OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Feasts

  • Domhnach na Cincíse: An Spiorad Naomh umainn

     

    To mark the feast of Pentecost below is a short poem, an Invocation of the Holy Spirit, by Maol Íosa Ó Brolcháin, a scholar saint of Donegal, who died in 1086 and whose feast day is commemorated on January 16. A 2013 post on the saint and his work can be found in the blog archive here. The original Irish text and a Modern Irish version can be found in Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin’s 1986 study Maol Íosa Ó Brolcháin, below is the text in Modern Irish plus an English translation from George Sigerson’s 1897 anthology Bards of the Gael and Gall:

    An Spiorad Naomh umainn
    ionainn agus linn,
    an Spiorad Naomh chugainn;
    tagadh, a Chríost go tobann.
     
    An Spiorad Naomh ag áitreabh
    ár gcoirp is ár n-anama;
    dár slánú go réidh
    ar ghuais, ar ghalar,
     
    ar dheamhain, ar pheacaí
    ar ifreann lena ilolc;
    A Íosa! go mbeannaí
    agus go saora do Spiorad sinn. 

    HOLY SPIRIT

    MAELISU *

    Holy Spirit of Love
    In us, round us, above;
    Holy Spirit, we pray
    Send, sweet Jesus! this day.
     
    Holy Spirit, to win
    Body and soul within,
    To guide us that we be 
    From ills and illness free,
     
    From sin and demons’ snare,
    From Hell and evils there,
    O Holy Spirit, come!
    Hallow our heart, Thy home.

    * Maelisu, grandson of Brolcan, of Derry, died in the year 1038. ‘Mael-Isu” means “Client of Jesus” (literally, the “Tonsured of Jesus”.

    George Sigerson, Bards of the Gael and Gall (London, 1897), 192.

    Note: Sigerson has given the date of the poet’s death as 1038. The Annals of Ulster however record Máol Íosa’s death in 1086, describing him as ’eminent in wisdom and piety and in poetry in both languages ‘, i.e. Irish and Latin. A more literal translation can be found in Gerard Murphy’s 1956 anthology, Early Irish Lyrics: Eighth to Twelfth Centuries.
     

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

  • The Feast of the Transfiguration in the Martyrology of Oengus

    August 6 is the day on which the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated throughout the Universal Church. However, it was not always so, as a German ecclesiastical historian explains:

    From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed, the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457, in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already been kept on this day.

    K.A. Heinrich Kellner, Heortology: A History Of The Christian Festivals From Their Origin To The Present Day (London, 1908), 105.

    One of those different days is found on the early ninth-century Irish calendar, The Martyrology of Oengus. Here the Feast of the Transfiguration is commemorated on July 26, as Canon O’Hanlon noted in his entries for this day in Volume VII of the Lives of the Irish Saints:

    Article IV. Festival of Christ’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

    According to the “Feilire” of St. Aengus, at the 26th of July, the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Divine Lord on Mount Tabor was commemorated in the ancient Irish Church. To this a comment is found affixed. In the Bruxelles copy of Usuard this Feast is also set down, and while the Bollandists give the text, they express ignorance of the source whence it had been drawn, but they refer to the 6th of August as the chief Festival held in the Universal Church.

    26. At the passion of Jovianus
    with his fair train of pure gold
    was the Transfiguration, at daybreak,
    of  Jesus on Mount Tabor.

    The accompanying note reads:

    26. on Mount Tabor, i.e. in the tribe of Nephthalim, on a mountain of Galilee. Transfiguration of Christ etc.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2022. All rights reserved.

  • On the Day of Pentecost

    This advent of the Spirit
    on the apostles was prefigured in the fire that came from heaven on the
    offerings of righteous Abel, as is testified in Genesis, (the book) of
    the Law, where it says,’respexit Deus ad Abel et ad munera eius,’
    when fire of God came from heaven on the offerings of Abel, for they
    were pleasing to God; so, too, in the fire that came of yore on the
    Bush, in prefiguration of the descent of the Spirit on the apostles on
    this day of Pentecost; again, in the fiery column of old, that led the
    children of Israel out of the Egyptian captivity to go up into the land
    of promise, in prefiguration of the Holy Spirit, who summoned the
    apostolic people from the straits of Jewish persecution in which they
    were held, to go and preach to everyone in every direction; and He
    invites the people of the New Testament from the darkness of sins and
    transgressions to the light of virtuous and goodly deeds; so, too, in
    the sevenfold candelabrum, that illumined the tabernacle of Moses, in
    prefiguration and foretoken of the sevenfold Spirit, that illumined the
    Church of the Seven Orders in this seven-day festival of Pentecost; and
    in this same manner in many other places the advent of the Holy Spirit
    was prefigured. It was foretold by the prophets: by David, the son of
    Jesse, when he said, ‘fluminis impetus laetificat ciuitatem Dei‘
    [Ps. xl. 5], concerning that honour of the spiritual grace in which the
    Church rejoices; by the prophet Joel, son of Phathuel [Salahel], when
    he said, ‘erit in nouissimis diebus, dicit Dominus, effundam de Spiritu meo super omnem carnem‘
    [Acts ii. 17], ‘the time will come, saith the Lord, when I will pour
    out the grace of the Holy Spirit on every holy man of faith in the
    Church’ ; by the Author of every prophecy and of all true knowledge,
    Jesus Christ Himself, after His resurrection, when He said to His
    apostles, ‘accipietis uirtutem superuenientis Spiritus sancti‘ [Acts i. 8], ‘ the grace of the Holy Spirit shall come upon you.’

    Haec est historia huius lectionis.


    ‘XII. On the Day of Pentecost’ , The Passions and the Homilies from
    Leabhar Breac – Text, Translation and Glossary by Robert Atkinson
    (Dublin, 1887),439-40.

     

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2020. All rights reserved.