Saint Lasérian
évêque de Leighlin
en Irlande (✝ 639)
Lasérian, Laisren,
Molaisse ou Lamliss.
Né en Irlande et élevé en Écosse, il vécut comme un ermite sur l'île d'Aran où
se trouve une grotte portant son nom. Il se rendit en pèlerinage à Rome puis
entra au monastère de Leighlin, devint abbé et évêque. Il aurait ajusté la date
de Pâques avec celle préconisée par Rome. Il aurait rapporté les reliques de
saint Aidan de Ferns et aurait été nommé légat du Pape en Irlande par Honorius
I. Il est vénéré à Inishmurray et à Leighlin, il reste une source et une croix
portant son nom à l'emplacement de l'abbaye.
À Leighlin en Irlande, l’an 639, saint Lasérian ou Molaise, qui fit
accepter pacifiquement dans l’île la manière romaine de calculer la date de
Pâques.
Martyrologe
romain
April 18
St. Laserian, Called
Molaisse,
Bishop of Leighlin, in Ireland
LASERIAN was
son of Cairel and Blitha, persons of great distinction, who intrusted his
education, from his infancy, to the Abbot St. Murin. He afterwards travelled to
Rome in the days of Pope Gregory the Great, by whom he is said to have been
ordained priest. Soon after his return to Ireland, he visited Leighlin, a place
situated a mile and a half westward of the river Barrow, where St. Goban was
then abbot, who, resigning to him his abbacy, built a little cell for himself
and a small number of monks. A great synod being soon after assembled there, in
the White Fields, St. Laserian strenuously maintained the Catholic time of
celebrating Easter against St. Munnu. This council was held in March 630. But
St. Laserian not being able to satisfy in it all his opponents, took another
journey to Rome, where Pope Honorius ordained him bishop, without allotting him
any particular see, and made him his legate in Ireland. Nor was his commission
fruitless: for, after his return, the time of observing Easter was reformed in the
south parts of Ireland. St. Laserian died on the 18th of April, 638, and was
buried in his own church which he had founded. In a synod held at Dublin, in
1330, the feasts of St. Patrick, St. Laserian, St. Bridget, St. Canic, and St.
Edan, are enumerated among the double festivals through the province of Dublin.
St. Laserian was the first bishop of Old Leighlin, now a village.—New Leighlin
stands on the eastern bank of the river Barrow. See Ware, p. 54, and Colgan’s
MSS. on the 18th of April.<
Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume
IV: April. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
Laserian of Leighlin B (AC)
(also known as Laisren, Molaisse, Lamliss)
Born in Ireland; died April 18, c. 639. Probably identical to Saint Lamliss,
Saint Laserian was the grandson of King Aidan of Scotland, nephew of Saint
Blane, and son of Cairel and Blitha. This noble Ulster couple entrusted the
education of their precious son to Saint Murin at Iona. He is said to have
travelled to Rome, where he was ordained to the priesthood by Saint Gregory the
Great. Returning to Ireland, he settled near Saint Goban's abbey of in Carlow,
built a cell, and gathered disciples around himself. He succeeded Goban as
abbot of the monastery of Leighlin and is said to have founded Inishmurray in
County Sligo.
At the national synod in
March 630, held in the White Fields, he, Cummian of Clonfert, and others
advocated abandoning the Irish method of calculating Easter in deference to the
Roman tradition. Because of the opposition to the change offered by such
luminaries as Saint Munnu, a delegation with Laserian at its head was sent to
Rome to investigate the question more fully.
As a result of the
delegation's report, all of Ireland, except Columba's monasteries, adopted the
new reckoning for Easter in 633. An additional outcome was Laserian's
consecration as bishop (either without a particular see or of Leighlin--this is
disputed) and appointment by Pope Honorius I as apostolic legate to Ireland,
where he strenuously upheld the Roman observance. (Leighlin was folded into the
diocese of Kildare in 1678, during the penal period following the Reformation.)
Laserian returned to
Ireland with the relics of Saint Aidan of Ferns. In the 11th century an
intricately wrought shrine with blue glass insets and particolored enamel work
was designed for the relics. Stokes details the beauty of the surviving
portions of the piece which now resides in the National Museum. "Of an
original 21 saints arranged in three rows, eleven figures and three pairs of
feet survive. Three nuns in uniform habits with their hair hanging in long
curls. Eight male figures are in varied dress and various postures, one with a
sword, one 'standing in sorrow his cheek resting in his hand.'"
According to one legend,
Saint Laserian voluntarily offered himself as a victim soul. He accepted
illness caused by 30 diseases simultaneously in order to expiate his sins and
avoid purgatory after death. His current cultus is partially indebted to this
legend.
In
1330, at a synod held at Dublin, the feasts of Saints Patrick, Laserian, and
Bridget were enumerated among the double festivals to be kept throughout the
province of Dublin. His cultus center on Inishmurray, where there are notable
monastic ruins and a series of praying-stations. He is also venerated in
Scotland, where a cave hermitage bearing his name survives on Holy Island in
Lamlash Bay, off Arran (Attwater2, Benedictines, Coulson, D'Arcy, Farmer, Husenbeth,
Kenney, Montague, Muirhead, Porter, Stokes).
St. Laserian (also called Molaise)
was the first bishop and patron saint of Leighlin,
b. 566; d. 18 April, 639. He was the son of Cairel de Blitha, a Ulidian
noble, and Gemma, daughter of a Scottish
king. Part of his youth was spent in Scotland. On his return home he refused the chieftainship of his clan, went into
retirement, and ultimately set out for Rome, where he studied for fourteen years and was ordained by Gregory the Great. Returning to Leighlin
he entered the great monastery which St. Gobban had established, and soon found himself its abbot, St. Gobban having retired in his favour and gone into Ossory. This establishment soon became famous, and contained as many as 1500 monks. St. Laserian took the
leading part in settling the Easter controversy. In the Synod
of Magh-lene he successfully defended the Roman
computation, and was sent by the council
as delegate to Rome. There, in 633, he was consecrated first Bishop of Leighlin by Honorius
I. On his return from the centre of Catholic unity Laserian
pleaded the cause of the Roman
practice so powerfully at another synod
in Leighlin that the controversy
was practically ended for the greater part of the country. The list of his successors,
sometimes called abbots and sometimes bishops, is practically complete. The cathedral of Leighlin was built
about the middle of the twelfth century in the plainest Gothic,
to replace the original church
of wood. It was plundered several times both by the Danes
and by the native chieftains, and the great religious
establishments of Sletty and Killeshin
shared the same fate. In the
reign of Henry VIII it was seized by the Reformers, was made a Protestant church,
and has continued as such ever since. The sufferings of the Catholics were so intense during the persecutions
which raged over Ireland for more than two centuries, that towards the
end but a remnant of the clergy remained. What the number of the clergy was in these dioceses before the Reformation, we cannot say for certain;
but from the ecclesiastical ruins we have the means of forming a
fair estimate. Over these dioceses, at the present day, there lie
scattered the mouldering ruins of 240 churches
and 63 religious houses, bearing mute but eloquent
testimony to the persecutions
borne by the Catholics, and to the numbers of the clergy who suffered banishment or death. Nor were these convents small or unimportant; there were many large monasteries of the different religious orders, including the four great Cistercian Abbeys
of Abbeyleix, Baltinglass,
Duiske, and Monasterevan.
The abbey church
of Duiske, Graignamanagh, is one
of the few abbey churches
at present in possession of their rightful owners, and actually devoted to the
service of the old religion.
There were eight round towers in these dioceses, two of which are still entire, Kildare
and Timahoe. The earthen rampart of the Pale can be traced for a mile between Clane
and Clongowes College.
Sources
COMERFORD, Collections relating to the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin
(Dublin, 1883); O'HANLON, Lives of the Irish Saints (Dublin, 1875-); O'DONOVAN,
Four Masters; IDEM, Ordnance Survey of Ireland; WARE-HARRIS, Writers and
Antiquities of Ireland (Dublin, 1764); LEWIS, Topographical Dictionary (Dublin,
1839); SHEARMAN, Loca Patriciana (Dublin, 1874); WALSH, The Irish Hierarchy
(Dublin, 1854); HEALY, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars (Dublin, 1902),
IDEM, Life and Writings of St. Patrick (Dublin, 1909); Irish Catholic Directory
(1909).
O'Leary, Edward. "Kildare and Leighlin." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 18 Apr. 2015
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08637a.htm>.
