OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Feasts

  • 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.

     

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  • 'A Seasoning to our Earthly Life': A Thought for the Feast of All Saints

     

    November 1 is the Feast of All Saints and below is a reflection on the importance of recording the lives of the saints from Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s Life of Saint Malachy the Irishman. We will be marking the Feast of Saint Malachy on November 3 and the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland on November 6, but this thought from the Preface to Saint Bernard’s work relates to the significance of all of the saints we commemorate on this day, November 1:

    To describe the lives of the saints has ever been a precious task, since they serve as an example, or as it were, a seasoning to our earthly life. Thus, in a certain way, though dead, they live again among us, and many of those living in spiritual death are brought to the truth and recalled to eternal life. And now, verily, the rarity of sanctity makes this so much the more necessary; since it is plain that our times are lacking in men.

    Stanley S. Morrison, “Saint Malachy of Armagh (1095-1148).” The Irish Monthly, vol. 76, no. 906, (1948), p. 558.

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  • An Irish Easter Legend.

    An Irish Easter Legend.

    Being in the north-west of
    Ireland last summer, on the borders of Sligo and Donegal, I chanced upon
    a famous Shanachie, or story-teller, an Irish-speaking peasant, who
    possessed an almost inexhaustible fund of traditional, historical, and
    legendary lore, and whose manner of relating his stories was so graphic
    that each scene seemed to pass before his own and his listeners’ eyes.
    Amongst the legends he told was one which is now very rare, being, as
    far as I am aware, known only to Irish-speaking people, and even to few
    amongst these, though the sculptured tomb bearing the pictured
    representation of the story being found in Kilree churchyard, almost in
    the extreme farthest part of Ireland from Donegal, would seem to show
    that in olden times the legend was popular throughout Ireland.

    The old story represented by “a cock in a pot, crowing,” was told me by the Shanachie as follows :

    ”
    It was at the time when our Saviour was in the grave, and that the
    soldiers who were set to watch the tomb were sitting round a fire they
    had lighted. They had killed a cock and put it in a pot on the fire to
    boil for their supper; and, as they sat around, they spoke together of
    the story that was told how He that was in the tomb they were guarding
    had prophesied that before three days were passed He would rise again
    from the dead. And one of the men said, in mockery: He will rise as sure
    as the cock that is in that boiling pot will crow again.”

    No
    sooner were the words spoken than the lid of the pot burst open, the
    cock flew on to the edge, flapped his wings, sprinkling the soldiers
    with the boiling water, then crowed three times, and what he said each
    time was:

    ‘ Moc an o-o-o-ye, slaun !
    Moc an o-o-o-ye, slaun !’

    That
    is,’ Son of the Virgin, Hail!’ [Mac an Oige, slan] and ever since that
    hour this is what the cock crows: this is what we hear him say, and if
    you listen you, too, can hear the very words :

    ‘ Moc an o-o-o-ye, slaun !’ ‘

    I
    spell the sound of the Irish phonetically to try and imitate the
    peculiar softening of the words as an Irish speaker softens them, the
    prolonging out of the o-o-o sounding almost precisely like the bird’s
    crow heard from a distance. At least so it has always sounded in my ears
    since I heard this beautiful legend. M. B.

    Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume 27 (1897), 193-194.

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