OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

ALL THE SAINTS OF IRELAND

  • '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.

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  • 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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  • The Martyrdom of Saint Tanco

    February 16 is the feast of Saint Tanco (Tanchon, Tatta) of Verden (Werda), an Irish missionary in early ninth-century Saxony who was martyred when some local pagans reacted violently to the destruction of their sanctuaries.  Saint Tanco is numbered among the saints of the Benedictine order, and below is a rather graphic account of his martyrdom from a calendar originally compiled by seventeenth-century Benedictine, Father Agidius Ranbeck, OSB. Although the writer begins by referring to Scotland as the homeland of Saint Tanco, this reflects the medieval usage of the term ‘Scotia’ to refer to Ireland:

    Among the noble band of missionaries and martyrs whom Scotland sent forth to spread the light of the Faith
among the heathen nations of Germany and Gaul, we must celebrate S. TANCO. Though the son of noble and wealthy parents, he at an early age entered the Monastery of Amarbarcum, and there, by his unremitting toil, his devotion to prayer, his fasts and watchings, his gentleness towards others while most rigorous to himself, he so gained the love and respect of all, that on the death of the Abbot he was
 unanimously chosen by the Community to be their head. His elevation brought no change in his manner of living. In his own person he set his brethren a perfect example of how to live up to the Rule of S. BENEDICT; yet he tempered his severity with such gentleness that all his orders were executed by his monks with the greatest readiness.

    Our Saint’s soul, however, longed for a wider field. The example of COLUMBA and GALL and countless other Saints incited him to undertake a campaign against the false gods still worshipped in many parts of Germany.
Communicating his intention to his monks, he selected from among them a band of comrades, and proceeded to the country of the Saxons. There, visiting all the villages and towns, he kept sowing the good seed; but the harvest did not answer to his expectations. The savage and ignorant pagans openly mocked the devoted missionaries; so our Saint, leaving some of his companions to look after the few converts he had made, next went to Flanders. In this country, and in the territories adjoining it, his labours were most successful, numbers joining the Church.

    S. TANCO’S name was now celebrated throughout Flanders and Gaul; his fame penetrated even to the royal palace. The inhabitants of Werda as yet were very ignorant of the blessings of Christianity; moreover, they were sunk in the most loathsome vice and wickedness. In his zeal for the Faith, the Emperor Charlemagne sent for S. TANCO, and asked him to take charge of the See of Werda, then vacant. Our Saint consented; but the task was no easy one. In his diocese idols were still openly worshipped, and the most terrible crimes were of daily occurrence. On foot, at the head of the monks whom he had brought with him from his native land, the Bishop went from village to village, encouraging the faint-hearted, denouncing the guilty, and performing miracles to convince unbelievers. Yet his descriptions of the happiness that awaits the pious and of the punishment in store for the wicked were treated as old wives’ tales. Finding his words of no avail, he attacked their idols wherever he found them; he smashed the statues of the false gods, overthrew their altars, and levelled their temples to the ground. At this the fierce barbarians became so enraged, that they beat out their Bishop’s brains with clubs, cut off his legs and arms with their swords, and left the trunk, pierced with a thousand wounds, swimming in its gore, A.D. 815.

    The Saints of the Order of Saint Benedict – January, February, March – from the Latin of F. Agidius Ranbeck, OSB, (translated by J.P.Molohan) ed. Rev J.A. Morrall, OSB (London, 1896), 224-228.

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