St.
Finnian who had studied at St.
Ninian's"Magnum Monasterium" on the shores of Galloway. Columba at
Movilla monastic life and received the diaconate.
In the same place his sanctity first
manifested itself by miracles.
By his prayers, tradition says,
he convertedwater into wine for the Holy
Sacrifice (Adam., II, i). Having completed his training at Movilla, he
travelled southwards into Leinster, where he became a pupil of an aged bard
named Gemman. On leaving him, Columbaentered the monastery of Clonard,
governed at that time by Finnian, a remarkable, like his namesake of
Movilla, for sanctity and
learning. Here he imbibed the traditions of the Welsh
Church, for Finnian had been trained in theschools of St.
David. Here also he became one those
twelve Clonard disciples known in
subsequent history as the Twelve
Apostles of Ireland.
About this same time he was promoted to the priesthood by
Bishop Etchen of Clonfad. The story that St.
Finnian wished Columba to be consecrated bishop,
but through a mistake only priest'sorders were
conferred, is regarded by competent authorities as the invention of a
later age (Reeves, Adam., 226).
Another preceptor
of Columba was St. Mobhi, whose monastery at
Glasnevin was frequented by such famous men as St.
Canice, St.
Comgall, and St. Ciaran. A pestilence which devastated Ireland in
544 caused the dispersion of Mobhi's disciples,
and Columba returned to Ulster, the land of his kindred. The
following years were marked by the foundation of several
important monasteries, Derry, Durrow,
and Kells. Derry and Durrow were always specially dear
to Columba. While at Derry it is said that he planned a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem,
but did not proceed farther than Tours. Thence he brought a copy of
those gospels that had lain on the bosom ofSt.
Martin for the space of 100 years. This relic was
deposited in Derry (Skene, Celtic Scotland,
II, 483). Columbaleft Ireland and
passed over into Scotland in
563. The motives for this migration have been frequently discussed. Bede simply
says: "Venit de Hibernia . . . praedicaturus verbum Dei" (H. E., III,
iv); Adarnnan: "pro Christo perigrinari volens enavigavit" (Praef.,
II). Later writers state that his departure was due to the fact that he
had induced the clan Neill to rise and engage in battle
against King Diarmait at Cooldrevny in 561. The reasons
alleged for this action of Columba are: (1) The king's
violation of the right of sanctuary belonging
to Columba's person as
a monk on
the occasion of the murder of
Prince Curnan, the saint's kinsman;
(2) Diarmait's adversejudgment concerning the
copy Columba had secretly made of St.
Finnian's psalter. Columba is said to have supported by
his prayers the men of
the North who were fighting while Finnian did the same
for Diarmait's men. The latter were defeated with a loss of three
thousand. Columba's conscience smote
him, and he had recourse to his confessor, St. Molaise, who imposed this
severe penance:
to leave Ireland and
preach the Gospel so as to gain as many souls to Christ as
lives lost at Cooldrevny, and never more to look upon his native land.
Some writers hold that these are legends invented by the bards and
romancers of a later age, because there is no mention of them by the
earliest authorities (O'Hanlon,
Lives of the Ir. Saints, VI, 353). Cardinal
Moran accepts no other motive than that assigned by Adamnan,
"a desire to carry the Gospel to a pagan nation
and to win souls to God".
(Lives of Irish Saints in Great Britain, 67). Archbishop Healy, on
the contrary, considers that the saint did
incite to battle, and exclaims: "O felix culpa . . . which produced
so much good both for Erin and Alba (Schools and
Scholars, 311).
Iona
Columba was in his
forty-fourth year when he departed from Ireland.
He and his twelve companions crossed the sea in a currach of wickerwork covered
with hides. They landed at Iona on
the eve of Pentecost, 12 May, 563. The island, according
to Irish authorities,
was granted to the monastic colonists by
King Conall of Dalriada,Columba's kinsman. Bede attributes the gift to
the Picts (Fowler, p. lxv). It was a convenient situation, being midway between
his countrymen along the western coast and the Picts of Caledonia. He and
his brethren proceeded at once to erect their humble dwellings,
consisting of a church, refectory, and cells, constructed of wattles and
rough planks. After spending some years among
the Scots of Dalriada, Columba began the great work of
his life, the conversion of the Northern Picts. Together with St.
Comgall and St.
Canice (Kenneth) he visited King Brude in his royal
residence near Inverness. Admittance was refused to the missionaries,
and the gates were closed and bolted, but before the sign
of the cross the bolts flew back, the doors stood open, and the monks entered
the castle. Awe-struck by so evident a miracle,
the king listened to Columba with reverence; and was baptized.
The people soon followed the example set them, and thus was inaugurated a
movement that extended itself to the whole of Caledonia. Opposition was
not wanting, and it came chiefly from the Druids, who officially
represented the paganism of
the nation.
The thirty-two remaining
years of Columba's life were mainly spent in preaching the Christian
Faith to the inhabitants of the glens and wooded straths of
Northern Scotland.
His steps can be followed not only through the Great Glen, but eastwards also,
into Aberdeenshire. The "Book of Deer" (p. 91) tells us how he
and Drostancame, as God had
shown them to Aberdour in Buchan, and how Bede,
a Pict, who was high steward of Buchan, gave them the town in freedom
forever. The preaching of the saint was confirmed by
many miracles,
and he provided for the instruction of his converts by the erection
of numerous churches and monasteries.
One of his journeys brought him to Glasgow,
where he met St.
Mungo, the apostle of Strathclyde. He frequently visited Ireland;
in 570 he attended the synod of Drumceatt, in company with
the Scottish King Aidan, whom shortly before he had
inaugurated successor of Conall of Dalriada. When not
engaged in missionary journeys, he always resided at Iona.
Numerous strangers sought him there, and they received help for soul and
body. From Iona he
governed those numerous communities in Ireland and Caledonia,
which regarded him as their father and founder. This accounts for the unique
position occupied by the successors of Columba, who governed the
entireprovince of the Northern Picts although they had received priest's orders only.
It was considered unbecoming that any successor in the office
of Abbot of Iona should
possess a dignity higher than of the founder. The bishopswere
regarded as being of a superior order, but subject nevertheless to the jurisdiction of
the abbot.
At Lindisfarne the monks reverted
to the ordinary law and were subject to a bishop (Bede,
H.E., xxvii).
Columba is said never to
have spent an hour without study, prayer,
or similar occupations. When at home he was frequently engaged in transcribing.
On the eve of his death he was engaged in the work of transcription.
It is stated that he wrote 300 books with his own hand, two of which, "The
Book of Durrow" and the psalter called "The Cathach",
have been preserved to the present time. The psalter enclosed in a
shrine, was originally carried into battle by the O'Donnells as a pledge of
victory. Several of his compositions in Latin and Irish have
come down to us, the best known being the poem "Altus Prosator",
published in the "Liber Hymnorum", and also in
another form by the late Marquess
of Bute. There is not sufficient evidence to prove that the rule
attributed to him was really his work.
In the spring of 597 he knew that
his end was approaching. On Saturday, 8 June, he ascended the hill
overlooking his monastery and blessed for
the last time the home so dear to him. That afternoon he was present at Vespers,
and later, when the bell summoned the community to the midnight
service, he forestalled the others and entered the church without
assistance. But he sank before the altar, and in that place breathed forth
his soulto God,
surrounded by his disciples. This happened a little after midnight between
the 8th and 9th of June, 597. He was in the seventy-seventh year of his age.
The monks buried him
within the monastic
enclosure. After the lapse of a century or more his bones were disinterred
and placed within a suitable shrine. But as Northmen andDanes more
than once invaded the island, the relics of
St. Columba were carried for purposes of safety intoIreland and
deposited in the church of Downpatrick. Since the twelfth
century history is silent regarding them. His books and
garments were held in veneration at Iona,
they were exposed and carried in procession,
and were the means of working miracles (Adam.,
II, xlv). His feast is
kept in Scotland and Ireland on
the 9th of June. In the Scottish Province of st Andrews
and Edinburgh there is a Mass and Office proper
to the festival, which ranks as a double of the second class with
an octave. He is patron of two Scottish dioceses Argyle and
the Isles andDunkeld.
According to tradition St. Columba was tall and of dignified
mien. Adamnan says:
"He was angelic in appearance, graceful in
speech, holy in work" (Praef., II). His voice was strong, sweet,
and sonorous capable at times of being heard at a great distance. He inherited
the ardent temperament and strong passions of his race. It has been
sometimes said that he was of an angry and
vindictive spirit not only because of his supposed part in the battle
of Cooldrevny but also because of irritant related by Adamnan (II,
xxiii sq.) But the deeds that roused his indignation were wrongs done
to others, and the retribution that overtook the perpetrators was rather
predicted than actually invoked. Whatever faults were inherent in
his nature he overcame and he stands before the world conspicuous
for humility and charity not
only towards has brethren, but towards strangers also. He was generous and
warm-hearted, tender and kind even to dumb creatures. He was ever
ready to sympathize with thejoys and sorrows of others. His fasts and vigils were
carried to a great extent. The stone pillow on which he slept is said
to be still preserved in Iona.
His chastity of body and purity of mind are extolled by all
his biographers. Notwithstanding his wonderful austerities, Adamnan assures
us he was beloved by all, "for a holy joyousness that
ever beamed from his countenance revealed the gladness with
which the Holy Spirit filled his soul". (Praef.,
II.)
Influence, and attitude
towards Rome
He was not only a great
missionary saint who won a whole kingdom to Christ,
but he was a statesman, a scholar, a poet, and the founder of
numerous churches and monasteries.
His name is dear to Scotsmen and Irishmenalike.
And because of his great and noble work even non-Catholics hold
his memory in veneration. For the purposes of controversy it has
been maintained some that St. Columba ignored papal supremacy,
because he entered upon his mission without the pope's authorization. Adamnan is silent on
the subject; but his work is neither exhaustive as to Columba's life,
nor does it pretend to catalogue the implicit and explicit belief of
hispatron. Indeed, in those days a mandate from the pope was
not deemed essential for the work which St. Columba undertook. This
may be gathered from the words of St.
Gregory the Great, relative to the neglect of theBritish clergy towards
the pagan Saxons (Haddan
and Stubbs, III, 10). Columba was a son of the Irish Church,
which taught from the days of St.
Patrick that matters of greater moment should be referred to the Holy
See for settlement. St.
Columbanus, Columba's fellow-countryman and fellow-churchman, asked
for papal judgment(judicium)
on the Easter question;
so did the bishops and abbots of Ireland.
There is not the slightest evidence toprove that St. Columba differed on
this point from his fellow-countrymen. Moreover, the Stowe Missal,
which, according to the best authority, represents the Mass of
the Celtic Church during the early part of the seventh century,
contains in its Canon prayers for
the pope more
emphatic than even those of the Roman Liturgy. To the further
objection as to the supposed absence of the cultus
of Our Lady, it may be pointed out that the same Stowe Missal contains
before its Canon the invocation "Sancta Maria,
ora pro nobis", which epitomizes all Catholic devotion
to the Blessed Virgin. As to the Easter difficulty Bede thus
sums up the reasons for the discrepancy: "He [Columba] left successors distinguished
for great charity, Divine love,
and strict attention to the rules ofdiscipline following indeed uncertain
cycles in the computation of the great festival of Easter,
because, far away as they were out of the world, no one had supplied them with
the synodal decrees relating to the Paschalobservance"
(H.E., III, iv). As far as can be ascertained no
proper symbolical representation of St. Columba exists. The few
attempts that have been made are for the most part mistaken. A suitable
pictorial representation would exhibit him, clothed in the habit and cowl usually
worn by the Basilian or Benedictine monks,
with Celtic tonsure and crosier.
His identity could be best determined by showing him standing near the
shell-strewn shore, with currach hard by, and
the Celtic cross and ruins of Iona in
the background.
Edmonds,
Columba. "St. Columba." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton
Company, 1908. 15 Mar. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04136a.htm>.
Transcription. This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Joseph P. Thomas.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort,
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/04136a.htm
Point
of Departure The famous missionary, Saint Colmcille (Saint Columba) left here
and ended up in Iona http://www.isle-of-iona.com/abbey.htm.
Columba (RM)
(also known as Colum, Columbus, Combs, Columkill, Columcille, Colmcille)
Born in Garton, County Donegal, Ireland, c. 521; died June 9, 597.
"Alone with none but Thee, my God,
I journey on my way;
What need I fear when Thou art near,
Oh King of night and day?
More safe am I within Thy hand
Than if a host did round me stand."
--Attributed to Saint Columba.
"We know for certain that Columba left successors distinguished for their
purity of life, their love of God, and their loyalty to the rules of the
monastic life." --The Venerable Bede.
Ireland has many saints and three great ones: Patrick, Brigid, and Columba.
Columba outshines the others for his pure Irishness. He loved Ireland with all
his might and hated to leave it for Scotland. But he did leave it and laid the
groundwork for the conversion of Britain. He had a quick temper but was very
kind, especially to animals and children. He was a poet and an artist who did
illumination, perhaps some of those in the Book of Kells itself. His skill as a
scribe can be seen in the Cathach of Columba at the Irish Academy, which is the
oldest surviving example of Irish majuscule writing. It was latter enshrined in
silver and bronze and venerated in churches.
About the time that Patrick was taken to Ireland as a slave, Columba was born.
He came from a race of kings who had ruled in Ireland for six centuries,
directly descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, and was himself in close
succession to the throne. From an early age he was destined for the priesthood;
he was given in fosterage to a priest. After studying at Moville under Saint
Finnian and then at Clonard with another Saint Finnian, he surrendered his
princely claims, he became a monk at Glasnevin under Mobhi and was ordained.
He spent the next 15 years preaching and teaching in Ireland. As was the custom
in those days, he combined study and prayer with manual labor. By his own
natural gifts as well as by the good fortune of his birth, he soon gained
ascendancy as a monk of unusual distinction. By the time he was 25, he had
founded no less than 27 Irish monasteries, including those at Derry (546),
Durrow (c. 556), and probably Kells, as well as some 40 churches.
Columba was a poet, who had learned Irish history and poetry from a bard named
Gemman. He is believed to have penned the Latin poem Altus Prosator and two
other extant poems. He also loved fine books and manuscripts. One of the famous
books associated with Columbia is the Psaltair, which was traditionally the
Battle Book of the O'Donnells, his kinsmen, who carried it into battle. The
Psaltair is the basis for one of the most famous legends of Saint Columba.
It is said that on one occasion, so anxious was Columba to have a copy of the
Psalter that he shut himself up for a whole night in the church that contained
it, transcribing it laboriously by hand. He was discovered by a monk who
watched him through the keyhole and reported it to his superior, Finnian of
Moville. The Scriptures were so scarce in those days that the abbot claimed the
copy, refusing to allow it to leave the monastery. Columba refused to surrender
it, until he was obliged to do so, under protest, on the abbot's appeal to the
High King Diarmaid, who said: "Le gach buin a laogh" or "To
every cow her own calf," meaning to every book its copy.
An unfortunate period followed, during which, owing to Columba's protection of
a refugee and his impassioned denunciation of an injustice by King Diarmaid,
war broke out between the clans of Ireland, and Columba became an exile of his
own accord. Filled with remorse on account of those who had been slain in the
battle of Cooldrevne, and condemned by many of his own friends, he experienced
a profound conversion and an irresistible call to preach to the heathen.
Although there are questions regarding Columba's real motivation, in 563, at
the age of 42, he crossed the Irish Sea with 12 companions in a coracle and
landed on a desert island now known as Iona (Holy Island) on Whitsun Eve. Here
on this desolate rock, only three miles long and two miles wide, in the grey
northern sea off the southwest corner of Mull, he began his work; and, like
Lindisfarne, Iona became a center of Christian enterprise. It was the heart of
Celtic Christianity and the most potent factor in the conversion of the Picts,
Scots, and Northern English.
Columba built a monastery consisting of huts with roofs of branches set upon
wooden props. It was a rough and primitive settlement. For over 30 years he
slept on the hard ground with no pillow but a stone. But the work spread and
soon the island was too small to contain it. From Iona numerous other
settlements were founded, and Columba himself penetrated the wildest glens of
Scotland and the farthest Hebrides, and established the Caledonian Church. It
is reputed that he anointed King Aidan of Argyll upon the famous stone of
Scone, which is now in Westminster Abbey. The Pictish King Brude and his people
were also converted by Columba's many miracles, including driving away a water
"monster" from the River Ness with the Sign of the Cross. Columba is
said to have built two churches at Inverness.
Just one year before Columba's migration to Iona, Saint Moluag established his
mission at Lismore on the west coast of Scotland. There are constant references
to a rivalry between the two saints over spheres of influence, which are
probably without foundation. Columba was primarily interested in Gaelic life in
Scotland, while Moluag was drawn to the conversion of the Picts.
While leading the Irish in Scotland, Columba appears to have retained some sort
of overlordship over his monasteries in Ireland. About 580, he participated in
the assembly of Druim-Cetta in Ulster, where he mediated about the obligations
of the Irish in Scotland to those in Ireland. It was decided that they should
furnish a fleet, but not an army, for the Irish high-king. During the same
assembly, Columba, who was a bard himself, intervened to effectively swing the
nation away from its declared intention of suppressing the Bardic Order.
Columba persuaded them that the whole future of Gaelic culture demanded that
the scholarship of the bards be preserved. His prestige was such that his views
prevailed and assured the presence of educated laity in Irish Christian
society.
He is personally described as "A man well-formed, with powerful frame; his
skin was white, his face broad and fair and radiant, lit up with large, gray,
luminous eyes. . . ." (Curtayne). Saint Adamnan, his biographer wrote of
him: "He had the face of an angel; he was of an excellent nature, polished
in speech, holy in deed, great in counsel . . . loving unto all." It is
clear that Columba's temperament changed dramatically during his life. In his
early years he was intemperate and probably inclined to violence. He was
extremely stern and harsh with his monks, but towards the end he seems to have
softened. Columba had great qualities and was gay and lovable, but his chief
virtue lay in the conquest of his own passionate nature and in the love and
sympathy that flowed from his eager and radiant spirit.
On June 8, 597, Columba was copying out the psalms once again. At the verse,
"They that love the Lord shall lack no good thing," he stopped, and
said that his cousin, Saint Baithin must do the rest. Columba died the next day
at the foot of the altar. He was first buried at Iona, but 200 years later the
Danes destroyed the monastery. His relics were translated to Dunkeld in 849,
where they were visited by pilgrims, including Anglo-Saxons of the 11th
century.
The year Columba died was the same year in which Saint Gregory the Great sent
Saint Augustine of Canterbury to convert England. Perhaps because the Roman
party gained ascendancy at the Synod of Whitby, much of the credit that belongs
to Saint Columba and his followers for the conversion of Britain has been
attributed to Augustine. It should not be forgotten that both saints played
important roles.
Saint Columba is also important as patron of the Knights of Saint Columba,
known in the United States as the Knights of Columbus and by other names in
various parts of the world. Like Saint Malachy, whose apocryphal prophecies
concerning the succession of popes are universally known, Saint Columba left a
series of predictions about the future of Ireland. These were published in 1969
by Peter Blander under the title, The Prophecies of Saint Malachy and Saint
Columbkille (4th ed. 1979, Colin Smythe, Gerrards Cross Buckshire).
Unsurprisingly, devotion to Columba is especially strong in Derry. On April 13,
the king signed the Catholic Emancipation Act in London. On that same day in
Derry, the statue of a Protestant leader of the siege of Derry, which stood on
the city walls was smashed apart of its own accord. The destruction of this
symbol of dominion was attributed to the intercession of Saint Columba
(Anderson, Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Gill,
Menzies, Montague, Simpson).
The following legends about Saint Columba are the gentlest things recorded
about the heroic and tempestuous abbot who founded Iona. The countryside where
he was fathered is Gartan in Donegal, at the ingoing of the mountains and the
great lake; a gentle countryside, and more apt a birthplace for the bird than
the saint. The life written about 690 by Saint Adamnan, himself an Irishman and
an abbot of Iona, is a rugged piece of work: but the deathdays of Saint
Columba, and the crowding torches that discovered him dying in the dark before
the high altar at midnight on June 9, are one of the tidemarks in medieval
prose. The work itself owes much to Adamnan's imagination and more to
unreliable sources, but it is a primarily a narrative of the miracles worked
through Columba.
In the first story Columba bids his brother monk to go in three days to a far
hilltop and wait, "'For when the third hour before sunset is past, there
shall come flying from the northern coasts of Ireland a stranger guest, a
crane, wind tossed and driven far from her course in the high air; tired out
and weary she will fall upon the beach at thy feet and lie there, her strength
nigh gone. Tenderly lift her and carry her to the steading near by; make her
welcome there and cherish her with all care for three days and nights; and when
the three days are ended, refreshed and loath to tarry longer with us in our
exile, she shall take flight again towards that old sweet land of Ireland
whence she came, in pride of strength once more. And if I commend her so
earnestly to thy charge, it is that in the countryside where thou and I were
reared, she too was nested.'"
The brother obeyed and all happened as Columba had foretold. "And on his
return that evening to the monastery the Saint spoke to him, not as one
questioning but as one speaks of a thing past. 'May God bless thee, my son,'
said he, 'for thy kind tending of this pilgrim guest; that shall make no long
stay in her exile, but when three suns have set shall turn back to her own
land.'" And so it happened (Adamnan; also in Curtayne).
The second story recalls how Columba's heart would be touched when he saw a sad
child. From time to time he would leave Iona to preach to the Picts of
Scotland. "Once he visited a Pictish ruler who was also a druid, or pagan
priest. When he was there he noticed a thin little girl with a face like a
ghost. He asked who she was and was told that she was just a slave from
Ireland. The way it was said seemed to mean: 'Why do you ask such silly
questions? Who cares who she is, as long as she brushes and scrubs and does
what she is told?'
"Columcille was troubled; he could see plainly that the little girl was
miserable. So he asked the druid to give her freedom and he would get her home
to Ireland. The druid refused. Columcille went away with a picture of an
unhappy little girl in his mind.
"Shortly afterward, the important druid became ill; there was nobody near
to tell him what to do to get well so he sent for the Abbot of Iona, who had a
great reputation for curing people. Columcille did not leave Iona but sent a
message back that he would cure the druid if he let the little girl free.
"The druid was angry and again refused. 'What on earth is he troubling
himself for about that little bit of a good-for-nothing?' grumbled the druid as
he tossed about in bed. But the messenger had hardly left for Iona with the
refusal when the druid got worse; he had much pain and he thought he would die.
So he sent off another message to Columcille: 'Yes, you can have the
slave-girl, only come and do something for me. I am very bad and will die if
you don't come soon.'" Columcille, however, did not trust the priest, so
he sent two of his monks to bring the girl back. When the girl was safe,
Columcille set out for the druid's house and cured him of his sickness
(Curtayne).
Anther story occurs in May, when Columba set out in a cart to visit the
brethren at their work. He found them busy in the western fields and said, 'I
had a great longing on me this April just now past, in the high days of the
Easter feast, to go to the Lord Christ; and it was granted me by Him, if I so
willed. But I would not have the joy of your feast turned into mourning, and so
I willed to put off the day of my going from the world a little longer.' The
monks were saddened to hear this and Columba tried to cheer them. He blessed
the island and islanders and returned in his cart to the monastery.
On that Saturday, the venerable old saint and his faithful Diarmid went to
bless a barn and two heaps of grain stored therein. Then with a gesture of
thanksgiving, he spoke, 'Truly, I give my brethren at home joy that this year,
if so be I might have to go somewhere away from you, you will have what
provision will last you the year.'
Diarmid was grieved to hear this again and the saint promised to share his
secret. "'In the Holy Book this day is called the Sabbath, which is, being
interpreted, rest. And truly is this day my Sabbath, for it is the last day for
me of this present toilsome life, when from all weariness of travail I shall
take my rest, and at midnight of this Lord's Day that draws n, I shall, as the
Scripture saith, go the way of my fathers. For now my Lord Jesus Christ hath
deigned to invite me; and to Him, I say, at this very midnight and at His own
desiring, I shall go. For so it was revealed to me by the Lord Himself.' At
this sad hearing his man began bitterly to weep, and the Saint tried to comfort
him as best he might.
"And so the Saint left the barn, and took the road back to the monastery;
and halfway there sat down to rest. Afterwards on that spot they set a cross,
planted upon a millstone, and it is to be seen by the roadside to this day. And
as the Saint sat there, a tired old man taking his rest awhile, up runs the
white horse, his faithful servitor that used to carry the milk pails, and
coming up to the Saint he leaned his head against his breast and began to
mourn, knowing as I believe from God Himself--for to God every animal is wise
in the instinct his Maker hath given him--that his master was soon to go from
him, and that he would see his face no more. And his tears ran down as a man's
might into the lap of the Saint, and he foamed as he wept.
"Seeing it, Diarmid would have driven the sorrowing creature away, but the
Saint prevented him, saying, 'Let be, let be, suffer this lover of mine to shed
on my breast the tears of his most bitter weeping. Behold, you that are a man
and have a reasonable soul could in no way have known of my departing if I had
not but now told you; yet to this dumb and irrational beast, his Creator in
such fashion as pleased Him has revealed that his master is to go from him.'
And so saying, he blessed the sad horse that had served him, and it turned
again to its way" (Adamnan; also in Curtayne).
In art, Saint Columba is depicted with a basket of bread and an orb of the
world in a ray of light. He might also be pictured with an old, white horse
(Roeder). He is venerated in Dunkeld and as the Apostle of Scotland (Roeder).
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0609.shtml#feli
SAINT COLUMBA, ABBOT,
CONFESSOR—521-597
Feast: June 6
Columba, the most famous
of the saints associated with Scotland, was actually an Irishman of the O'Neill
or O'Donnell clan, born about the year 521 at Garton, County Donegal, in north
Ireland. Of royal lineage on both sides, his father, Fedhlimidh, or Phelim, was
great-grandson to Niall of the Nine Hostages, Overlord of Ireland, and
connected with the Dalriada princes of southwest Scotland; his mother, Eithne,
was descended from a king of Leinster. The child was baptized Colum, or Columba.[1]
In later life he was given the name of Columcille or Clumkill, that is, Colum
of the Cell or Church, an appropriate title for one who became the founder of
so many monastic cells and religious establishments.
As soon as he was old
enough, Columba was taken from the care of his priest-guardian at
Tulach-Dugblaise, or Temple Douglas, to St. Finnian's training school at
Moville, at the head of Strangford lough. He was about twenty, and a deacon,
when he left to study in the school of Leinster under an aged theologian and
bard called Gemman. With their songs of heroes, the bards were the preservers
of Irish lore, and Columba himself became a poet. Still later he attended the
famous monastic school of Clonard, presided over by another Finnian, who in later
times was known as the "tutor of Erin's saints." At one time three
thousand students were gathered here from all over Ireland, Scotland, and
Wales, and even from Gaul and Germany. It was probably at Clonard that Columba
was ordained priest, although it may have been later, when he was living with
his friends, Comgall, Kieran, and Kenneth, under the most gifted of all his
teachers, St. Mobhi, by a ford in the river Tolca, called Dub Linn, the site of
the future city of Dublin. In 543 an outbreak of plague compelled Mobhi to
close his school, and Columba, now twenty-five years old and fully trained,
returned to Ulster. He was a striking figure of great stature and powerful
build, with a loud, melodious voice which could be heard from one hilltop to
another. For the next fifteen years Columba went about Ireland preaching and
founding monasteries, the chief of which were those at Derry, Durrow, and
Kells.
The powerful stimulus
given to Irish learning by St. Patrick in the previous century was now
beginning to burgeon. Columba himself dearly loved books, and spared no pains
to obtain or make copies of Psalters, Bibles, and other valuable manuscripts
for his monks. His former master Finnian had brought back from Rome the first
copy of St. Jerome's Psalter to reach Ireland. Finnian guarded this precious
volume jealously, but Columba got permission to look at it, and surreptitiously
made a copy for his own use. Finnian, on being told of this, laid claim to the
copy. Columba refused to give it up, and the question of ownership was put
before Ring Diarmaid, Overlord of Ireland. His curious decision in this early
"copyright" case went against Columba. "To every cow her
calf," reasoned the King, "and to every book its son-book. Therefore
the copy you made, O Colum Cille, belongs to Finnian." Columba was soon to
have a more serious grievance against the King. Prince Curnan of Connaught, who
had fatally injured a rival in a hurling match and had taken refuge with
Columba, was dragged from his protector's arms and slain by Diarmaid's men, in
defiance of the rights of sanctuary.
The war which soon broke
out between Columba's clan and the clans loyal to Diarmaid was instigated, it
is said, by Columba. At the battle of Cuil Dremne his cause was victorious, but
Columba was accused of being morally responsible for driving three thousand
unprepared souls into eternity. A church synod was held at Tailltiu (Telltown)
in County Meath, which passed a vote of censure and would have followed it by
excommunication but for the intervention of St. Brendan. Columba's own
conscience was uneasy, and on the advice of an aged hermit, Molaise, he
resolved to expiate his offense by exiling himself and trying to win for Christ
in another land as many souls as had perished in the terrible battle of Cuil
Dremne.
This traditional account
of the events which led to Columba's departure from Ireland may well be
correct, although missionary zeal and love of Christ are the motives mentioned
for his going by the earliest biographers and by Adamnan,[2] our chief
authority for his subsequent history. Whatever the impulse that prompted him,
in the year 563, Columba embarked with twelve companions in a wicker coracle
covered with leather, and on the eve of Pentecost landed on the island of Hi,
or Iona.[3] The first thing he did there was to erect a high stone cross; then
he built a monastery, which was to be his home for the rest of his life. The
island itself was made over to him by his kinsman Conall, king of the British
Dalriada, who perhaps had invited him to come to Scotland in the first place.
Lying across from the border country between the Picts of the north and the
Scots of the south, Iona made an ideal center for missionary work. Columba
seems to have first devoted himself to teaching the imperfectly instructed
Christians of Dalriada, most of whom were of Irish descent, but after some two
years he turned to the work of converting the Scottish Picts. With his old
comrades, Comgall and Kenneth, both of them Irish Picts, he made his way
through Loch Ness northward to the castle of the redoubtable King Brude, near
modern Inverness. That pagan monarch had given strict orders that they were not
to be admitted, but when Columba raised his arm and made the sign of the cross,
it was said that bolts fell out and gates swung open, permitting the strangers
to enter. Impressed by such powers, the King listened to them and ever after
held Columba in high regard. As Overlord of Scotland he confirmed him in
possession of Iona. We know from Adamnan that on several occasions Columba
crossed the mountain chain which divides Scotland and that his travels also
took him far north, and through the Western Isles. He is said to have planted
churches as far east as Aberdeenshire and to have evangelized nearly the whole
of the country of the Picts. When the descendants of the Dalriada kings became
the rulers of Scotland, they were naturally eager to magnify the achievements
of their hero and distant kinsman, Columba, and may have attributed to him
victories won by others.
Columba never lost touch
with Ireland. In 575 he was at the synod of Drumceatt in County Meath in
company with King Conall's successor, Aidan, whom he had helped to place on the
throne and had crowned at Iona, in his role as chief ecclesiastical ruler. His
immense influence is shown by his veto of a proposal to abolish the order of
bards and his securing for women exemption from all military service. When not
on missionary journeys, Columba was to be found in his cell on Iona, where
persons of all conditions visited him, some in want of spiritual or material
help, some drawn by his miracles and sanctity. His biographer gives us a
picture of a serene old age. His manner of life was austere; he slept on a bare
slab of rock and ate barley or oat cakes, drinking only water. When he became
too weak to travel, he spent long hours copying manuscripts, as he had done in
his youth. On the day before his death he was at work on a Psalter, and had
just traced the words, "They that love the Lord shall lack no good thing,"
when he paused and said, "Here I must stop; let Baithin do the rest."
Baithin was his cousin. whom he had already nominated as his successor. When
the monks entered the church for Matins, they found their beloved abbot lying
helpless and dying before the altar. As his faithful attendant Diarmaid gently
upraised him, he made a feeble effort to bless his brethren and then expired.
Iona was for centuries
one of the famous centers of Christian learning For a long time afterwards,
Scotland, Ireland, and Northumbria followed the observances Columba had set for
the monastic life, in distinction to those that were brought from Rome by later
missionaries. His rule, based on the Eastern Rule of St. Basil, was that of
many monasteries of Western Europe until superseded by the milder ordinance of
St. Benedict. Adamnan, who must have bee n brought up on memories and
recollections of Columba, writes eloquently of him: "He had the face of an
angel; he was of excellent nature, polished in speech, holy in deed, great in council.
He never let a single hour pass without engaging in prayer or reading or
writing or some other occupation. He endured the hardships of fasting and
vigils without intermission by day and night; the burden of a single one of his
labors would have seemed beyond the powers of man. And, in the midst of all his
toils, he appeared loving unto all, serene and holy, rejoicing in the joy of
the Holy Spirit in his inmost heart."
M'Oenuran[4]
Alone am I upon the
mountain;
O Royal Sun, be the way
prosperous;
I have no more fear of
aught
Than if there were six
thousand with me.
If there were six
thousand with me
Of people, though they
might defend my body,
When the appointed moment
of my death shall come,
There is no fortress that
can resist it.
They that are ill-fated
are slain even in a church,
Even on an island in the
middle of a lake;
They that are well-fated
are preserved in life,
Though they were in the
first rank of battle, . . .
Whatever God destines for
one,
He shall not go from the
world till it befall him;
Though a Prince should
seek anything more
Not as much as a mite
shall he obtain....
O Living God, O Living
God!
Woe to him who for any
reason does evil.
What thou seest not come
to thee,
What thou seest escapes
from thy grasp.
Our fortune does not
depend on sneezing.
Nor on a bird on the
point of a twig,
Nor on the trunk of a
crooked tree,
Nor on a sordan hand in
hand,
Better is He on whom we
depend,
The Father,—the One,—and
the Son....
I reverence not the
voices of birds,
Nor sneezing, nor any
charm in the wide world,
Nor a child of chance,
nor a woman;
My Druid is Christ, the
Son of God.
Christ the Son of Mary,
the great Abbot,
The Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost;
My Possession is the King
of Kings;
My Order is in Kells and
Moone.
Alone am I.
(D. Macgregor, Saint
Columba, Edinburgh, 1897.)
Endnotes
1 Some records say he was
baptized Crimthan, meaning the Fox, but that hisgentleness and goodness as a
child so won all hearts that he was rechristened Colum, or Columba, Latin for
dove.
2 The historian Adamnan
was born in Donegal about 624. He became abbot of Iona, being ninth in
succession after Columba. His is a rich mine of anecdote.
3 The original form of
the word was Hy or I, which is Irish for island. Iona is one of the Inner
Hebrides, just off the west coast of Scotland. It became known also as
Icolmkill, "the island of Columba of the Cell." It had been a sacred
place to the Druids before Columba landed there, and was to become the center
of Celtic Christianity.
4 Columba sang this song
as he walked alone, it was thought to be a protection to anyone who sang it on
a journey, like the "Lorica" of St. Patrick.
Saint Columba, Abbot,
Confessor. Celebration of Feast Day is June 6.
Taken from "Lives
of Saints", Published by John J. Crawley & Co., Inc.
Provided Courtesy of:
Eternal Word Television Network, 5817 Old Leeds Road, Irondale, AL 35210
SOURCE : http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/columba.htm
Paisley
Abbey, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. Door with depiction of St Mirin and St
Columba.
Paisley
Abbey, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Schotland. Schip. Deur met afbeelding van St
Mirin en St Columba.
June 9
Columba (Colum,
Colm, Columkill, Columcille, Colmcille, Combs, Columbus), the most famous of
the saints associated with Scotland, was actually born in Ireland, of the
O'Neill or O'Donnell clan, at Garton, County Donegal. Some say his birth date
was December 7; most sources agree that the year of his birth was 521. His
father, Fedhlimidh, or Phelim, was great-grandson to Niall of the Nine
Hostages, Overlord of Ireland, and connected with the Dalriada princes of
southwest Scotland; his mother, Eithne, was descended from a king of Leinster.
He was of the blood royal on both sides, and might indeed have become High King
of Ireland had he not chosen to be a priest.
A few records say his
original name was Crimthan, meaning "fox", but his gentleness and
goodness as a child so won all hearts that he was rechristened Colum, Latin for
dove. Later he was commonly known as Colum-kill or Colum-cille, the suffix
"kill" or "cill" meaning "of the cell" or
"of the church" -- an appropriate title for the founder of so many
religious establishments.
Like many children
destined for a holy life, as an infant he was given into the foster care of a
priest named Cruithnechan, who also served as his tutor. He was baptized by
Cruithnechan at Tulach-Dubhglaise, now Temple-Douglas, and his early life
education began. When sufficiently advanced in letters Columba was taken from
the care of his priest-guardian and sent to the school of Moville (County
Down), where he began his training in the monastic life under a St. Finnian who
had studied with St. Colman of Dromore. He was ordained to the diaconate before
the age of twenty, and, after completing his training at Moville, he travelled
southwards to Leinster, the land of his mother's ancestors, to study under an
aged theologian and bard named Gemman. The bards were the preservers of Irish
lore, and Columba himself was inspired to become a poet. He is believed to have
penned the Latin poem Altus Prosator and two other extant poems.
Following some years with
Gemman, Columba finally entered the famous monastic school of Clonard, presided
over by the more famous St. Finnian who was known as the "tutor of Erin's
saints." At one time three thousand students were gathered here from all
over Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and even from Gaul and Germany. By his own
natural gifts as well as by the good fortune of his birth, he soon gained
ascendancy as a monk of unusual distinction. He became one those Clonard
disciples known in subsequent history as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. It was
probably at Clonard that Columba was ordained priest, although it may have been
later, when he was living with his friends, Comgall, Kieran, and Kenneth, under
the most gifted of all his teachers, St. Mobhi. St. Mobhi's monastery at
Glasnevin was located by a ford in the river Tolca at a place called Dub Linn,
the site of the future city of Dublin. In 543 an outbreak of plague devastated
Ireland and in 544 Mobhi was compelled to close his school. Columba returned to
Ulster, the land of his kindred.
He was fully trained by the
time he was twenty-five years old, and he was a striking figure of great
stature and powerful build. His loud, melodious voice could be heard from one
hilltop to another. As was the custom in those days, he combined study and
prayer with manual labor. Amongst many other accomplishments, Columba was a
splendid sailor. With his imposing presence, holy personality and self-denying
discipline, Columba went about Ireland for the next fifteen years preaching and
founding monasteries, including those at Derry, Durrow, and Kells.
The powerful stimulus
given to Irish learning by St. Patrick in the previous century was rapidly
spreading and growing. Columba himself dearly loved books, and spared no pains
to obtain or make copies of Psalters, Bibles, and other valuable manuscripts
for his monks. In 540 his first master Finnian brought back from Rome the first
copy of St. Jerome's Vulgate to reach Ireland. Finnian guarded this precious
volume jealously, but Columba got permission to look at it, and surreptitiously
made a copy of the Psalter for his own use. Finnian, on being told of this,
laid claim not only to the original but to the copy made by Columba's own hand.
Columba refused to give it up, and the question of ownership was put before
King Diarmaid, Overlord of Ireland. Columba lost this early
"copyright" case when the King said: "To every cow her calf, and
to every book its son-book. Therefore the copy you made, O Colum Cille, belongs
to Finnian."
Columba was soon to have
a more serious grievance against King Diarmaid, when a prince had fatally
injured a rival and had taken refuge with Columba was dragged from his
protector's arms and slain by Diarmaid's men, in defiance of the sacred rights
of sanctuary. The resulting war which broke out between Columba's clan and the
clans loyal to Diarmaid was instigated, it is said, by Columba. At the battle
of Cuil Dremne Columba's cause was victorious, but he was accused of being
morally responsible for driving three thousand unprepared souls into eternity.
A synod was held at Tailltiu (Telltown) in County Meath, which passed a vote of
censure. Were it not for the intervention of St. Brendan, Columba would have
been excommunicated. Though he still felt he was in the right, his conscience
remained uneasy, and at last he made his confession to an aged hermit, Molaise.
As penance, he resolved to exile himself and win for Christ in another land as
many souls as had perished in the battle of Cuil Dremne.
Whatever the impulse that
prompted him, in 563 Columba embarked with twelve companions in a wicker
coracle covered with leather, and on the eve of Pentecost landed on one of the
Inner Hebrides, just off the west coast of Scotland, at the place we now know
as Iona. The first thing he did there was to erect a high stone cross; then he
built a monastery, which was to be his home for the rest of his life. Iona was
a desolate rock originally known only as Hy or I, Irish for "island".
Years later it also became known also as Icolmkill, "the island of Columba
of the Cell." It had been a sacred place to the Druids long before Columba
landed there, and was to become the center of Celtic Christianity.
Columba and his Celtic
monks at Iona combined contemplative life with extensive missionary activity.
Lying across from the border country between the Picts of the north and the
Scots of the south, Iona made an ideal center for missionary work. Columba
seems to have first devoted himself to teaching the imperfectly instructed
Christians of Dalriada, most of whom were of Irish descent, but after two years
he turned to the work of converting the Scottish Picts. With his old comrades,
Comgall and Kenneth, Columba made his way through Loch Ness northward to the
castle of the redoubtable King Brude, near modern Inverness. The pagan monarch
had given strict orders that they were not to be admitted, but when Columba
raised his arm and made the sign of the cross, it was said that bolts fell out
and gates swung open, permitting the strangers to enter. Impressed by such
powers, the King listened to them and ever after held Columba in high regard.
As Overlord of Scotland he confirmed him in possession of Iona. Columba is said
to have planted churches as far east as Aberdeenshire and to have evangelized
nearly the whole of the country of the Picts.
Columba never lost touch
with Ireland. In 575 he was at the synod of Drumceatt in County Meath in
company with King Conall's successor, Aidan, whom he had helped to place on the
throne and had crowned at Iona, in his role as chief ecclesiastical ruler. His
immense influence is shown by his veto of a proposal to abolish the order of
bards, and his success at securing for women exemption from all military
service. When not on missionary journeys, Columba was to be found in his cell
on Iona, where persons of all conditions visited him, some in want of spiritual
or material help, some drawn by his miracles and sanctity. Iona was for
centuries one of the famous centers of Christian learning. For a long time
afterwards, Scotland, Ireland, and Northumbria followed the observances Columba
had set for the monastic life, in distinction to those that were brought from
Rome by later missionaries. His rule, based on the Eastern Rule of St. Basil,
was that of many monasteries of Western Europe until superseded by the milder ordinance
of St. Benedict.
It is clear that
Columba's temperament changed dramatically during his life. In his early years
he was intemperate and probably inclined to violence. He was extremely stern
and harsh with his monks, but towards the end he seems to have softened.
Columba had great qualities and was quite lovable, but his chief virtue lay in
the conquest of his own passionate nature and in the resulting love and
sympathy that flowed from his eager and radiant spirit. Columba was generous
and warm-hearted, tender and kind to dumb creatures and children. He was ever
ready to sympathize with the joys and sorrows of others. His chastity of body
and purity of mind are extolled by all his biographers. His manner of life was
austere; he slept on a bare slab of rock and his stone pillow today stands as a
memorial beside his grave. He ate mostly barley or oat cakes, and drank only
water. Notwithstanding his wonderful austerities, he was beloved by all,
"for a holy joyousness that ever beamed from his countenance revealed the
gladness with which the Holy Spirit filled his soul", according to
Adamnan, the source of our best biographical information about Columba. Adamnan
also describes Columba thus: "He had the face of an angel; he was of
excellent nature, polished in speech, holy in deed, great in council. He never
let a single hour pass without engaging in prayer or reading or writing or some
other occupation. He endured the hardships of fasting and vigils without
intermission by day and night; the burden of a single one of his labors would
have seemed beyond the powers of man. And, in the midst of all his toils, he
appeared loving unto all, serene and holy, rejoicing in the joy of the Holy
Spirit in his inmost heart."
Adamnan gives us a
picture of a serene old age for Columba. When he became too weak to travel, he
spent long hours copying manuscripts, as he had done in his youth. On the day
before his death he was at work on a Psalter, and had just traced the words,
"They that love the Lord shall lack no good thing," when he paused
and said, "Here I must stop; let Baithin do the rest." Baithin was
his cousin, whom he had already nominated as his successor. Later that night
when vespers was ended, Columba returned to his bed. There he gave his last
commands to the brethren, with only his servant to hear: I commend to you, my
little children, these my last words: Love one another unfeignedly. Peace. If
you keep this course according to the example of the holy fathers, God, who
strengthens the good, will help you, and I dwelling with him shall intercede
for you. He will supply not only enough for the needs of this present life, but
also the eternal things that are prepared as a reward for those who keep the
Lord's commandments."
As the bell rang out for
the midnight office, Columba rose and went in haste to reach the church before
the others. As he knelt alone in prayer before the altar, his servant Diarmait
following behind from a distance saw the whole church filled inside with angelic
light around the saint, but as he reached the door, the light vanished. The
lamps of the brethren had not yet been brought, but feeling his way in the dark
Diarmait found Columba lying before the altar. Rising him up a little and
sitting down at his side, he cradled the holy head on his bosom. As the other
monks gathered with their lamps, they began to lament at the sight of their
father dying. Some of those who were present related how, before his soul left
him, Columba opened his eyes and looked about him with a wonderful joy and
gladness in his face as he could see the angels coming to meet him. Diarmait
held up the saint's right hand to bless the choir of monks, and, shortly after
midnight, Columba was promoted to glory.
Ireland has many saints
and three great ones: Patrick, Brigid, and Columba. Columba outshines the
others for his pure Irishness. He loved Ireland with all his might and hated to
leave it for Scotland. But he did leave it, and laid the groundwork for the
conversion of Britain. He was a renowned artist and some of his illumination
may be recorded in the Book of Kells itself. His skill as a scribe can be seen
in the Cathach of St. Columba at the Irish Academy, the oldest surviving
example of Irish majuscule writing and the earliest existing example of a
Celtic illuminated manuscript. It was later enshrined in silver and bronze and
venerated in churches.
As far as can be
ascertained no proper symbolical representation of St. Columba exists. A
suitable pictorial representation would exhibit him, clothed in the habit and
cowl usually worn by the Basilian or Benedictine monks, with Celtic tonsure and
crosier. His identity could be best determined by showing him standing near the
shell-strewn shore, with the Celtic cross and ruins of lona in the background.
Columba is the patron saint of poets and bookbinders, and is also invoked
against floods. He is the patron of the Knights of Saint Columba, known in the
United States as the Knights of Columbus and by other names in various parts of
the world. He is also the patron saint of Ireland and Scotland, and his feast
is kept with equal distinction in both places. He is a still prominent figure
in the Scottish Episcopal Church today, and many Episcopal churches in the
United States are named for him.
St. Columba died shortly
after midnight on June 9, 597.
SOURCE : http://www.allsaintsbrookline.org/celtic_saints/columba.html
St. Columba, or
Columkille, Abbot in Ireland
A.D. 597.
From Bede, Hist. l. 3, c.
4, and his life, written by Cummeneus, surnamed Albus, abbot of Hy, (who,
according to the Four Masters, died in 668, extant in Mabillon, sæc. Ben. 1, p.
361, and the same enlarged into three books by Adamnon, abbot of Hy in
700, 1 published
by Canisius, Lect. Antiq. t. 5, and by Surius. Both these lives abound with
relations of wonderful miracles. William, bishop of Derry, in his Irish
Historical Library, p. 85, mentions a poem of good authority, called the Amrha,
or Vision of St. Columkille, which was written soon after his death, and which
records his principal actions conformable to these authors. See also Bishop
Tanner de Scriptor. Brit. p. 192. Sir James Ware, l. 1, Scriptor. Hibern. p. 14.
Item in Monasteriologiâ, Hibernicâ, p. 186. Colgan in MSS. ad 9 Jun. The works
ascribed to him in an Irish MS. in the Bodleian library, Oxford; and Leabhar
Lecan, i. e. Book of Lecane, a very old and precious Irish MS. of
Antiquities of that island in the Irish college at Paris, p. 58.
ST. COLUMBA, commonly
pronounced COLME, was one of the greatest patriarchs of the monastic Order in
Ireland, and the apostle of the Picts. To distinguish him from other saints of
the same name, he was surnamed Columkille, from the great number of monastic
cells, called by the Irish Killes, of which he was the founder. He was of most
noble extraction from Neil, and was born at Gartan, in the county of Tyrconnel,
in 521. He learned from his childhood that there is nothing great, nothing
worth our esteem or pursuit, which does not advance the divine love in our
souls, to which he totally devoted himself with an entire disengagement of his
heart from the world, and in perfect purity of mind and body. He learned the
divine scriptures and the lessons of an ascetic life under the holy bishop St.
Finian, in his great school of Cluain-iraird. Being advanced to the Order of
priesthood in 546, he began to give admirable lessons of piety and sacred
learning, and in a short time formed many disciples. He founded, about the year
550, the great monastery of Dair-Magh, now called Durrogh, 2 which
original name signifies Field of Oaks, and besides many smaller, those of Doire
or Derry in Ulster, and of Sord or Swords, about six miles from Dublin. 3 St.
Columba composed a rule which, as Usher, Tanner, and Sir James Ware inform us,
is still extant in the old Irish. This rule he settled in the hundred
monasteries which he founded in Ireland and Scotland. It was chiefly borrowed
from the ancient oriental monastic institutes, as the inquisitive Sir Roger
Twisden observes, 4 of
all the old British and Irish monastic Orders.
King Dermot or Dermitius,
being offended at the zeal of St. Columba in reproving public vices, the holy
abbot left his native country, and passed into North-Britain, now called
Scotland. 5 He
took along with him twelve disciples, and arrived there, according to Bede, in
the year of Christ 565, the ninth of the reign of Bridius, the son of
Meilochon, the most powerful king of the Picts; which nation the saint
converted from idolatry to the faith of Christ by his preaching, virtues, and
miracles. But this we are to understand only of the northern Picts and the
Highlanders, separated from the others by Mount Grampus, the highest part of
which is called Drum-Albin; for Bede tells us, in the same place that the
southern Picts had received the faith long before by the preaching of St.
Ninyas, the first bishop of Whitherne in Galloway; whose life see September
16th.
The Picts having embraced
the faith, gave St. Columba the little island of Hy or Iona, called from him
Y-colm-kille, twelve miles from the land, in which he built the great monastery
which was for several ages the chief seminary of North-Britain, and continued
long the burying place of the kings of Scotland, with the bodies of innumerable
saints, which rested in that place. 6 Out
of this nursery St. Columba founded several other monasteries in Scotland. In
the same school were educated the holy bishops Aidan, Finian, and Colman, who
converted to the faith the English Northumbers. This great monastery several
ages afterwards embraced the rule of St. Bennet. 7
St. Columba’s manner of
living was always most austere. He lay on the bare floor with a stone for his
pillow, and never interrupted his fast. Yet his devotion was neither morose nor
severe. His countenance always appeared wonderfully cheerful, and bespoke to
all that beheld him the constant interior serenity of his holy soul, and the
unspeakable joy with which it overflowed from the presence of the Holy Ghost.
Such was his fervour, that in whatever he did, he seemed to exceed the strength
of man; and as much as in him lay he strove to suffer no moment of his precious
time to pass without employing it for the honour of God, principally either in
praying, reading, writing, or preaching. His incomparable mildness and charity
towards all men, and on all occasions, won the hearts of all who conversed with
him; and his virtues, miracles, and extraordinary gift of prophecy, commanded
the veneration of all ranks of men. He was of such authority, that neither king
nor people did anything without his consent. When King Aedhan or Aidanus
succeeded to his cousin Conall in the throne of British Scotland in 574, he
received the royal insignia from St. Columba. Four years before he died, St.
Columba was favoured with a vision of angels which left him in many tears,
because he learned from those heavenly messengers that God, moved by the
prayers of the British and Scottish churches, would prolong his exile on earth
yet four years. Having continued his labours in Scotland thirty-four years, he
clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday the 9th of June said to
his disciple Diermit: “This day is called the Sabbath, that is, the day of
rest, and such will it truly be to me; for it will put an end to my labours.”
He was the first in the church at Matins at midnight; but knelt before the
altar, received the viaticum, and having given his blessing to his spiritual
children, sweetly slept in the Lord in the year 597, the seventy-seventh of his
age. His body was buried in this island, but some ages after removed to Down in
Ulster, and laid in one vault with the remains of St. Patrick and St. Brigit.
The great monastery of Durrogh, in King’s County, afterwards embraced the rule
of the Canons Regular, as did also the houses founded by St. Brendan, St.
Comgal, &c. He was honoured both in Ireland and Scotland, among the
principal patrons of those countries, and is commemorated in the Roman
Martyrology on the 9th of June, but in some calendars on the 7th, which seems
to have been the day of his death. 8
How many saints hid
themselves in solitudes, that they might devote themselves wholly to the
service of God! But many, even after a Christian education, pass their whole
lives in dissipation and vanity, without being able to find leisure for a daily
serious meditation or the reading of a good book, as if they made it their
study to unlearn the only thing which it concerns them to know, and to lose the
only thing for which they exist—religion, or the worship of God.
Note 1. See the life
of this St. Adamnon on the 23d of September. [back]
Note 2. This
Monastery of Durrogh, situated in King’s County, had afterwards embraced the
Order of Regular Canons, according to the rule of St. Austin. See Sir James
Ware, Antiquit. Hiber. c. 17, p. 186. This diligent antiquary mentions a MS.
copy of the four gospels, of St. Jerom’s translation, adorned with silver
plates, which was formerly preserved in this abbey, and is still extant; in the
beginning of which is an inscription, which testifies that it was written by
St. Columba in the space of twelve days. [back]
Note 3. Sord, though
now in Leinster, was at that time in the kingdom of Meath: for Meath was a
distinct province for many ages, and was annexed to Leinster only since the
arrival of the English. [back]
Note 4. In his Rise
of the Monastic State, p. 36. [back]
Note 5. The Scots
settled first in Ireland, which from them obtained the name of Scotia. They
were a colony from Spain, who invaded that island in an early age, and probably
were of Scythian origin; for their name seems to be of the same original with
that of the Scythians, derived perhaps from the Teutonic or Saxon word Scytan,
to shoot; in which martial exercise all the northern nations excelled. Bede
tells us the Picts were Scythians; but probably applied to them what belonged
to the Scots; for the Picts seem to have been Britons, and were perhaps the
original inhabitants of that country. At least they were established there long
before the Scots, who, according to their annals, invaded them from Ireland;
but were at first repulsed. Some time after, the Picts or Northern Britons,
seeing themselves threatened by the English-Saxons who had conquered the
southern part of the island, seem to have invited over the Scots from Ireland
to their assistance. At least these under King Fergus, about the year 503, erected
their kingdom in part of Scotland, called Dalriada, from Dal, a word in their
language, signifying a part, and Reuda, their leader, as Bede informs us.
Bishop Usher gives to the kingdom of the Dalriadens, or Scots in Dalriada, the
provinces of Kintire, Knapdale, Lorn, Argyll, Braid-Albin, and some of the
isles. The Scots and Picts lived good neighbours till about the year 840, when
Kenneth II. king of these Scots, in a great battle, slew Drusken, king of the
Picts, with a good part of his nobility, and conquered the whole country north
of Graham’s Dyke. About the year 900, the Scots became masters of the rest of
the country, which from that time took the name of Scotland, the distinction of
Picts being extinct with their kingdom. Some modern critics reject as fabulous
the list of thirty-nine Scottish kings from Fergus I. who was said to have
reigned contemporary to Alexander the Great, three hundred and thirty years
before Christ. Consequently they reckon Fergus, son of Erch, commonly called
Fergus II. the first king of the Scots in that country; and whereas he was
placed by some in 403, they fix the beginning of his reign in 503, which the
chronology of his immediate successors seems to point out. Among the Picts in
Cæsar’s time it was the fashion to paint their bodies.
When the
southern Britons had imitated the Roman manners, the unconquered inhabitants of
the north retained still the custom of having their bodies painted; whence they
were called Picti; which name does not seem older than the third century, for
it is first found in the orator Eumenius. Among these the Ladeni inhabited the
southern part of what is now called Scotland, and the rough Caledonians
occupied the highlands, and the great Caledonian forest extended northward from
the Frith. These woods and mountains were their shelter, and their snows
affrighted the Romans, who left them in the enjoyment of their barbarism and
liberty. To check their inroads, and to fix the boundaries of the Roman
dominions, the Emperor Adrian, in the year 123, caused a wall of turf to be
made, sixty-eight English miles long, from Tinmouth to Solway Frith. Antoninus
Pius extended these limits further, and shutting out only the Caledonians, he
directed a second wall of turf to be raised thirty-six English miles long, from
Abercurning, now Abercorn, on the Frith of the river Forth to the river Clyde,
near old Kirk-Patrick. Grime or Graham, the valiant regent of the kingdom of
the Scots during the minority of King Eugenius, commonly called the Second,
razed this wall in his wars against the Picts, or, according to others, against
those Britons that were subject to the Romans, who were soon after compelled to
call in the Saxons to succour them against the Picts. The ruins of this wall
are at this day called Graham’s-Dyke, which name some derive from this Graham,
others from Mount Grampus, now Grantzbaine. This wall of Antoninus did not long
remain the boundary of the Roman province, which in 210, the Emperor Severus,
after making a progress with his army to the north of Scotland, brought back to
Adrian’s wall, in the country now called Northumberland. From the same
extremities, but upon new foundations yet to be traced, he built a new wall of
stone, fenced with towers and a vallum: a work so stately, that it is called by
Spartian, The Glory of Severus’s reign. See Mr. Alexander Gordon, Itinerarium
Septentrionale, or Journey through Part of Scotland, &c. And Mr. Thomas
Innes, in his Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of Scotland,
Chamberlaine, &c. The most complete description and history of the Picts’
Wall is that published in 1753, in 4to. by John Warburton, Somerset Herald,
under the title Vallum Romanum, &c. [back]
Note 6. The isle of
St. Colm is near three miles long, and above a mile broad. Among the ruins of
the old cloister of St. Colm, there remains a church-yard, in the west part of
which are the tombs of forty-eight kings of Scotland in the middle; on the right
side, those of four kings of Ireland, and on the left those of eight kings of
Norway. All the noble families of the Western Islands have their particular
burying places in the rest of the church-yard. See Lewis’s Ancient History of
Great Britain, p. 236, and Martin’s Description of the Western Islands. [back]
Note 7. Bede writes,
(l. 3, c. 4,) that from St. Columba, who never was bishop, it continued a
custom that the whole island, even the bishops, by an unusual law were subject
to the abbot. Of this passage, the Calvinists avail themselves, as if it made
against the superiority of bishops in the church. But Bishop Usher (De Britan.
Eccl. Antiqu. c. 16,) justly observes, that this superiority was only of civil
jurisdiction, not of Order; for the Ulster Annals mention that this little
island had always a bishop who resided in it, either in or near the monastery.
Also Adamnan, in his life of St. Columba, (l. 3,) says, that St. Columba
refused to officiate at the altar in the presence of a bishop, who out of
humility had concealed himself, nor would he receive the communion with him,
but out of respect to his dignity obliged him to celebrate himself. And Bishop
Lloyd, in his historical account of church government, demonstrates (ch. 5, 6,
7,) that no other church government but episcopal was ever settled among the
Picts, Scots, or Saxons. A veneration for St. Columba introduced a superiority
of civil jurisdiction over the bishops who were taken from among his monks and
disciples, and retained their former respect for their old superior the abbot.
In the MS. life of St. Columba, by O’Donall, it is asserted that the saint in
the year 544, being a prince of the royal family, was offered the crown of
Ireland, and that Dermod Mac Cerball his competitor succeeded only because our
holy abbot preferred the cowl to a diadem. This circumstance of his princely
extraction may afford one good reason why the northern bishops were subject to
his (civil) jurisdiction. [back]
Note 8. Sir James
Ware, (lib. l. Descrip. Hib. p. 15,) gives the catalogue of his works, which
are still extant, as follows: A monastic rule, commonly entitled Columkille: a
hymn on St. Kiaran, and three other hymns. [back]
Rev. Alban
Butler (1711–73). Volume VI: June. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
SOURCE : http://www.bartleby.com/210/6/092.html
St. Columba of IonaFeast
day: Jun 09
On June 9, the Catholic
Church commemorates the sixth-century Irish monk and missionary Saint Columba
of Iona, also known as St. Columcille.
One of Ireland's three patron saints (together with Saint Patrick and Saint
Brigid), he is also sometimes called the “Apostle of the Picts” for his
evangelization of Scotland.
He should not be confused with St. Columbanus (or Columban), a different Irish
monk and missionary who lived slightly later and ended up in Italy.
Columba was born during 521, descended from royalty through his father. He was
taught and mentored by the priest who baptized him, and later attended a
monastic school founded by Saint Finnian of Moville. His own life as a monk
began at the school, where he was also ordained a deacon.
The deacon went on to spend time in a different monastery and school run by
another Finnian, Saint Finnian of Clonard. Columba became a priest during this
period, and along with eleven others from this same institution, he would
become known as one of the “Twelve Apostles of Ireland.”
Columba also studied with Saint Mobhi of Glasnevin, before a disease epidemic
forced him to return to his ancestral homeland of Ulster during 544. He spent
the next 15 years traveling, preaching, and founding monasteries.
It is not clear why, in 563, Columba left Ireland. By some accounts he was
simply going to preach the word of God. Others claim that he had become
involved in a battle between warring tribes, before repenting and taking on
foreign missionary work as a penance.
On the island of Iona, located on Scotland’s northwest coast, Columba and his
group of companions built simple monastic quarters and a church for themselves.
The priest-monk’s first missionary work was in the region of Dalriada, whose
Celtic Christian inhabitants were lacking solid religious instruction.
His next effort was to convert the Picts of northern Scotland, a task that
would take up most of the rest of his life. He began by gaining entrance to the
castle of King Brude, where the locked gates are said to have miraculously
opened when the sign of the Cross was made. The king welcomed the missionaries,
believed the Gospel, and was baptized.
Columba’s evangelization of northern Scotland continued over the next three
decades. He and his companions met with some resistance from the native pagan
Druids, but on the whole they found remarkable success in spreading the
Catholic faith and building up a network of churches and monasteries.
The island monastery at Iona remained his home base, and it drew pilgrims
looking to benefit from the priest-monk’s wisdom and his prayers. He remained
in touch with the Irish Church, making many trips back until he became too weak
to travel. Even in old age, Columba maintained an intense routine of prayer,
fasting, and study.
After giving a final blessing to his monastery on June 8, 597, he died sometime
in the early hours of the following day.
SOURCE : https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-columba-of-iona-722
Bildstöcklweg
in Auer, Pestbildstöckl Hl. Kolumban; 1631, renoviert 2004
St Columba (Colum Cille)
of Iona
June 8, 2009 by Mark Armitage
June 9th is the
feast of St Columba (or Colum Cille – “Dove of the Church”), whose life was
recorded and celebrated in the Vita Columbae by Adomnán (ninth Abbot
of Iona) who died in 704, and in a poem written within a few years of his death
which lays claim to be the earliest vernacular poem in European literature.
Born in what is now
County Donegal in December 521, Columba was a direct descendant of Niall of the
Nine Hostages, a 5th century Irish high king. By the time of his birth,
Christianity was in the process of supplanting druidism, and thriving
monasteries had become the centers of theological study.
Columba entered the
monastic school at Clonard Abbey, where he was one of the twelve students of St
Finian of Clonard known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Having become both a
monk and a priest, he found himself (according to the traditional account)
embroiled in a dispute with St Finnian of Moville over a manuscript copied by
Columba in Finnian’s scriptorium, and the disagreement spiraled so badly out of
control that it resulted in the bloody Battle of Cúl Dreimhne in 561.
The upshot of this was
that Columba was on the verge of excommunication until St. Brendan of Birr
pleaded his case and obtained for him the lesser punishment of exile. Columba
proposed that he should be exiled to Scotland, where his plan was to convert to
Christianity a quantity of pagans equivalent to the number of people slain at
Cúl Dreimhne.
In 563 he landed with
twelve companions on the Mull of Kintyre before advancing up the west coast of
Scotland, eventually obtaining a grant of land on the island of Iona. Iona
became the base of Columba’s evangelistic operations, which were directed
towards the Picts, to whom he brought both literacy and his gifts as a mediator
(mediation between warring tribes being a constant necessity), and whose faith
he stirred by his prodigious miracle-working. He traveled extensively, preaching
the gospel, founding churches, and developing Iona as a school for
missionaries. He was a prolific writer (of letters and hymns) and an even more
prolific transcriber of books.
By the time of his death
on Iona in 597, he had created a network of monasteries and missionaries which
played a crucial part in the revival of Western Christianity by the Celtic part
of the Catholic Church, filling a spiritual and intellectual vacuum created by
the collapse of the Roman Empire and giving shape to a distinctive form of
Catholicism which held sway throughout much of the British Isles and beyond
until such time as Rome was once again in a position to evangelize (St
Augustine of Canterbury landed in Kent in the very same year in which Columba
died).
Scottish armies began to
venerate him as a warrior saint, and it became customary for them to march
behind a reliquary fashioned in Iona and known as the Brecbennoch in which were
contained his relics – to which the victory at Bannockburn over a vastly
stronger English army was traditionally attributed.
SOURCE : https://saintsandblesseds.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/st-columba-of-iona/
San
Columba di Iona, St. Brigid's Cathedral, Kildare, Ireland
San
Columba di Iona - vetrata della cattedrale di santa Brigida a Kildare
St. Columba of Iona, Abbot
St. Columba is a saint who still, after fourteen hundred years, exerts an
appeal upon our imaginations. Born in Ireland, in Donegal in the year 521, he
was of the blood royal, and might indeed have become High King of Ireland had
he not chosen to be a priest. His vital, vigorous personality has given rise to
many legends, and it is a little hard to sift fact from what is more probably
fiction. We do know that he was a man of tremendous energy, probably somewhat
headstrong in his youth, but with his tendency to violence curbed by a gentle
magnanimity.
It seems certain that he
left Ireland as an act of penance, although it is less certain how far this was
connected with his quarreling over a copy of the Gospels he had made, a dispute
that led to a bloody battle. He came from Ireland to Scotland, to the colony of
Dalriada founded on the west coast by his fellow Irish Scots who were at that
time somewhat oppressed by the dominant Picts. With twelve companions he
founded his monastery on Iona in the year 563. These Celtic monks lived in
communities of separate cells, but Columba and his companions combined their
contemplative life with extraordinary missionary activity. Amongst his many
accomplishments, Columba was a splendid sailor. He sailed far amongst the islands
and traveled deep inland, making converts and founding little churches. In
Ireland he had already, it is said, founded a hundred churches.
Of all the Celtic saints
in Scotland, Columba's life is much the best documented, because manuscripts of
his life, written by St Adamnan, one of his early successors as abbot of Iona,
have survived. Iona itself remains a place of the greatest beauty, a serene
island set in seas that take on brilliant colors in the sunshine, recalling the
life and background of this remarkable man whose mission led to the conversion
of Scotland and of the north of England, and indeed carried its influence far
further afield. It later became the site of a Benedictine Abbey and of a little
cathedral. These were dismantled by the Scottish reformers in 1561, and part of
Columba's prophecy was fulfilled:
In Iona of my heart, Iona of my love,
Instead of monks' voices shall be lowing of cattle,
But ere the world come to an end
Iona shall be as it was.
When Dr Samuel Johnson
visited the island in 1773 he observed, 'That man is little to be envied, whose
patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety
would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona!'
Columba was a poet as
well as a man of action. Some of his poems in both Latin and Gaelic have come
down to us, and they reveal him as a man very sensitive to the beauty of his
surroundings, as well as always, in St Adamnan's phrase, 'gladdened in his
inmost heart by the joy of the Holy Spirit.' He died in the year 597.
—Courtesy of the Catholic Information Network
Patronage: against
floods; bookbinders; poets; Ireland; Scotland; Scottish Highlanders; diocese of
Argyll and The Isles, Scotland; diocese of Derry, Ireland; diocese of Dunkeld,
Scotland; diocese of Pembroke, Ontario; diocese of Raphoe, Ireland; diocese of
Youngstown, Ohio; city of Derry, Ireland; city of Pemboke, Ontario, Canada
Symbols and
Representation: Coracle; white horse; Celtic cross; devils fleeing; Monk's
robes; Celtic tonsure and crosier.
Highlights and Things to
Do:
Read a longer life
of St. Columba or read St. Adamnan's life of St. Columba.
Read more about St.
Columba:
See Catholic Cuisine for simple ideas for his feast.
In traditional lore, in
Scotland on June 9, the feast of St. Columba is one of the luckiest days of the
year when it falls on Thursday. The saying goes:
Day of Colum Cille the beloved
Day to put the loom to use
Day to put sheep to pasture
Day to put coracle on the seas
Day to bear, day to die
Day to make prayer efficacious
Day of my beloved, the Thursday.
(Carmina Gadelica)
The healing herb, St. John's Wort, which flowers around the Summer Solstice,
is his herb.
In Norway, this is considered
the day the salmon start leaping.
SOURCE : https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2014-06-09
St.
Columba Bidding Farewell to the White Horse by John Duncan (1866-1945)
St. Columba or Columcille
521-597
St Columba is a saint who
still, after fourteen hundred years, exerts an appeal upon our imaginations.
Born in Ireland, in Donegal in the year 521, he was of the blood royal, and
might indeed have become High King of Ireland had he not chosen to be a priest.
His vital, vigorous personality has given rise to many legends, and it is a
little hard to sift fact from what is more probably fiction. We do know that he
was a man of tremendous energy, probably somewhat headstrong in his youth, but
with his tendency to violence curbed by a gentle magnanimity.
It seems certain that he
left Ireland as an act of penance, although it is less certain how far this was
connected with his quarrelling over a copy of the Gospels he had made, a
dispute that led to a bloody battle. He came from Ireland to Sctoland, to the
colony of Dalriada founded on the west coast by his fellow Irish Scots who were
at that time somewhat oppressed by the dominant Picts. With twelve companions
he founded his monastery on Iona in the year 563. These Celtic monks lived in
communities of separate cells, but Columba and his companions combined their
contemplative life with extraordinary missionary activity. Amongst his many
accomplishments, Columba was a splendid sailor. He sailed far amongst the islands
and travelled deep inland, making converts and founding little churches. In
Ireland he had already, it is said, founded a hundred churches.
Of all the Celtic saints
in Scotland, Columba's life is much the best documented, because manuscripts of
his Life, written by St Adamnan, one of his early successors as abbot of Iona,
have survived. Iona itself remains a place of the greatest beauty, a serene
island set in seas that take on brilliant colors in the sunshine, recalling the
life and background of this remarkable man whose mission led to the conversion
of Scotland and of the north of England, and indeed carried its influence far
further afield. It later became the site of a Benedictine Abbey and of a little
cathedral. These were dismantled by the Scottish reformers in 1561, and part of
Columba's prophecy was fulfilled:
In Iona of my heart, Iona
of my love,
Instead of monks' voices shall be lowing of cattle,
But ere the world come to an end
Iona shall be as it was.
When Dr Samuel Johnson
visited the island in 1773 he observed, 'That man is little to be envied, whose
patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety
would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona!'
Columba was a poet as
well as a man of action. Some of his poems in both Latin and Gaelic have come
down to us, and they reveal him as a man very sensitive to the beauty of his
surroundings, as well as always, in St Adamnan's phrase, 'gladdened in his
inmost heart by the joy of the Holy Spirit.' He died in the year 597.
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SOURCE : https://www.cin.org/columba.html
.jpg)
Икона
святого Коламбы Айонского, 1990-2005
San Columba di Iona Abate
Gartan, Donegal, Irlanda,
7 dicembre 521 - Iona, 9 giugno 597
Fondatore di monasteri,
evangelizzatore di popoli, saggio consigliere, uomo spirituale: Colomba
(521-597), il più noto santo scozzese, è una delle grandi figure che hanno
"costruito" l'Europa cristiana. Nato nel Donegal, in Irlanda, fece
sorgere numerose comunità monastiche nella sua terra natale e poi in Scozia, a
cominciare dall'isola di Iona. Di qui iniziò l'avventura tutt'altro che agevole
del primo annuncio a Pitti, Angli e Scoti. L'abbazia che sorge sull'isola di
Iona, dopo aver resistito alle scorrerie dei vichinghi, è oggi un centro di
pellegrinaggi. (Avvenire)
Martirologio Romano:
Nell’isola di Iona in Scozia, san Columba o Colum Cille, sacerdote e abate,
che, nato in Irlanda e istruito nei precetti della vita monastica, nella sua
terra e infine a Iona fondò dei monasteri rinomati per osservanza della
disciplina di vita e cultura letteraria, finché, carico di anni, ormai in
attesa della fine, davanti all’altare riposò nel Signore.
Pur essendo vissuto molti
secoli fa, di lui ci sono pervenute notizie credibili sulla sua vita, con
veritieri particolari, le fonti molto attendibili sono ben tre, riportate da:
Cuimino abate di Iona dal 657 al 669; Ademnano abate di Iona dal 679 al 704 e
da s. Beda il Venerabile (673-735).
Le sue origini furono di stirpe regale; Columba (in Irlanda Colum Cill) nacque
nel 521 a Gartan nel Donegal, ampia baia dell’Irlanda sull’Atlantico.
Nella sua scelta di diventare monaco, ebbe come guida spirituale e contatti
formativi con i santi Enda di Aran, Finnian di Moville e Finnian di Clonard,
tutti abati di comunità monastiche irlandesi del VII secolo.
Columba divenne anch’egli abate di monasteri, agendo con grande saggezza e
spiritualità, ma anche fondatore di alcune chiese, fra le quali quelle di
Durrow e Derry. Poi come raccontano le fonti su citate, obbedendo al desiderio
comune a tutti gli irlandesi di “divenire pellegrini di Cristo”, Columba lasciò
l’Irlanda nel 563 e insieme a dodici compagni approdò sulla piccola isola di
Iona, posta davanti alla costa occidentale della Scozia, erigendo un monastero
che divenne in breve un celebre centro monastico.
Dalle sue mura partirono tanti missionari, diretti verso le colonie irlandesi
in Scozia e verso le tribù pagane dei Pitti del Nord, popolazioni celtiche
scozzesi, così chiamate dai Romani, perché si tingevano il corpo ed i capelli.
Columba fu a partire dalla gioventù un uomo austero, a volte persino duro con
se stesso e con gli altri; ma con gli anni il suo carattere si addolcì e il
prima citato Adamnano lo presenta nell’ultima fase della sua vita, come uomo
profondamente sereno.
Fu sempre molto legato alla sua patria d’origine, l’Irlanda; divenne il capo
riconosciuto della “familia Columbae”, una importante confederazione monastica
diffusa in Scozia ed in Irlanda.
Morì ad Iona nel 597 e l’autorità di cui aveva goduto sia per il rango
familiare, sia per le sue doti di capo e di guida spirituale, passò ai suoi
successori, anch’essi in buona parte di sangue reale e come lui non soggetti
alla dipendenza dal vescovo.
Gli abati di Iona ebbero giurisdizione sulla vasta confederazione “familia
Columbae”, la quale si estese ulteriormente fino all’anglosassone Northumbria,
evangelizzata da s. Aidano di Lindsfarne, entrando in contrasto con la missione
romana in Inghilterra, specie per quanto riguardava la data della celebrazione
della Pasqua. La confederazione cominciò a declinare nella sua influenza, dopo
il sinodo di Whitby tenuto nel 664. San Columba fu importante nella leggenda
irlandese, a parte la sua precisa figura storica; infatti molti poemi
dell’Irlanda gli furono attribuiti, anche se ciò non è provato, sta comunque ad
indicare come venisse considerato quasi un patrono dei poeti irlandesi.
Ebbe un culto largamente diffuso nel Medioevo, non solo in Irlanda e Scozia ma
anche in Europa; la sua festa è celebrata il 9 giugno ancora con venerazione,
non solo in questi due Paesi, ma anche in Australia e Nuova Zelanda (portatovi
evidentemente dalle colonizzazioni inglesi).
Autore: Antonio Borrelli
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/56525
Voir aussi : http://stmaterne.blogspot.ca/2008/06/saint-columba-diona-prires-iconographie.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/earlychurch/features_earlychurch_iona.shtml
http://jahtruth.net/lecture.htm
http://www.apostolia.eu/fr/articol_1183/lapotre-des-pictes--saint-colomba.html
