OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • Saint Laurence O'Toole's Devotion to the Mother of God

    Our Lady of Dunsford, Co. Down

    November 14 is the feast of Saint Laurence O’Toole a post on whose life can be found here. Below is a tribute to Saint Laurence’s devotion to the Mother of God as recorded by Cardinal Moran in 1864:

    St. Laurence O’Toole was the last saint of our Church before our island became a prey to every disorder, and well nigh barbarism, in consequence of the English invasion. In his life we read of his having “built a new church in Dublin, to the honour of God and of the blessed Virgin Mother.” Another church was dedicated by him in Wales to the same holy Virgin; but the most striking proof of his devotion to the Mother of God was evinced in restoring to life a priest of the diocese, named Gallwed. The first act of this priest on awakening from his slumber of death, was to return thanks to God and the Blessed Virgin; and he declared to the bystanders, “I saw the Archbishop Laurence on bended knees before God and the glorious Virgin Mary, His Mother, humbly entreating for my restoration to life.”

    Rev. Dr P.F. Moran, Essays on the Origin, Doctrines, and Discipline of the Early Irish Church, (Dublin, 1864), p.239.

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  • 'Cherish in your Memories': All the Saints of Ireland, November 6

    November 6 is the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland, a feast established just over a century ago. It is also the day on which I launched Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae just over a decade ago to try and keep the memories of our Irish saints alive and to encourage a greater devotion to them. This same motivation was expressed in 1927 by Mary Maher in her book Footsteps of Irish Saints in the Dioceses of Ireland and she found an interesting support for it in an eighteenth-century pontifical brief addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland by Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758):

    When I placed my notes on Irish Saints in book form, I did so with one intention only – viz., to plead with the readers for increased devotion to our great Irish saints. For that purpose I began writing an explanatory Preface, but had only written a few lines, when a very old and valuable book came, by accident, into my hands. In this book I found a special devotion to Irish Saints, coming from a saintly and venerable Pontiff, Benedict XIV, addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland……..:

     “Cherish in your memories,” said the illustrious Pontiff, “St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, whom our predecessor Celestine sent to you, of whose apostolic mission and preaching, such an abundant harvest has grown, that Ireland, before his time idolatrous, was suddenly called, and deservedly, ‘The Island of Saints’. Cherish in your memories St Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, who stood forth undaunted in every manner, prepared to convert the wolves into sheep, to admonish in public, to touch the chords of the heart. Cherish with yet more sincerity St Lawrence, Archbishop of Dublin, whom, born as he was of royal blood, our predecessor, Alexander III, constituted his Legate Apostolic for Ireland; and whom Honorius III, alike our predecessor, canonized. Yet more, we were to exhort you to cherish in your memories the very holy men Columbanus, Kylian, Virgil, Rumold, St Gall, with many others, who, coming out of Ireland, carried the True Faith over the provinces of the Continent, or established it with the blood of their martyrdom. Suffice it to commend you to bear in memory the religion and the piety of those who have preceded you, and their solicitude for the duties of their station, which has established their everlasting glory and happiness. And, in fine, cherish the virtues of your fathers – their piety and reverence for their pastors. Cherish the Faith that made them strong and invincible; be yours firm and immovable, as the rock on which it is founded; be yours illustrated with the earnest constancy of a Peter, the burning zeal of a Paul, the abiding confidence of a John.”

    Mary Maher, Footsteps of Irish Saints in the Dioceses of Ireland (London, 1927), v-vii.

    Wishing everyone the blessings of the Feast and thank you to all who supports my work here at Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae and on All the Saints of Ireland on Radio Maria. Beannachtaí na Féile oraibh go Léir! Orate pro nobis omnes Sancti Hiberniae!

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

  • 'Great Mary's Holy Nativity': September 8

     

    The birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary is commemorated on September 8 and is a feast found on our earliest Irish calendars. The Martyrology of Oengus records:

    8. Thou shalt commemorate Mary: thou art not deadened on a scanty meal: with Timothy and three hundreds of martyrs.

    and the scholiast notes:

    8. is commemorated .i. natiuitas etc. Mary’s nativity is commemorated here, on a scanty meal, for pit means a meal, quasi dixisset thou shouldst not fast on Mary’s feast.

    It is obviously a mark of the joyful nature of the feast and its importance that the normal fasting rules are set aside and a ‘scanty meal’ is not deemed appropriate.
    The Martyrology of Tallaght also records the feast as:
    Natiuitas Mariae matris Iesu 
     
    and the later twelfth-century Martyrology of Gorman notes:
    Noemghein Maire móre
    Great Mary’s holy nativity.
    Canon O’Hanlon in the September volume of his Lives of the Irish Saints has a short article about the Feast in which he mentions that the County Wexford parish of Kilnenor was one of those which held a traditional pattern on September 8. I was able to consult an online version of the Ordnance Survey Letters which Canon O’Hanlon had cited in his footnotes and there I learnt that this pattern ‘was held on the 8th of September till the year 1798, when it was abolished’.

    Article VI. Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

    In the ancient Irish Church, the Festival of the Birth of our Divine Lord’s Mother was celebrated on the eighth day of September, as we learn from the Feilire of Aengus. On this there is a short comment. About the year 695, this feast was appointed by Pope Servius. In various parts of Ireland, this festival was celebrated formerly with very special devotion, as parishes, churches and chapels had been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and this was a favoured festival day. The patrons or patterns that until of late were yearly celebrated very conclusively attest it. In Kilnenor parish, County of Wexford, there is a holy well, at which a patron was formerly held on the 8th of September. According to a pious tradition a concert of angels is said to have been heard in the air to solemnize the Nativity or Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

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