OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Hymns, Prayers and Poems

  • The Hymn of Saint Sanctain

    May 9 is one of the feast days of Saint Sanctán (Santán, Sanctáin) who, despite being hailed as ‘Bishop Sanctáin the famous’ in The Martyrology of Oengus, remains something of an enigma. Tradition claims that he was a Briton (Welsh) by birth who came to Ireland with his brother Madog (Madoc, Matoc) and credits him with the authorship of a Hymn beginning ‘I beseech the wonderful King’. This hymn was one of the early medieval sources rediscovered during the nineteenth century cultural revival. The version found in the Irish Liber Hymnorum was published at the end of the century and has been posted at the blog here, but below is an 1868 paper from the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, which had been founded three years earlier by the then Archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen. The article is unattributed but discusses the saint and his hymn using the text published by the editor and translator Whitley Stokes, who brought so many early medieval manuscripts to the attention of the wider Irish public. The author starts off somewhat confusingly by trying to claim a Cornish origin for a Saint Sennan, who is not actually our Saint Sanctain at all, neither is he the reputed brother of Saint Patrick. However, we soon move on to the work of the seventeenth-century hagiologist Father John Colgan who lays out the Irish cult of Saint Sanctán and places it in Leinster. Pádraig Ó Riain agrees, locating our saint at two main sites – Ceall Easpaig Shantáin (the church of Bishop Santán) in the parish of Tallaght, County Dublin and at Killalish (Ceall Dá Lis) in the parish of Kilranelagh, County Wicklow. Interestingly, the Dublin site is now known as Saint Anne’s Chapel, our saint having given way to Saint Anne, the grandmother of Christ. Ó Riain also argues that a northern church of Ceall Santáin in County Derry also represents the cult of our saint as does the parish of Santon in the Isle of Man.  There too Santán became confused with Saint Anne. So, overall, this ‘illustrious father, angel-soldier of bright, pure fame’ remains a rather intriguing saint:

    HYMN OF ST. SANCTAIN.

    ST. SANCTAIN was a native of Britain, and is supposed by some to be the same as St. Sannan, who was brother of our apostle, St. Patrick. The martyrologies, however, when commemorating St. Sanctain, are silent as to this fact; they are careful to mention that he was brother of the pilgrim, St. Matoc; and did any such exist, they would assuredly not have failed to refer to his relationship with our apostle. Their statements moreover as to his family and parentage are quite at variance with the ancient documents connected with St. Patrick’s life. There is in Cornwall a small port town and parish named from St. Sennan, and tradition says that this saint went thither from Ireland, and having died there in his hermitage, a church was erected over his remains. Capgrave too, in his Life of St. Wenefreda, states that this holy virgin was interred there prope Sanctum Sennanum. It is not improbable that this was the Sanctain who composed the hymn which we now publish.

    There can be no doubt that in the first ages of our faith the southern districts of England were a favourite resort of Irish saints, and Mr. Blight, in his description of the Cornish churches, writes, that “in the latter part of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century, a numerous company of Irish saints, bishops, abbots, and sons and daughters of kings and noblemen, came into Cornwall, and landed at Pendinas, a peninsula and stony rock where now the town of St. Ives stands.

    Hence they diffused themselves over the western part of the county, and at their several stations erected chapels and hermitages. Their object was to advance the Christian faith. In this they were successful, and so greatly were they reverenced, that whilst the memory of their holy lives still lingered in the minds of the people, churches were built on or near the sites of their chapels and oratories and dedicated to Almighty God in their honour. Thus have their names been handed down to us. Few of them are mentioned in the calendars or in the collections of the lives of saints, and what little is known of them has been chiefly derived from tradition”. He then mentions amongst the Irish saints whose memory is thus venerated there, St. Buriana, “a king’s daughter, a holy woman of Ireland”, St. Livinus, and our St. Sennen, “an Irish abbot, who accompanied St. Buriana into Cornwall”, St. Paul, St. Cheverne (i.e. Kieran), St. Breaca, St. Germoe, and others.

    Colgan, speaking of St. Sanctain, says: “Sanctain, a bishop, by birth a Briton, is honoured on the 9th of May, in the church of Killdaleas, in Leinster, according to the Martyrology of Tallaght and the Festologies of Aengus and Marianus: Samuel, a king of Britain, was his father, and Drechura, daughter of Muiredhac Muinderg, king of Ulster, was his mother”. The Martyrology of Aengus, preserved in the Leabhar Breacc, thus commemorates our saint at the 9th of May, “Bishop Sanctain of good repute”; and the gloss adds:

    “i.e., he was of Kill-da-leis, as Aengus says: and I know not where Kill-da-leis is: and to him belongs Druimlaighille in Tradraighe”.

    Another gloss adds : —

    “i.e., Bishop Sanctain was the son of Samuel Chendisel (low headed): Dectir, daughter of Muiredach Muinderg (red-necked), was his mother: as was prophesied:

    Bishop Sanctain is my beloved,
    The son of Samuel Chendisel,
    Dectir was his mother without stain,
    The daughter of Muiredach Muinderg”.

    It is not easy to fix with certainty the site of the church of Kill da-leis. Colgan tells us that it was in Leinster; and probably it was the present parish of Kildellig, in the barony of Upper Ossory, in the Queen’s County. In the MS. Visitation Book of Dr. James Phelan, appointed Bishop of Ossory in 1669, is preserved a list of the Patrons of the Churches of the Diocese, and in the deanery of Aghavoe we meet with this parish church of Kildelyg, and its patron is marked “Sanctus Ernanus sen Senanus, Abbas”. This can be no other than our St. Sannan, or Sanctain. The memory of St. Sanctain is also cherished in the very ancient church, now commonly called “St. Anne’s”, in the present parish of Rathfarriham: in the Register ” Crede mihi” written in the thirteenth century, it is called Killmesantan: and we learn from the Repertorium Viride that it retained the same name in 1532. In a valuation of 1547, it is called Templesaunton.

    The introduction to the hymn in the Liber Hymnorum is as follows:

    “Bishop Sanctain composed this hymn, and on his way from Cluain-Irard (Clonard) to Inis-Madoc he composed it. He was moreover a brother of Madoc, and both were Welshmen. Madoc came into Erin prior to bishop Sanctain. The cause of the composition of this poem was that he might be preserved from his enemies, and that his brother might admit him amongst his religious in the island. At that time he was ignorant of the Irish language (Scoticam linguam usque ad hanc horam non habuit), but God miraculously granted it to him. The time of its composition is uncertain”. (MS. St. Isidore’s, pag. 41).

    In the Martyrology of Donegal, the feast of St. Sanctain is thus registered on the 9th of May: “Sanctan son of Samuel Ceinnisel, bishop of Cill-da-les: Deichter, daughter of Muireadhach Muinderg, king of Uladh, was his mother, and the mother of Matoc the pilgrim”. On the feast of St. Matog (25th of April) the same is repeated: “Matog, the pilgrim. Deichter …… was his mother, and the mother of bishop Sanctan”.

    The only other document connected with bishop Sanctain which we have been able to discover, is the following short poem in his honour, which is added in the Roman MS. of the “Liber Hymnorum” immediately after his hymn:

    Bishop Sanctan, illustrious among the ancients,
    Angel-Soldier of pure, bright fame;
    My body is enslaved on Earth,
    May he receive my soul in Heaven.
    Offer a prayer for me, O Mary!
    May the mercy of the mystery be unto us;
    Against wounding, against danger, against suffering,
    O Christ! afford us thy protection,
    I implore the noble, everlasting King;
    May the Only-Begotten of God plead for us;
    Against sharp torments may
    The Son who was born in Bethlehem defend me.

    …..As regards the date of St. Sanctain’s hymn, it cannot be fixed with accuracy, as we are ignorant of the year of the saint’s demise. It seems however certain, that he flourished in the beginning of the sixth century. The title of illustrious among the ancients, given to him in the poem just cited, brings him back to the first fathers of our Church: the special archaic forms of his ‘difficult hymn’, as Mr. Stokes justly calls it, point to the same period, whilst his connection with St. Madog cannot be verified in any other age. There are many saints indeed who bear a similar name in our calendar; but there is only one in whom the epithet of Madog the pilgrim is verified, viz., the St. Cadoc, who holds so distinguished a place among the saints of Wales. He, too, was the son of a British prince, whilst, as Colgan writes, “he is justly reckoned among the Irish saints, as his mother, his instructors, and many of his relatives, were Irish, and he himself lived for some time in our island” (Acta SS. page 159). This distinguished antiquarian further tells us that he “is the same as St. Mo-chatoc”, a disciple of SS. Patrick and Fiecc, as we have seen in the March number of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record. Thus we have a clue to the Inis-Matog, in which St. Sanctain wished to take up his abode with his holy brother: for, St. Mochatoc, as we learn from his life, chose Inis-fail for his monastery, which no doubt was in after times from the name of this great founder styled by the religious Inis-Madoc.

    Hymn of St. Sanctain.

    I beseech the wonderful King of Angels,
    For his is the name that is mightiest;
    God be with me on my track, God on my left,
    God before me, God on my right.

    God to help me, O holy invocation!
    Against every danger that I encounter;
    Let there be a bridge of life under me,
    The blessing of God the Father over me.

    May the Noble Trinity awaken him,
    For whom a good death is not in store.
    The Holy Spirit, the Strength of Heaven
    God the Father, the great Son of Mary.

    May the great King, who knows our crimes,
    God of the noble sinless world,
    Be with my soul against every sin of falsity,
    That the torment of demons may not touch me.

    May God repel every sadness from me;
    May Christ relieve my sufferings;
    May the Apostles be around me,
    May the Trinity of witness come to me.

    May a flood of mercy come from Christ,
    Whose wounds are not hidden (from us):
    Let not death touch me,
    Nor bitterness, nor plague, nor disease.

    Let not a sharp cast touch me
    Apart from God’s Son, who gladdens and who mortifies:
    Let Christ protect me against every iron-death,
    Against fire, against the raging sea.

    Against every death-pool that is dangerous
    To my body, with awful storms,
    May God at every hour be with me,
    Against the wind, against the swift waters.

    I will utter the praises of Mary’s Son,
    Who battles our white battles,
    May God of the elements answer;
    A corslet in battle shall be my prayer.

    Whilst praying to God of the Heavens,
    Let my body be enduring penitent,
    That I may not go to awful Hell
    I beseech the King whom I have besought.
    I beseech, etc.

    P.S. Since this article was printed we happily learned that the three strophes given at pag. 320, though not printed by Mr. Stokes, were in reality preserved in the Liber Hymnorum, T.C.D. As this MS. presents some very important readings, we here insert its text:

    Bishop Sanctain, illustrious father,
    Angel-soldier of bright, pure fame;
    My body being freed on earth,
    May he receive my soul in Heaven.
    Offer a prayer for me, O Mary!
    That the heavenly mercy may be shown to us:
    Against wounding, against danger, against suffering,
    O Christ, afford us thy protection.
    I implore the noble, everlasting king;
    May the Only-begotten of God plead for us;
    Against sharp torments, may
    The Son who was born in Bethlehem defend me.

    THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD, APRIL, 1868, 317-324.

     

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  • ‘I beseech a wonderful king': The Hymn of Saint Sanctán

    Below is a hymn attributed to Saint Sanctán (Santán), who, although he is described in the Martyrology of Oengus on his May 9 feast day as ‘famous Bishop Sanctán’, remains intriguingly obscure. Canon O’Hanlon’s account of the saint, which can be read at the blog here records the traditions concerning his British origins and those of his brother Saint Matoc (Madog). The Preface to the hymn, preserved in the early eleventh-century Irish Liber Hymnorum, says that it was composed as Saint Sanctán was on a visit to his brother at the island which bore his name, Inis Matoc. The island’s location has never been identified, although Canon O’Hanlon notes that an island in the lake of Templeport, County Leitrim had been suggested. He also notes that as the the Preface makes clear, up until the visit which inspired the hymn Saint Sanctán was ‘completely ignorant of the Scottish language; but, that he miraculously obtained the gift of Irish metrical composition’. A most timely and useful miracle indeed! Below is the text of Saint Sanctán’s hymn, with a tribute to the author appended, taken from the 1898 translation of The Irish Liber Hymnorum by Bernard and Atkinson:

    PREFACE TO ST. SANCTAN’S HYMN.

    ‘I beseech a wonderful king” Bishop Sanctan composed this hymn, and it was on his going to Clonard westward to Inis Matoc that he composed it; he was brother to Matoc, both of them being of British race, but Matoc came into Ireland earlier quam Bishop Sanctan. Causa autem haec est, to free it ab hostibus, and that his brother should be allowed (to come) to him in insulam; Scoticam uero linguam usque ad horam hanc non habuit sed deus ei tam cito eam donauit. Tempus autem dubitatur.

    St. Sanctan’s Hymn.

    I beseech a wonderful King of angels,
    for it is a name that is mightiest;
    to me (be) God for my rear, God on my left,
    God for my van, God on my right!

    God for my help,—holy call—
    against each danger, Him I invoke!
    a bridge of life let there be below me,
    benediction of God the Father above me!

    Let the lofty Trinity arouse us,
    (each one) to whom a good death (?) is not (yet) certain!
    Holy Spirit noble, strength of heaven,
    God the Father, Mary’s mighty Son!

    A great King who knows our offences
    Lord over earth, without sin,—
    to my soul for every black-sin
    let never demons’ godlessness (?) visit me !

    God with me, may He take away each toil!
    may Christ draw up my pleadings,
    may apostles come all around me,
    may the Trinity of witness come to me!

    May mercy come to me (on) earth,
    from Christ let not (my) songs be hidden!
    let not death in its death-wail reach me,
    nor sudden death in disease befal me!

    May no malignant thrust that stupefies and perplexes
    reach me without permission of the Son of God!
    May Christ save us from every bloody death,
    from fire, from raging sea !

    From every death-drink, that is unsafe
    for my body, with many terrors!
    may the Lord each hour come to me
    against wind, against swift waters!

    I shall utter the praises of Mary’s Son
    who fights for good deeds,
    (and) God of the elements will reply,
    (for) my tongue (is) a lorica for battle.

    In beseeching God from the heavens
    may my body be incessantly laborious;
    that I may not come to horrible hell
    I beseech the King whom I have besought.
    I beseech a wonderful King.

    Bishop Sanctan … a sage
    soldier, angel famous pure-white,
    may he make free my body on earth,
    may he make holy my soul towards heaven !

    May there be a prayer with thee for me, O Mary!
    May heaven’s King be merciful to us
    against wound, danger and peril!
    O Christ, on Thy protection (rest) we !

    I beseech the King free, everlasting
    Only Son of God, to watch over us;
    may He protect me against sharp dangers,
    He, the Child that was born in Bethlehem.

    J.H. Bernard and R. Atkinson (eds. and trans.), The Irish Liber hymnorum, Vol. II (Henry Bradshaw Society, London, 1898), 47-48.

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  • 'Mary the Virgin: your own holy mother': Devotion to Our Lady in the Early Irish Church

    Our Lady of Dunsford, Co. Down

    As May is the month traditionally dedicated to Our Lady, I have been enjoying some of the early Irish sources which pay tribute to her.  It is worth reflecting on the fact that the year 431, the year in which Pope Celestine sent Palladius as the first bishop to the Irish believing in Christ, is the same year in which Saint Cyril of Alexandria was defending Mary’s claim to be Theotokos, the god-bearer, at the Council of Ephesus. So, what evidence is there of devotion to Our Lady in the centuries following Christianity’s arrival up until the year 1200?

    I will begin with the Irish calendars which refer to both the person of the Blessed Virgin and to her feast days. The Prologue to the ninth-century Martyrology of Oengus draws a contrast between Pilate’s haughty queen ‘whose splendour has vanished since she went into into a place of mould. Not so is Mary the Virgin..Adam’s race…magnifies her, with a host of angels.’ Saint Oengus often describes Christ in relation to His Mother as the ‘Son of holy Mary’ or as ‘Mary’s great Son’, and he begs God in the Epilogue to his Martyrology to ‘heal my heart for sake of Mary’s Son’. He is no less enthusiastic when recording Marian feasts. February 2 is ‘The reception of Mary’s Son in the Temple’, August 15 the ‘great feast of her commemoration, very Mother of our Father, with a host of kings, right splendid assembly!’, September 8 is the day ‘Thou shalt commemorate Mary’ and at December 25  he declares ‘At great marvellous Christmas, Christ from white-pure Mary was born’. We can find the idea of Our Lady as Queen of All Saints reflected in the Irish Martyrologies too. In the Epilogue to the Martyrology of Oengus, there is a description of the various companies of heaven being grouped around important figures of the universal Church. Stanza 249 begins with ‘the troop of martyrs around Stephen’ and ends with ‘the troop of holy virgins around Mary.’ The later martyrologist, Marianus O’Gorman, whose very name is a Latinization of the Irish Máel Muire, meaning someone devoted to Our Lady, records at November 1 ‘On the venerable day of Allhallowtide behold ye the Lord Himself, the angels, a mystical band and all the saints of heaven, hosts with clear white purity, around great honourable Mary.’

    Irish monastic poems, hymns and devotional texts reflect the same understanding. A Litany to Christ known as the Scúap chrábaid ‘The Broom of Devotion’, ascribed to Colcu úa Duinechda, an eighth-century scholar and lector from Clonmacnoise, includes this petition “I beseech you by all the holy virgins throughout the whole world, with Mary the Virgin, your own holy mother’. Later the author begs to be heard ‘For the sake of the pure and holy flesh which you received from the womb of the virgin’ and ‘For the sake of the holy womb from which you received that flesh without loss of dignity’. Also from the eighth century are the two poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan, published in 1964 by Professor James Carney, having been re-discovered as a neglected seventeenth-century manuscript of Friar Michael O’Clery’s in the National Library of Ireland in the 1950s. The poet addresses both of his works to Our Lady and the first poem is all the more remarkable because it begins with Blathmac wishing to join with Her in keening Her son:

    Come to me loving Mary that I may keen
    with you very dear one.
    Alas that your son should go to the cross,
    he who was a great emblem, a beautiful hero.

    The image of Our Lady of Sorrows is something we associate more with the later Middle Ages, with Saint Brigid of Sweden, with the Servites etc., yet here this Irish poet centuries earlier wishes to compassionate the sorrowful mother. He ends his poem saying:

    Come to me loving Mary,
    head of pure faith,
    that we may hold converse with the
    compassion of unblemished heart. Come.

    Blathmac also uses a particularly Irish form of endearment when seeking Our Lady’s intercessory power, asking:

    Let me have from you my three petitions,
    beautiful Mary, little bright-necked one;
    get them, sun of women,
    from your Son who has them in His power’.

    Another eighth-century work of special interest is the hymn composed by Cú Cuimhne of Iona, Cantemus in omni die, ‘Let us sing every day… a hymn worthy of holy Mary. I have previously published a Victorian hymnographer’s translation of the text here, but below is a more recent and literal translation:

    Let us sing every day,
    harmonising in turns,
    together proclaiming to God
    a hymn worthy of holy Mary.

    In two-fold chorus, from side to side,
    let us praise Mary,
    so that the voice strikes every ear
    with alternating praise.

    Mary of the Tribe of Judah,
    Mother of the Most High Lord,
    gave fitting care
    to languishing mankind.

    Gabriel first brought the Word
    from the Father’s bosom
    which was conceived and received
    in the Mother’s womb.

    She is the most high,
    she the holy venerable Virgin
    who by faith did not draw back,
    but stood forth firmly.

    None has been found, before or since,
    like this mother –
    not out of all the descendants
    of the human race.

    By a woman and a tree
    the world first perished;
    by the power of a woman
    it has returned to salvation

    Mary, amazing mother,
    gave birth to her Father,
    through whom the whole wide world,
    washed by water, has believed.

    She conceived the pearl
    – they are not empty dreams-
    for which sensible Christians
    have sold all they have.

    The mother of Christ had made
    a tunic of a seamless weave;
    Christ’s death accomplished,
    it remained thus by casting of lots.

    Let us put on the armour of light,
    the breastplate and helmet,
    that we might be perfected by God,
    taken up by Mary.

    Truly, truly, we implore,
    by the merits of the Child-bearer,
    that the flame of the dread fire
    be not able to ensnare us.

    Let us call on the name of Christ,
    below the angel witness,
    that we may delight and be inscribed
    in letters in the heavens.

    In addition to these devotional texts, we also have an Irish apocryphal text, the Transitus Mariae, the Passage of Mary, which deals with the traditions surrounding Her Assumption into heaven. Scholars believe these traditions reached Ireland, possibly from Syria, in the seventh century. Here is how the Transitus Mariae depicts the end of Our Lady’s life:

    24 Thereupon Christ, son of the living God, came with the angels of heaven, who were singing heavenly harmonies for the Saviour, and in honour of Mary. Christ greeted the apostles, and Mary saluted him, saying: “I bless you, son of the heavenly father. You have fulfilled all your promises, and have come yourself [for me]”.

    25-27 When Mary had finished saying these words, the spirit of life departed from her, and the Saviour took it in his hands with reverence and honour. The archangels of heaven rose up around her, and the apostles saw her being raised up by the angels, in human form, and seven times brighter than the sun. Then the apostles enquired whether there was any other soul as bright as the soul of Mary. Jesus answered and said to Peter: “All souls are like that after baptism. When in the world, the darkness of bodily sin adheres to them. No one else in the world is able to avoid sin as Mary could, therefore Mary’s soul is brighter than the soul of every other person in the world”.

    Finally, we have the tradition of regarding our national patroness Saint Brigid as Muire na nGael, the Mary of the Irish, a type of the Virgin Mary.  This tradition can be traced through the centuries beginning with the early seventh-century prophecy preserved in genealogical sources relating to Leinster. It tells of the great saint to come ..’who shall be called, from her great virtues, truly pious Brigit; she will be another Mary, mother of the great Lord’. Various of the Lives of Saint Brigid describe her in similar terms, and she is equated with Mary in the List of Parallel Saints, which compares Irish saints with important figures of the universal Church. And I can think of no better way to close than with the ending to the hymn of Saint Broccán Clóen, published by the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, in his Trias Thaumaturga which says:

    ’There are two virgins in heaven who will not give me a forgetful protection, Mary, and Saint Brigid. Under the protection of them both may we remain’.

    Amen to that.

    Sources and Resources:

    The two major historical studies of devotion to Our Lady in Ireland I used are(1) Helena Concannon’s  The Queen of Ireland: An Historical Account of Ireland’s Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (Dublin, 1938) and (2) Peter O’Dwyer, O.CARM., Mary: A history of devotion in Ireland (Dublin 1988).

    Translations of the Irish martyrologies are available through the Internet Archive at https://archive.org

    For the poems of Blathmac see James P. Carney [ed.], The poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan: together with the Irish Gospel of Thomas and a poem on the Virgin Mary, Irish Texts Society, 47, London: Irish Texts Society, 1964.

    The ‘Broom of Devotion’ is one of the texts included in the collection edited by Oliver Davies and Thomas O’Loughlin Celtic Spirituality. Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1999).

    The translation of Cantemus in omni die can be found in the anthology edited by T.O. Clancy and G. Márkus O.P.,  Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery (University of Edinburgh Press, 1995).

    The Transitus Mariae is among the texts included in M. Herbert and M. McNamara MSC., Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation ( Edinburgh, 1989).
    Sources for Saint Brigid can be found in Noel Kissane, Saint Brigid of Kildare- Life, Legend and Cult (Dublin, 2017).

    Finally, the photograph shows the medieval stone statue of Our Lady of Dunsford taken on a visit to Saint Mary’s church in Chapeltown in 2017.  Local historian Duane Fitzsimons has written a book about the statue’s rediscovery and the parish which houses it called Under the Shade of Our Lady’s Sweet Image – The Story of a Unique Coastal Parish in the Diocese of Down and Connor (Killyleagh, 2016).

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