OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Miracles and the Monastic Life of Saint Comgall

    May 10 is the feast of Saint Comgall, founder of the monastery of Bangor. Canon O’Hanlon has helpfully recounted many of the miracles attributed to him recorded by the Bollandists. Some give an interesting glimpse into the monastic life and the virtues of humility, obedience and penance which Saint Comgall taught. Here is a selection, the headings are mine, the text O’Hanlons.

    Saint Comgall Practices Humility

    When Comgall had a great number of monks, subject to his rule, an Abbot, who was his senior, and under whose roof our saint had dwelt for some time, came to his monastery. When they sat down to table, and rejoiced in the society of each other, in order to test Comgall’s humility, and to find if his former spirit of obedience yet remained, the senior began to chide him severely. Comgall then arose, and prostrating himself on the earth, he began to pour forth copious floods of tears. Being asked, why he wept, the holy man replied, “Because I am grieved, I have not had such an opportunity of practising humility, for many years past”.

    Saint Comgall Makes a Coffin and a Promise

    One day, Comgall, with his own hands, was engaged in making a wooden coffin, in which the brethren were to be placed, when death approached. One of the monks, Enan, by name, said, ” Father, you do a good work for the brethren, about to repose in this coffin, since it must aid them to obtain salvation; would that I were permitted to depart this life in it.” Comgall replied, “Be it so, brother, according to thy wish; as, from this coffin thou shalt depart to Heaven.” It so happened, that brother was sent to a place, far distant from Bangor monastery, and while there, he died. However, St. Comgall ordered his body to be conveyed to Bangor ; where, through the prayers of our holy Abbot, the monk was restored to life. The resuscitated brother frequently told his fellow-monks what he had seen and heard, after his first departure from life. ” I was,” said he, ” brought towards Heaven, by two Angels, sent from God ; and, whilst on the way, behold other Angels came to meet us, saying, “Bear this soul to its body, for Comgall, God’s servant, hath asked it. Therefore, bear it to Comgall, with whom the monk shall live, unto an old age. He lived, for many subsequent years ; and, at the close of life, his soul ascended to Heaven, while his body reposed in that coffin, made by our saint.

    Comgall’s Rule of Reproof

    It was a custom, in the monastery of our saint, if any one among the brethren should chide another, that person, who had received such reproof—whether deserving it or not—was required to go on his knees. Wherefore, at one time, while Comgall visited an island, in the northern part of Ireland, some monks chanced to be sailing on the middle of a lake. A brother, who was steering their boat, reproved one of his companions. Not regarding the danger in which he was placed, as the boat was small, that brother is said to have leaped from it, that he might prostrate himself. But, at once he sunk under the water, where he remained buried beneath the wave, from the first, to the ninth, hour of the day. Full of sorrow for the accident, which had occurred, the reproving monk told St. Comgall about the matter. Without any show of inquietude Comgall said, ” The Lord is able to preserve our brother alive, beneath the water ; return you, and seek him, where he has been submerged.” The monks accordingly did so, when one of them, who was an excellent swimmer and diver, plunged into the water, and he found the young monk lying beneath, with his face towards the earth. The diver bore him to the surface, alive and well. The monk then said to his companions, ” I suffered no more inconvenience under water, than if I had been on dry land.” This miracle confirmed in that practice the brethren, who bore further reproaches with humility.

    The Miracle of “The Obedient”

    There was another young monk, in St. Comgall’s monastery; he was so distinguished for humility, mildness, and obedience, that he did whatever was required, and avoided whatever had been prohibited. Commands were executed in so prompt a manner, by this monk, that his brethren gave him the title of “The obedient.” One day, while Comgall was on a journey, accompanied by this young man, and with other companions ; all these came to a spot, where a great inundation had taken place. Having received a reproof from one of his brethren, that young monk immediately fell upon his face, near the sea-shore; and, as he remained among the last arrivals, his action was not observed by the company. The brother, who was much attached to the Abbot, bore his shoes ; and, when our saint came to a dry part of the shore, he asked for ” The obedient.” Not being seen among the other monks, his Abbot enquired, if any of the brethren had reproved him. One of them confessed that he had. Comgall ordered the monks to return, and to seek him. While doing so, the rising sea-tide had covered the whole shore, the brother yet remaining prostrate, although within a very short distance from the elevated banks. On raising that obedient religious, his brethren brought him to St. Comgall. Then, the whole company returned thanks to God.

    Some Other Miraculous Testimonies to Obedience

    Being in some necessity, the Abbot one day required a monk to cross over the strait of the sea, in a direct course. This brother, we are told, passed over with dry feet, and returned safely to the saint. At another time, he required one of the monks, to go into the workshop of a smith, who was absent, and to make a frame, on which fishes might be boiled. At the same time, Comgall blessed his hands. That brother, hitherto unskilled in the smith’s art, made the article as required, together with many other useful things, on the same day. When, too, in a spirit of obedience, one of his monks bore a hot stone from the fire to St. Comgall, his hands were preserved from being burned, for which singular favour he returned thanks to God.

    Saint Comgall Helps A Struggling Schoolboy

    A certain boy, learning to write, made no progress in this art, for several days ; when, coming to St. Comgall, he received a blessing on his eyes and hands. This tended to perfect him in penmanship, so that in a short time, he excelled all others, and became a celebrated professor of writing himself.

    Saint Comgall and the Thieves

    Some thieves were in the habit of stealing vegetables and fruit, raised by the monks, who laboured with their hands, while praying with great fervour. The monks complained to their Abbot, that the brethren and their guests were thus deprived of the produce procured by their labours. On the following night, Comgall made a sign of the cross over his garden. At the same time, he said, “O Omnipotent God, who art able to do all things, deprive of their sight those thieves, who enter here, that they may wander about inside of this garden, until induced to confess their guilt.” Accordingly, on that night, when those robbers entered the enclosure, they became blind; and, they wandered about the garden, in ignorance of a place, where they might find an exit. At last, moved to penitence for their crime, they called for help, and then brought their ill-acquired store to the monks. The robbers made a public reparation for their crimes. Afterwards, becoming true penitents, and assuming the monastic habit, they embraced St. Comgall’s rule.

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  • Saint Meithcearn, April 23

    On the Irish calendars April 23 is primarily the feast of Saint Ibar, but he shares the day with a much more obscure saint, Meithcearn, of whom all we know is the recording of his name in the calendars, as Canon O’Hanlon explains:

    St. Meithcearn.

    On this day, according to the Martyrology of Donegal, there was a festival in honour of Meithcearn. We can find nothing more to throw light on this saint’s memory.

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  • Monasticism and the Early Irish Church

    In a most useful and stimulating paper, Prof. Liam Tracey, OSM, offers a critique of the ‘Celtic Church’ as it is popularly understood by modern enthusiasts for ‘Celtic Christianity’. In passing, he also mentions the view that more recent scholarship has advanced of the part played by monasticism in the early Irish Church:

    The ‘Celtic’ Church: what was it like?

    In the past, great emphasis was placed on the monastic organisation and nature of the early Irish Church. The theory is that the earlier Roman organisation based around the figure of the bishop and some kind of what today would be called ‘diocesan’ structure was replaced in the sixth century by powerful abbots and abbesses. This monastic structure was also tied to the then political structure. This view has been considerably modified in the last number of years.[ix] While abbots may have set the agenda, bishops seem to have still held the power.[x] The pastoral care of the people seems to have been very much under the direction of the bishop assisted by his clergy.[xi] Monasticism was an important dimension to the life of the early Irish Church but it was not the global phenomenon that has sometime been presented. Indeed, monasticism was growing right across the Christian world, as Christianity was being introduced into Ireland. Patrick himself valued consecrated life and tells us so in his Confessions. But this monasticism was not the structured monasticism of later ages, largely based on the Rule of Saint Benedict. There was discipline in these monasteries and we have evidence of different kinds of monastic rules, but the abbot seems to have been free to mix and adapt these monastic ordinances for his own particular house.

    There is little in Irish monastic observance that can be considered unique. Certain elements are stressed, emphasis is laid on the ascetical life, at least when compared with the Rule of Saint Benedict. Irish monasteries became centre of learning and centres for the training of missionaries who went out to evangelise in Britain and on the European mainland. As is the constant repetition in this article, perhaps in the past these particular emphases on mortification have been sometimes exaggerated. Nor should the opposition between heroic Irish monasticism and the more moderate monasticism of the followers of Saint Benedict underscored by earlier historians be easily accepted today. Some monasteries seem to have mixed elements of Irish monastic rules with the rule of Saint Benedict. As Thomas Charles-Edwards has noted:

    […] Columbanian monasteries were the principal agents by which the Rule of St. Benedict was spread in Western Europe before the Carolingian period.[xii]

    It simply cannot be held that all Irish monks were shining examples of heroic ascetical lifestyles. Many of the leading monks came from wealthy families and it would be a mistake to imagine that all of them renounced the privileges that came from their rank in society. Indeed, as has been pointed out by Kathleen Hughes, the remains of meat bones have been found in many monastic sites, which would have been at variance with the monastic rules.[xiii] By the seventh century Christianity is well established in Ireland and dominates the cultural landscape. This society was highly organised and within its hierarchy were many prominent ecclesiastics, who may well have owed their places in this societal ranking to their birth. It is presumed that Christianity did not disband the hierarchical structure of pre-Christian Ireland but rather inserted itself into the already existing structure and modified it for its own purposes.

    Notes

    [ix] A major impetus for this changing viewpoint is the work of the Oxford based scholar, Richard Sharpe, see Richard Sharpe, “Some Problems Concerning the Organisation of the Church in Early Medieval Ireland,” in Peritia 3 (1984): 230-270. Also the important study, Colman Etchingham, Church Organisation in Ireland AD 650 to 1000 (Maynooth: Lagin Publications, 1999, reprinted 2002).

    [x] What was different from other parts of the Church was membership of the synod, which was central to the authority of the Church in a particular region or province. Charles-Edwards has noted how the composition of Irish synods shows the complexity of Church organisation, see Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, 277: ‘The composition of the Irish synods shows that the contrast between an episcopal and a monastic church is too simple. True, unlike its Frankish counterpart of the sixth and seventh centuries, the Irish synod was not confined to bishops. Yet neither was it confined to the heads of the great monastic churches. Instead, the synod shows us an Irish Church which allowed for several sources of authority.’

    [xi]One model does not necessarily exclude the other as some scholars seem to believe, see Charles-Edwards Early Christian Ireland, 259: ‘Good evidence exists, therefore, for two claims, apparently, opposed to each other: both that the Irish Church was episcopal and that it was peculiarly monastic in that the authority of abbots might override that of bishops.’

    [xii]Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, 384.

    [xiii] Kathleen Hughes and Ann Hamlin, The Modern Traveller to the Early Irish Church, 2d. ed. (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997), 38-39.

    Liam Tracey, OSM, Celtic Spirituality: Just what does it mean? – Thinking Faith, the online journal of the British Jesuits.

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