Saint Brigid, Prototype of Religious Life

 

We continue the series of posts in honour of Saint Brigid with a late nineteenth-century article which reminds us that Saint Brigid was first and foremost a nun. I am not sure of the identity of the person behind the pseudonym 'Iota', but s/he has used episodes from hagiography and the lessons from the Roman Breviary to present a picture of Saint Brigid as a consecrated virgin who embodies the monastic virtues of humility and chastity. This piece reminds us too of the days when there were so many vocations to the religious life in Ireland that Irish nuns were to be found serving missions all over the world. The final paragraph sees the writer defending the religious life to those 'who look upon it with eyes other than the eyes of faith' (perhaps a reminder that this piece was written in predominantly Protestant Australia), and asserts the value of those who are dedicated to a life of prayer in averting the wrath of God:

ST. BRIGID.
By Iota.

She once was a lady of honour and wealth,
Bright glow'd on her features the roses of health ;
Her vesture was "blended of silk and of gold,
And her motion shook perfume from every fold.

Behold her ye worldly! behold her ye vain!
Who shrink from the pathway of virtue and pain
Who yield up to pleasure your nights and your days,
Forgetful of service, forgetful of praise;
Ye lazy philosophers, self-seeking men,
Ye fire-side philanthropists, great at the pen;
How stands in the balance your eloquence weigh'd,
With the life and the deeds of that high born maid ?

Gerald Griffin's, Sister of Charity.

Last week, and the week before we were occupied in reflecting upon the life of St. Patrick. Now these reflections on St. Patrick would be incomplete were we not to say some thing about two Saints who were intimately connected with him — St Brigid and St. Columba of Iona. This week then we shall treat of the life of St. Brigid, or, as our fathers loved to call her, the Mary of Ireland. At some other time we shall treat of the life of St. Columba.

From the days of St. Brigid there has streamed out upon Ireland such a radiance of chastity as alone would be argument sufficient of the sanctity of Saint Patrick's teaching. The innumerable number of nuns, who through the length and breadth of Ireland, devote themselves to the service of God, and to the service of God's poor aye, the innumerable numbers of young virgins who devote themselves to God, who quit their homes, their kith and kin, that, in far foreign lands they' may minister to the poor, and the lowly, the sick, and the infirm, the widow and the orphan — all, all those faithful daughters of Innisfail, look back to St. Brigid as to their model, their patron, their example, their guide, their mother.

Who, then, was this glorious St. Brigid? She was lineally descended from Eocad, brother to Con of the hundred battles, monarch of Ireland. She was born at Fochard, near Dundalk, about the year 453. When St. Brigid was a mere child, her father beheld men, dressed in white, pouring oil upon her head. This was considered a foresign of her future sanctity. In her youth she selected Jesus Christ, her heavenly spouse, as her portion. Consequently when on account of her extreme beauty and comeliness she was anxiously sought after in marriage, we need not wonder that she asked Almighty God to take away from her that beauty which caused her so much annoyance and perplexity. Her prayer was heard, and, as we read in the Roman Breviary, suddenly one of her eyes becomes inflamed, and all her beauty and comeliness forsook her. The result of this miraculous change was that the heralds of the prince who sought the hand of our saint left in disgust.

 

Although St. Brigid was intimately acquainted with St. Patrick, it was not from him she received the religious veil. St. Maccaille gave it to her in one of the earliest established convents in Ireland. She travelled into every portion of Ireland, founding religious houses as she passed, and doing good unto all. In 480 she founded her greatest house, at Kildare, or, as it is called, the Church of the Oaks. This became the largest and most celebrated convent that ever existed in Ireland. So large, so extensive was it that a holy ancorite named Conlath was consecrated Bishop to perform the pontifical duties which became necessary in it. The countless numbers of young girls and young widows who thronged around St. Brigid for admission to her convent proclaims trumpet-tongued the perfect conversion of Ireland to Catholicity.

St. Brigid's most distinguishing virtue was her excessive humility —the foundation of all other virtues. We have it related that she not unfrequently fed with her own hand the convent cattle. The habit of her order was white, and for centuries after her time her rule was the only one observed in the convents of Ireland.

Almost innumerable were the miracles performed by St. Brigid during her lifetime. At the time of her religious profession she touched with her hand the wooden altar step, and forthwith it that was arid and dry became green and fresh, and with the miraculous revival of the wood was restored to St. Brigid all her former beauty and comeliness. During her lifetime she cleansed the lepers, restored health to the sick, sight to the blind, and perhaps the most extraordinary miracle of her life was one performed in favour of a Bishop. A certain woman accused Broonus, a Bishop, of being the father of her illegitimate child. St. Brigid made the sign of the Cross on the lips of the infant, and forthwith the babe spoke and declared, who was its father. Thus, through St. Brigid, was the good name of a holy Bishop restored. St. Bridgid, too, was endowed with the gift of prophecy, she even foretold the time of the death of St. Patrick, whom she reverently called the father of her soul.

There is a dispute regarding the time of the death of St. Brigid, as well as regarding the place of her burial. The annals of the four masters say she died in 525. This is the most probable date. Some authors contend that her remains were buried on one side of the altar in the Cathedral church of Kildare, while others hold that her ashes commingle with those of St. Patrick at Dourepatrick [Downpatrick]. We do not desire to enter upon this controversy, yet we hold with the Roman Breviary that she and our glorious Apostle, St. Patrick, or rather their ashes, rest awaiting a glorious resurrection in the same tomb at Downpatrick.

Many writers who look only at the severe side of conventual life, and who look upon it with eyes other than the eyes of faith, consider it excessive and unnecessary. I differ very widely from these writers. The religious life, the conventual life, if you will, isolates the individual professing it from all others. By their vows they break the ties that bind them to the world. Friendship and family disappear as far as they are opposed to the object of religious life, namely, union with God. The religious is a person who, though dwelling upon earth, is entirely consecrated to the things of heaven. Property, that powerful link which unites individuals and families, and makes them cling to a fixed place as trees cling to the earth from which they receive life, does not exist for a religious. Yes, the religious, for the love of Jesus, renounces everything. Yes, the religious is, by the vow of poverty, freely made, condemned to possess nothing. The vow of chastity deprives the religious of family. The vow of obedience does not permit the religious to select one place of abode in preference to another. The religious is an exception to all others in everything save the love of God. The life of a religious is wholly absorbed in God, and when as in the time of Noe, God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and when God feels inclined to say as he said then in the day of his wrath that it repented Him that He had made man, when he feels inclined to say again, I will destroy man whom I have created, what is it that restrains His hand? It is the prayers of the holy monks or the prayers of the holy nuns who, like unto their prototype, St. Brigid, pour forth acts of adoration, love and reparation, to the throne of the most high God, before Jesus, ever present in the Adorable Sacrament of the Altar.

IOTA.

Perth, July 14, 1896.


"ST. BRIGID." The W.A. Record, 18 July 1896.

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