OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • An Irish Poem on the Day of Judgement

    I have been re-reading Donald Meek’s excellent The Quest for Celtic Christianity, a review of which can be found on the blog here. He points out that modern ‘Celtic Christians’, in their desire to recast the early medieval Irish (and Scottish and Welsh) church in their own image, leads some of its exponents to:

    …make light of, or completely avoid, those aspects of early medieval Catholic doctrine and practice which are characteristic of real Celtic Christianity. Protestant writers who wish to claim ‘Celtic Christianity’ as their model make little or no mention of the mass, the practice of penance or the widespread belief in the efficacy of relics.

    Donald Meek, The Quest for Celtic Christianity, (Edinburgh, 2000), p.95.

    I had this in mind while reading the poem below on the Day of Judgement, which the editor thought may date to the tenth century. The impossibly upbeat modern “Celtic church” has little time for sin, judgement and hell, yet here we have a Middle Irish reflection on these very themes. I am sure that modern ‘Celtic Christians’ would applaud the notion that the poor and humble will be exalted whilst arrogant clerics and other authority figures get their comeuppance. Sadly, our ancestors were not on message about gender equality, for ‘lewd unwomanly women’ face the wrath of heaven’s King too. Yet for all that this poem presents the realities of medieval notions of hell – complete with black demons, fire and suffering – it is balanced by a litany of petitions for deliverance. The final stanza is particularly comforting, expressing the hope that we may be wheat in the divine granary and triumph ‘in the rout of Doom’:

    A Poem on the Day of Judgement

    1. Doom! Not slight will be its uproar when the world will burn; it were meet, O Christ with grades [of angels], that Adam’s seed should dread it.
    2. Obdurate is the human race, harder than stones are their hearts when they heed not the many vast pains.
    3. When the earth will vomit forth the hosts of Adam’s vast seed, when one blaze will fill both heaven and earth.
    4. When the host of hell, the tribes of earth, the multitude of saints, the nine grades of angels will meet in one gathering when each question will be solved.
    5. When the Judge will pronounce righteous true judgements, awarding heaven to the chosen, increase of punishment to the evil folk.
    6. The humble, lowly, devout folk with purity of heart, the despised wretches will be in the ranks of heaven’s King.
    7. The red-mouthed brehons, the lewd, the sinful, the satirists, the contentious, arrogant clerics will find neither honour nor welcome.
    8. The envious, the parricides, the wicked impious chiefs, the lewd unwomanly women will find death and extinction.
    9. Bitter and harsh will be their repentance, they will shed tears over cheeks, the lying, the impious, the folk of every enduring sin.
    10. It will be a shame, it will be a reproach to the host of the wicked, as you shall see, when all will behold the sin of each one of them.
    11. After being for a long space of time in the scorching fire of Doom, they will be cast by the King of the Sun into a place of torture at last.
    12. Sorry will be the outcry they will make, dreadful will be their wailings, as they part from holy angels, as they go with black demons.
    13. Woe to the soul which heeds not the din of the mighty Day of Doom; worse seventy-seven times to dwell in hard avenging hell.
    14. Its bitter cold, its great burning, its hunger, its dreadful thirst, its crushing, its heavy revenge, its horror, its stifling smoke, its slaying.
    15. Its many fearful monsters, its groaning, its wild woeful lament, its fiery rotten sea, its vile devilish faces.
    16. Woe to him who hath come into this world, woe to our body, woe to our souls to each one who is destined to dwell for ever in ruthless hell.
    17. Of Thy fondness, O fond Father, of Thy gentleness, O King of Heaven, cast me not into the bitter prison in which there are many groans.
    18. For the sake of each noble intercession in heaven and on earth, when Thou wilt . . . with me, deal gently with my soul!
    19. For the sake of Thy cross, of Thy passion, of Thy Kingship, O Prince, come valiantly to my aid in all the sufferings of my soul.
    20. For the sake of each noble intercession in heaven and on earth, I pray Thee, O Christ of my heart, that the Kingdom of Heaven may be for my soul.
    21. For the sake of Thy cross, of Thy passion, protect me against all iniquity, lest, O Heavenly King, the temptations of demons or men destroy me.
    22. For the sake of Thy cross, of Thy passion, come forthwith to my aid; before I go from the yellow world take from me every unrighteousness.
    23. Of Thy vast mercy protect me at all times, put into my soul Thy great love, that it may be overflowing with love for Thee.
    24. That I may be wheat in Thy granary on the day when the chaff is burned, that I may carry off victory and triumph yonder in the rout of Doom.

    J.G. O’Keefe, ‘A Poem on the Day of Judgement’, Ériu Vol 3 (1907), 29-33.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.

  • Irish Saints in the War Poetry of Katharine Tynan

     

    Links between Ireland and Belgium were forged during the great missionary endeavours of the early medieval Irish church when Irish saints such as Saint Foillan, Ultan and Fursey made their mark. Later the scholars in exile in the Irish College at Louvain recovered and preserved the Lives of those Irish saints who had laboured in Europe and in many cases reintroduced them to their countrymen. These links were recalled during the First World War when a particular appeal was made to Ireland to come to the aid of ‘gallant little Belgium’ and fight for the rights of small nations. The Irish also made a contribution to the poetry associated with the Great War, and in the two poems below Katharine Tynan (1861-1931) invokes the saints of Ireland for aid and protection. In the first poem, she contrasts a peaceful idyllic scene in Ireland, where people sleep soundly under the watchful presence of the Irish saints, with the scene of devastation in war-ravaged Belgium, where the saints seem to be silent. In the second poem a mother commends her ‘little son’ (probably a big strapping lad!) to the protection of the Irish saints and the heavenly hosts. I would like to dedicate this post to my own great-uncle James, who died aged 19 in 1915 and is one of many who has no known grave, but is remembered only as a name on the Menin Gate Memorial.

    THE WATCHERS

    THE cottages all lie asleep;
    The sheep and lambs are folded in
    Winged sentinels the vale will keep
    Until the hours of life begin.

    The children with their prayers all said
    Sleep until cockcrow shall awake
    The gardens in their gold and red
    And robins in the bush and brake.

    The fields of harvest golden-white,
    The fields of pasture rich and green,
    Sleep on nor fear the kindly night,
    The watching mountains set between.

    The river sings its sleepy song,
    Nought stirs the wakeful owl beside:
    Our peace is builded sure and strong
    No evil beast can creep inside.

    St Patrick and St Brigid hold
    The vale its little houses all,
    While men-at-arms in white and gold
    Glide swiftly by the outer wall.

    St Brendan and St Kevin pluck
    The robes of God that He may hear–
    And Colum: “Keep the Irish flock
    So that no shame or sin come near.”

    What news of Belgian folk to-day?
    How fare the village and the town?
    O Belgium’s all on fire they say,
    And all her towers are toppling down.

    What are her angels doing then,
    And are the Belgian saints asleep,
    That in this night of dule and pain
    The Belgians mourn, the Belgians weep?

    Katharine Tynan, Flower of Youth:Poems in War Time, (London, 1917), 18-19.

    In the second poem, A Woman Commends Her Little Son, an Irish mother calls on a host of heavenly protectors to look out for her boy:

    A WOMAN COMMENDS HER LITTLE SON

    To the aid of my little son
    I call all the magnalities —
    Archangel, Dominion,
    Powers and Principalities.

    Mary without a stain,
    Joseph that was her spouse,
    All God’s women and men,
    Out of His glorious House.

    The Twelve Apostles by him:
    Matthew and Mark and John,
    Luke, the Evangelists nigh him,
    So he fight not alone.

    Patrick, Columcille, Bride —
    The Saints of the Irish nation;
    Keiran, Kevin beside,
    In the death and the desolation.

    Listen, ye soldier saints,
    Sebastian, Ignatius, Joan,
    Be by his side; if he faints,
    Strengthen my little son.

    In the Side of Christ I lay him,
    In the Wound that the spear made;
    In the pierced Hands I stay him,
    So I am not afraid.

    On the knees of the Blessed Mary
    And in the fold of her arm,
    Refuge and sanctuary
    Where he shall take no harm.

    To the Wound in the Heart of Christ,
    To the Trinity Three in One,
    To the Blood spilled out, unpriced,
    For love of my little son.

    Katharine Tynan, Herb o’ Grace: Poems in War-Time. (London, 1918), 49-50.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.

  • Saint Camelacus of Rahan, November 3

    November 3 is the feast day of Saint Camelacus (Camulacus, Caomhlach, Cáemlach) of Rahan, County Offaly. He appears to have been the original founder of the church at Rahan, but was later overshadowed by Saint Mochuda (Mochutu) or Carthage, the saint more readily associated with the monastery at this site. An original founder saint being eclipsed subsequently by another isn’t unknown. Speaking of the seventh century, Richard Sharpe, the translator of The Life of Saint Columba for the Penguin Classics series, makes this point:

    They were years that witnessed immense changes in Irish society and in the Irish church. In particular, some early saints disappear from view as their churches were eclipsed by those of other saints. For example, a letter written in the 630s to Ségéne, fifth abbot of Iona, mentions a group of leading church founders; the list includes St Nessan, who fades from view before anything was recorded of him. Rahan, Co.Offaly, was regarded as the church of St Camelacus in the early seventh century, but a hundred years later his place had been reassigned to St Mochutu.

    Richard Sharpe, ed. and trans. Adomnán of Iona, Life of St Columba (Penguin Books, 1995), p.4

    But fortunately, unlike Saint Nessan, Saint Camelacus did not vanish completely for he is recorded in a number of early medieval sources. One of Saint Patrick’s earliest hagiographers, Tirechán, writing in the closing decade of the seventh century, recorded the names of bishops appointed to establish churches by the Irish patron. He tells us:

    He sent Camelacus of the Comienses to Mag Cumi and with his finger pointed out to him the place from the hill of Granard, that is the church of Raithen.

    What ‘of the Comienses’ means has never been determined. Some scholars feel that the saint’s own name raises questions too. Aidan Breen writes in the online Dictionary of Irish Biography:

    The name Came(u)lacus is unusual. It could be Gaulish, and the epithet ‘of the Comienses’ might therefore refer to some Gaulish tribal group. If that is the case, Camelacus would have been one of the Gaulish bishops who assisted Patrick, along with Auxilius, Iserninus and Secundinus.

    However, he goes on to acknowledge that the name Camelacus could be a Latinization of the Irish Cáemlach and Commienses of a tribal grouping in Offaly.

    The Martyrology of Gorman records the saint under the name ‘Caemlach’ on November 3 with a scholiast note adding ‘from Rathen’. The Martyrology of Donegal records ‘CAEMHLACH, of Raithin’ at the same date.

    But it is as the Latin Camelacus that one of the most intriguing sources testifies to our saint. For a Hymnus Sancti Camelaci is among the twelve hymns found in the late seventh-century Antiphonary of Bangor. The hymn, Audite bonum exemplum (Hear the good example), bears a number of similarities to the better-known and much longer Audite omnes amantes (Listen, all who love God) in honour of Saint Patrick, traditionally ascribed to the authorship of Saint Secundinus, which the Antiphonary also preserves. Father Michael Curran MSC, in his 1984 study The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy, pointed out some similarities between the two hymns. Both are alphabetical hymns, both begin with Audite and both contain some other textual similarities. Furthermore:

    Audite bonum also speaks of Camelacus, who was a fifth-century contemporary of Patrick, as if he were still alive, except in the final two stanzas where he is spoken of as being in his eternal home.

    All of these similarities may indicate either that Audite bonus is an imitation of Audite omnes or that both were written by the same author. The shorter hymn draws a warm and attractive picture of Camelacus, who is characterized above all by humility, gentleness and joyful fidelity in the service of God. Mention is made more than once of his poverty.

    Michael Curran MSC, The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy (Dublin, 1984), 46-47.

    One of the most interesting references in the Hymn to Saint Camelacus is found in the final stanza which says that Christ will place our saint in the company of the patriarch Abraham and he will reign in paradise with the holy Lazarus. This is clearly a reference to the parable of Dives and Lazarus found in the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke. In his 1887 collection The Tripartite Life of Patrick with Other Documents relating to that Saint, Whitley Stokes included the curious Tale of Patrick and his Leper, where the leper is named Comlach. Father Curran suggests that the association of Saint Camelacus with Lazarus in the hymn anticipates this later tradition. The link with lepers is further strengthened by the founding of a leper colony at Rahan by Saint Carthage, directed there, according to hagiography, by Saint Colmán of Lann Elo. A growing number of modern scholars believe that Colmán of Lann Elo is the true author of the hymn of Secundinus in honour of Saint Patrick, Audite omnes amantes and thus Father Curran wonders if Saint Colmán had a personal devotion to Saint Camelacus and might also be the author of the hymn in his honour.  He speculates that:

    It is possible that the new monastery and its leper-colony was a memorial and tribute to Camelacus, the first bishop of Raithin, who was remembered for his evangelical poverty and possibly for his care for lepers, if not already regarded as a leper himself.(p.47)

    Yet it remains equally possible that the Audite bonum exemplum, the Hymn to Camelacus, is a shorter and less sophisticated composition written in the style of the Audite omnes amantes.  Whatever the truth, it is fascinating to see Camelacus, this otherwise obscure holy man, being one of only three saints, along with our national apostle and Saint Comgall, Bangor’s founder, to merit a hymn in his honour in The Bangor Antiphonary:

    [15.] Hymnus Sancti Camelaci.

    i. Audite bonum exemplum
    Benedicti pauperis
    Camelaci Cumiensis
    Dei justi famuli.

    ii. Exemplum praebet in toto
    Fidelis in opere,
    Gratias Deo agens,
    Hilaris in omnibus,

    iii. Jejunus et mansuetus
    Kastus hic servit Deo,
    Laetatur in paupertate,
    Mitis est in omnibus,

    iv. Noctibus atque diebus
    Orat Dominum suum ;
    Prudens, justus, ac fideiis,
    Quem cognati diligunt.

    v. Regem Dominum aspexit
    Salvatoremque suum :
    Tribuit huic aeternam
    Vitam cum fidelibus.

    vi. Xps [i.e. Christus] illum insinuavit
    Patriarchae Abrahae,
    Yn Paradiso regnavit
    Cum sancto Lazaro.

    (text from F.E.Warren and W. Griggs, The Antiphonary of Bangor: an early Irish manuscript in the Ambrosian Library at Milan 2 vols, (London 1893–1895).

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.