OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Author: Michele Ainley

  • Fasting – a Weapon in the Spiritual Armoury?

    Another insight appropriate to this Lenten season from the late Daphne Pochin Mould’s 1956 work The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage.  Here she is examining the way in which fasting was regarded by the Irish saints as an essential part of the Christian’s armoury in the battle against sin and the devil:

    The ideas linked in the mind of the Celtic Church with that of penance were those of the Christian soldier and of martyrdom; of action positive and adventurous, of struggle with our own sins and with the devil. It is the attitude of mind reflected in the prayer in the Roman Missal after the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, which refers to the fast begun that day as the defences of the Christian army – we who are going to fight against spiritual wickedness are to be strengthened by self-denial. Or to quote an Irish source, there is the Second Vision of Adamnan, which seems to date from the 11th century, and was written to command the people of Ireland to fast to avert a pestilence which it was feared might come upon the country. It says that: – 

    “It is through fasting and prayer that the kindreds of men have been brought from the devil’s power, after Christ had been forty days and nights, drinkless, foodless, fighting with the devil on behalf of Adam’s children. And it is out of compassion that Christ did that, so that fasting and prayer should be every human being’s chief harbour against every distress that may come to them from heaven or earth.”

    Fasting, says the Vision, is always an indestructible rampart against destruction, a straight path to heaven, a renewal of friendship with God and an increase of penitence and charity in the heart. Small wonder that Columbanus said that we ought to fast each day just as we pray daily; the soldier is not going to lay aside one of his most effective weapons in the heat of the battle. 

    Daphne D.C. Pochin Mould, The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage (Dublin, 1956) 118-119.

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  • 'The Medicine for the Salvation of Souls': the Penitential of Cummean

    The Penitential of Cummean (Paenitentiale Cummeani) is a seventh-century text attributed to Saint Cummean of Clonfert, who died in the year 662, according to the Annals of Ulster. One of my favourite writers on the Irish saints, Daphne Pochin-Mould, gave a summary of Saint Cummean’s list of the ways by which sins can be remitted in her 1956 book The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage:

    There is an Irish homily on the subject of repentance in the Leabhar Breac. It says that it is necessary to do penance both for sins actually committed and for the good that we might have done but did not. There are three ways, says the homily, in which sins can be forgiven, baptism, martyrdom, penance. There is a much more detailed list in the Penitential of Cummean (c.650) which gives twelve different ways by which sins can be remitted….Cummean’s list begins with baptism and ends with martyrdom. The items in between are, however, on a different footing: they are things that we can do, or have done for us, to make reparation for our sins. The confession mentioned in the middle of the list is not apparently ordinary sacramental confession, the Christian’s normal method for getting his post-baptismal sins remitted,  but a general admission of one’s sins: – the scriptural reference is to Psalm 31, v. 5, 6 “I have acknowledged my sin unto thee (god) … and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin.”

    Cummean’s list is: – baptism; charity (this refers to Luke 7:47 in which Christ told the woman weeping at His feet which she anointed that her sins were forgiven, pointing out that she had also greatly loved); alms-giving; the shedding of tears; confession; affliction of heart and body; renunciation of vices; intercession of saints; the merit of mercy and faith; the conversion and salvation of others; our own pardon and remission of other people’s injuries to ourselves – “forgive and ye shall be forgiven”; and martyrdom.

    Daphne D.C. Pochin Mould, The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage (Dublin, 1956) 114-115.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

  • The Virtuous Customs of Saint Ciarán of Saighir

    (67) And these were the virtuous customs of Ciaran all his life;
    he never wore woollen clothing, but skins of wolves and other
    brute beasts; and he avoided all dainty (lit. worldly or secular) meats,
    and all intoxicating drinks; and he took but little sleep. And there
    was a continual attendance of angels about him. And the bishops and priests that he ordained were innumerable.

    (68) Moreover, if any injury were done to him, he would always do some good thing in return, for he always forgave injuries. He would labour with his hands for the love of God, to get what they wanted for the poor. And so he passed his life in this world as to receive the crown of eternal life in the world to come. Who is there who could maintain in this world in the human body a life like Ciaran’s, in fastings and abstinences, in cold and watching, in chastity and hospitality (lit. house of guests)?

    (69) And so he spent his life from infancy till death, in daily prayer, study, and preaching, and in bearing judgement, whether silently or in speech. He was compassionate, prudent, steadfast, merciful, virtuous, humble to God and to his neighbour, teaching his monks in accordance with the words of the apostle Paul. For these are the words of Paul: ‘Imitate me,’ says Paul, ‘as I have imitated Christ, to receive honour from God and [? not] from men; and seek not anything for the sake of worldly glory, but for God.’ 

    (70) And he neglected none of the commandments of God, but (gave) bread to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty, welcomed strangers, and visited the sick, (giving) alms to the poor and clothes to the naked. And the motive for which he did so was this, that he might obtain his portion in the life everlasting, and for fear of the reproof of God in the presence of the judgement. And Ciaran bade his monks to maintain these commandments, that is to have love one to another.

    C. Plummer, ed. and trans., Life of Saint Ciarán of Saighir II, in Bethada Náem nÉrenn: Lives of Irish Saints, Volume II (Oxford, 1922). 

    Note: For a fuller account of the life of Saint Ciarán, also drawn from his hagiography, see the account by Father Albert Barry at the blog here.

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