OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Female Saints

  • Saint Ite of Kileedy, January 15

    January 15 is the commemoration of Saint Ite of Kileedy, ‘the shining light of the women of Mumhan’, as Saint Oengus the Martyrologist calls her. She is one of a handful of Irish female saints who have surviving Lives and in his account of Saint Ite below, Father Albert Barry has drawn on this rich hagiographical tradition to present a picture of her sanctity and her miracles:

    Saint Ite was born in the year 480, and was of the Deise family. St. Patrick had preached the Gospel to the Deise a few years before her birth. ”Patrick then went into the southern Deise (Co. Limerick), and began to build a Church at Ard-Patrick”, Tripartite. The Deise afterwards went southwards towards the sea (Co. Waterford).

    Ite was fond of fasting and prayer whilst she was still a child. The room where she slept seemed one night to be on fire, but when the inmates of the house rushed into it, they beheld a wonderful light shining from the face of the sleeping girl: and she looked like an Angel. 

    An Angel gave her three precious gems, telling her that the three Persons     of the blessed Trinity would in future watch over her.

    Her father wished her to marry, but she would not, because she had consecrated her virginity to God. He was very angry with her, but she said to her mother, “Although my father now forbids me to give myself to Jesus Christ, he will one day tell me to go where I wish in order to give myself to God”. She fasted and prayed for three days that the holy will of God might be done in her. On the third day the devil came and said to her, “Alas, you will withdraw yourself and many others from me”. And an Angel at the same time said to her father, ”Why do you hinder your daughter taking the veil of virginity? Ite will be a great and holy virgin before God and His saints. You ought to let her go wherever she wishes. She will serve God in another part of this land.” Her father, therefore, at once allowed her to go away.

    Ite left her father’s house, and on her way heard the devils saying: “Woe to us, the Angels of God help her: she will snatch many souls from us.” She went to a neighbouring church and there got the veil of virginity from a Priest, and, led by an Angel, went to the west of Hy-Connail and built a house for herself and some companions at Cluain Creadhail, at the foot of Sliabh-Luachra (Killeedy, Co. Limerick.)

    Ite and her Nuns prayed daily for the people of the place, and many blessings thereby flowed upon them. They, in turn, gave many gifts to her Convent. She had the gifts of prophecy and of working miracles, and she healed many sick persons by her prayers. She once told a holy friend that she had got these gifts from God, because from her youth she had always thought on holy things, and because she had so often prayed to the Blessed Trinity.

    Ite spent many days at a time without food, prayed much, and earnestly strove to bring up young maidens in the fear and love of God. Cuinnen of Conneire says of her:

    Ite loved much the bringing up of youth
    Humility without sadness:
    Her cheek to the floor she laid not:
    Ever, ever for the love of the Lord.

    Since she bound the girdle on her body.
    And I know it since I’ve heard it,
    She ate not a full or sufficing meal,
    Such was Mide.

    Aenghus, in his lives of the Irish Saints, also thus writes of her: 

    ”Ite ever bore great sufferings,
    and was much given to fasting,
    and was the shining     light
    of the women of Mumhan.”

    She was not only a teacher of youth, but even gave wise counsel to holy and learned men. S. Breanan and S. Mochoemoc owed much to her teaching. S. Breanan one day asked her to tell him what were the three works most pleasing to God. She said: ”Trustful resignation to God of a sinless heart: a guileless religious life: generosity with charity. These three works are most pleasing to God.” He then asked her to say what were the three things most hateful to Him. She answered: “Hatred of men: wickedness in the heart: too great love of money. These three things are very hateful to God.”

    A Nun one day saw three bright balls of light over Ite’s head as she was praying to the Blessed Trinity.

    Ite prayed to God that she might, on a coming feast-day, get Holy Communion at the hands of a very holy Priest. Her prayer was heard, and she was led by an Angel to Clonmacnois, and there ate the heavenly Bread. The holy Priest who gave her Communion afterwards set out for Ite’s Convent, and when he had come to it, asked her to give sight to a blind Monk then with him. She did so, and asked the holy Priest to sing Mass for her. After Mass she gave him a present of the vestments, but he would not take them, saying that he had been forbidden by his Abbot to take any gift from her. Ite then said, “Your holy Abbot will not be angry if you take this towel as a gift from me; I will tell you why. One day he came to the Convent of the holy virgin Caireche and she asked to be allowed to wash his feet. Then this holy virgin washed the feet of your Abbot and wiped them with a towel. I give it now to you, and he will be glad to get it when reminded of this fact”. The holy Priest then took the gift, and having got her blessing, went back to Clonmacnois.

    A man, broken-hearted, through the death of his son, came to the Convent, and weeping very much, begged her to bring him back to life. He said: “I will not give over weeping, nor will I leave this house until you bring him back to life.” She answered gently: “What you ask is above my merits, and is a work fit only for the Apostles and holy men like them”. But he said: ”I am, above all, sorry because my son lost the use of his speech, so that he was not able to confess his sins; I, therefore, beseech you to get from the Holy Trinity that he may come back to life even for one day.” Ite then said: ” How long do you want him to live if the good God should have pity on you and bring back your son to life?”  The father answered: “I will be glad if he lives even for one day.” Ite said: ” He will live for more than seven years from this time.” She prayed earnestly to God, and her prayer was heard, and the child came to life again.

    Her uncle died, and his sons by her wish came to the Convent. She said to them: “My uncle, your father, is dead. Alas, he is now suffering for his sins. We ought to do something to lessen his sufferings. Let each one of you give bread and meat and butter to the poor every day for the next year for the good of his soul. Then come back to me.” They did as she bade them and then came back to see her. Ite said to them: ”Your father has been freed from much suffering through your alms and my prayers. Now go and do the same thing during the coming year and then come back again.” When they had come back at the end of the year Ite said: ”Your father is now freed from his sufferings, but give clothing to the poor and come back once more. They did so, and having come to her again, she told them that their father had at last gone to heaven: ” Your father now enjoys everlasting happiness through your alms, my prayers, but above all through the mercy of God; keep always from the sinful pleasures of this world, that you may not suffer for your sins as he did.” They thanked God and their holy cousin and went home.

    In the year 546 the clan of the Corcoiche of Hy-Figeinte (Co. Limerick), made war on the people of Hy-Connaill. Ite told the soldiers to do penance for their sins before going to battle. They did so, and she prayed whilst they fought, and the small and weak army of Hy-Connaill, through her prayers, won the battle.

    One of her nuns fell into sin and God made it known to Ite. She said: “Today one of our family has fallen into sin; I wish to know who among you has become the prey of the ravening wolf?”  Each denied it, but Ite drove the guilty one from the house. However, she took her back afterwards, and, helped by Ite, this nun, led henceforth a blameless life, and did great penance until her death.

    Ite suffered great agony from a cancer that ate away her side, but she bore it gladly from her love for Jesus Christ.

    In the year 569, Ite became very sick, and crowds flocked from all sides to the Convent on hearing of her illness, and, kneeling outside, prayed for a happy death for her whom they loved so much.

    When she was dying she prayed earnestly to the holy Trinity to bless the Priests and people of Hy-Connaill, and with a prayer to the blessed Trinity on her lips she slept in the Lord.

    Holy Mass was solemnly sung for her, and she was buried in presence of a great crowd of weeping people. Many miracles were worked by her both then and afterwards, and she was taken by the people of Hy-Connaill as their patron and protector. She has ever since been called “The Brigid of Munster.”

    Her feast-day is kept January 15th.

    Rev. Albert Barry, Lives of Irish Saints (Dublin, n.d.)


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  • Saints Ethnea and Fidelmia, January 11

    M.F. Cusack, The Life of St. Patrick (1871)

    Saints Ethnea and Fidelmia (Ethna and Fidelma) are sisters who feature in one of the most beautiful stories from the hagiography of Saint Patrick. The pair boast an impressive aristocratic pedigree, being the daughters of King Laoighaire and grand-daughters of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Their story is set against the backdrop of the struggle between Christianity and paganism as Saint Patrick comes to Croghan, the royal residence of the kings of Connaught. There he encounters these daughters of King Laoighaire. We can let Saint Patrick’s biographer, Tirechan, take up the story:

    Afterwards, then, before sunrise, holy Patrick came to the well that is called Clebach on the eastern slopes of Cruachu. They sat down beside the well, and suddenly there appeared two daughters of King Loiguire, Ethne the fair and Fedelm the red. These had come, as is the women’s custom, to wash in the morning. They found the holy gathering of bishops with Patrick by the well, and they had no idea where they were from or what was their nature or their people or their homeland; but they thought that maybe they were men of the si or the gods of the earth or phantoms.

    The girls said to them: “Are you really there? Where have you come from?”

    Patrick replied to them:”It would be better for you to confess faith in our true God than to ask questions about our origin.”

    The first girl asked: “Who is God and where is God, and whose God is he, and where is his house? Has your God sons and daughters, gold and silver? Is he alive forever? Is he beautiful? Have many people fostered his son? Are his daughters dear and beautiful to the men of this world? Is he in heaven or on earth, in the sea, on mountains, in valleys? Give us some idea of him: how may he be seen, how loved; how may he be found – is he found in youth or in old age?”

    In reply, Patrick, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: “Our God is the God of all people, the God of heaven and earth, of the seas and the rivers, the God of the sun and the moon and of all the stars, the God of the high mountains and of the deep valleys. He is God above heaven and in heaven and under heaven, and has as his dwelling place heaven and earth and the sea and all that are in them. His life is in all things; he makes all things live; he governs all things; he supports all things. He kindles the light of the sun; he builds the light and the manifestations of the night, he makes wells in arid land and dry islands in the sea, and he sets the stars in place to serve the major lights. He has a son who is coeternal with him and of like nature. The Son is not younger than the Father nor the Father than the Son; and the Holy Spirit breathes in them. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not separate. Truly, now, since you are daughters of an earthly king, I wish that you will believe and I wish to wed you to the king of heaven.”

    And the girls said, as if with one voice and from one heart: “Teach us most diligently how we may believe in the heavenly king, so that we may see him face to face. Direct us, and we will do whatever you say.”

    And Patrick said: “Do you believe that you cast off the sin of your father and mother through baptism?”

    They replied: “We believe.”

    “Do you believe in penance after sin?”

    “We believe.”

    “Do you believe in life after death?” “Do you believe in the resurrection on the Day of Judgment?”

    “We believe.”

    “Do you believe in the unity of the Church?”

    “We believe.”

    And they were baptized, and a white veil placed on their heads. They demanded to see the face of Christ, to which the saint said: “Unless you taste death, and unless you receive the sacrament you can’t see the face of Christ.”

    They replied: “Give us the sacrament, so that it will be possible for us to see the Son, our bridegroom.”

    They received God’s eucharist and slept in death. Their friends laid them both in one bed, covered with their clothes, and raised a lament and a great keen.

    The druid Caplit, who had fostered one of them, came and wept. Patrick preached to him, and he believed, and the hair of his head was shorn. And his brother Mael came and said: “My brother believed in Patrick, but I don’t. I will convert him back again to heathenism”.

    And he spoke harsh words to Patrick and to Mathonus. But Patrick preached to him and converted him to God’s penance. The hair of his head was shorn. Its style had been that of the druids – “airbacc giunnae“, as it is called. From this comes the most famous of Irish sayings, “Calvus [‘bald ‘, i.e. ‘Mael’] and Caplit: the same difference” – they believed in God.

    When the days of keening the kings’ daughter came to an end they buried them beside the well of Clebach and made a round ditch in the fashion of a ferta. That was the custom of the heathen Irish. But we call it relic, that is, the remains of the girls.

    And the ferta was granted in perpetuity to Patrick and his heirs after him, along with the bones of the holy girls. He built an earthen church in that place.

    (translation from Liam de Paor, Saint Patrick’s World, 163-165).

    Canon O’Hanlon admits that the evidence for the numbering of Ethnea and Fidelmia among the saints of Ireland on 11th January, owed more to the 17th-century hagiologist Father John Colgan than to the Irish calendars. A Saint Feidelmai is listed on the Martryology of Tallaght on January 11, as was noted by Colgan, who also noted the presence of a Saint Ethnea on the 28th February. Thus, as O’Hanlon confesses:

    ‘The only reason Colgan had for placing the festival of both holy virgins at this day was the circumstance of a St. Fedelmia first occurring in our calendars, and a want of knowing that day to which their Acts could more appropriately be assigned.’

    Whether either of these saints listed on the calendars can be identified with the daughters of Laoighaire is open to question. But as Canon O’Hanlon points out, Colgan has good reason for his making sure these ‘heroic virgins’ occupy their place:

    ‘First, all the Acts of St. Patrick concur in recording their admirable innocence of life, their miraculous conversion, and their no less miraculous passage to the society of their Spouse, Jesus Christ. Secondly, the fact of a church having been erected to their memory, at the place where they died, manifests the affectionate reverence entertained for them by St. Patrick himself. Thirdly, the transmission of their relics, from the first place of their deposition to the Metropolitan See of Armagh, indicates still more the respect in which those noble virgins were held, long after their departure, and which seems corroborative of their having been in the odour of sanctity. ‘

    Who could disagree? The beauty and pathos of the story of the conversion of these royal sisters at the well and of the wonderful confession of faith which their questions elicited from Saint Patrick, make them indeed worthy.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Cera of Kilkeary, January 5

    January 5 is one of the feast days of Saint Ceara, patroness of Kilkeary, County Tipperary. The account below has been taken from Volume I of Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints:

     

    ST. CEARA, CIAR, CYRA, CIOR, OR CERA, VIRGIN, PATRONESS OF KILKEARY PARISH, COUNTY OF TIPPERARY.

    [SEVENTH CENTURY.]

    We find the name of this holy virgin variously written Ceara, Ciar, Cior, Cyra, and Cera in the Irish Menologies. Our national hagiographist, Colgan, has endeavoured to compile acts of this saint for the 5th of January; but it is probable he fell into mistakes during the process. According to his computation, she must have been born sometime about the middle of the sixth century. It seems more likely, however, that her birth took place about or after the commencement of the century succeeding. The father of this holy virgin was named Duibhre. Her origin is derived from the royal race of Conor, King of Ireland. Both in this island and in Scotland many royal and saintly descendants from this monarch flourished. As founders of families and religious houses many of those personages are distinguished.

    St. Cera is said to have been a native of Muscraidhe Thire but in what particular part of the present baronies of Upper and Lower Ormond, in Tipperary county, she was born has not transpired. As she grew, however, the fame of her sanctity and miracles became widely known. A miracle having reference to her is introduced by Colgan, in which it is stated, that at the request of St. Brendan, patron of Clonfert, this holy virgin, St. Cera, by her prayers extinguished a pestiferous fire which had broken out in the region of Muscraidhe Thire.” Her reputation for piety soon drew many virtuous persons to imitate her example. She was then induced to erect a nunnery, which took the name of Cill Ceire from her. It is now known as Kilkeary, near Nenagh, in the barony of Upper Ormond, county Tipperary. Here she governed a community of nuns, but not so early as the sixth century.

    There appears to be no sufficient reason for supposing she lived contemporaneously with St. Brendan of Clonfert; and the story to which allusion has been already made may rest only on popular rumour, or have reference to some other St. Cera. Perhaps, indeed, as we shall see hereafter, she may have lived in the time of a St. Brendan, who was quite a different person; and in the case of homonymous saints, it may often be doubted, if legends prevailing and attributed to one of them may not rather be ascribed to some other, and to a totally distinct person.

    Having ruled over her religious establishment in Muscraighe Thire for some time with great prudence and sanctity, Cera found the number of her postulants daily on the increase. She then resolved on seeking another location where she might erect a second house. Accordingly, the holy woman left Kilkeary, in company with some of her religious. She directed her course, it is said, towards Heli, or Ely O’Carroll country – but it would appear she went beyond its bounds to the northern part of the King’s County. From St. Fintan Munnu she is said to have obtained the site for a nunnery, and at a place called Tech Telle. It is now known as Tehelly. There St. Fintan Munnu lived; but to St. Cera and to the five nuns who accompanied her he resigned that site. Here she is thought to have remained for some time – afterwards she returned to Kilkeary.

    A learned writer supposes St. Cera’s establishment was not formed at Kilkeary until after she had left Tech Telle; but for this opinion he assigns no valid reason. At all events, in Kilkeary she spent many years, which were devoted to the exercises of penance and of a holy life. To reconcile his conjecture that St. Cera lived before the death of St. Brendan the Navigator, Colgan maintains that she must have attained the extraordinary age of 120 or 130 years. This holy virgin resigned her pure soul to the Creator on the 5th day of January, A.D. 679,- but another festival to her memory is held on the 16th of October. The following stanza, from the Leabhar Breac copy of the Feilire of St. Oengus, in Irish, at the Nones of January, with its English translation, was obligingly furnished by Mr. O’Longan : —

    ” The call of Semeoin, the sage,
    To Christ of purest form ;
    A new transitory gentle sun was
    Ciar, the daughter of Duibrea. ”

    According to this translation, the probable inference to be drawn from the foregoing would be that Ciar lived for a short time only, and yet her virtues shone brightly; while it is right to observe the commentator on this passage seemed to think she lived only a short time before St. Oengus wrote, for in a gloss he thus states:

    “not long since, or short since, she was, i.e., in Cill Chen, in Muscraidhe Thire, and she is of the race of Conaire.”

    The Semeoin alluded to in the text was St. Simeon Stylites, venerated at the 5th of January. The “Martyrology of Tallagh,” the “Calendar of Cashel,” Marianus O’Gorman, and the “Martyrology of Donegal,” commemorate a Ceara on both these days. This latter feast, however, may have reference to a different saint of the name, for we find her called Ceara, of Maghascadh. Yet it is expressly stated by Marianus O’Gorman and Charles Maguire that the present St. Cera’s body was buried in the Church of Magh-ascadh. It seems doubtful enough if this can be identical with the Church of Kill-chere, where the “Calendar of Cashel” and other authorities state that her remains repose. Some confusion seems to have arisen, for there are different saints of this name represented as having been assigned to various days in our Menologies. It is conjectured by Colgan that the 5th of January must have been her natalis, or the date for St. Cera’s death – while the 16th of October must refer to some other commemoration or solemnity, probably to a translation of her relics.

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