OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Feasts

  • 'The Conspicuous One out of Africa': The Feast of Saint Augustine on the Irish Calendars

    August 28 is the feast of the great Doctor of the Western Church, Saint Augustine. Not surprisingly, since he was himself a monastic of the Augustinian order, the twelfth-century Irish calendarist, Marianus O’Gorman, notes the feast on his Martyrology:

    28. b.
    Augustin ind eccna,epscop uasal amra. 

    Augustinus the wise,
    a noble, marvellous bishop.

    This Martyrology further records the octave day of the feast at September 4:

    4.b.
    D’ Augustin octauus, 

    The octave of Augustinus.

    The feast at August 28 is also recorded in the earlier Martyrology of Oengus:

    in t-airdirc a hAfraic. 

    (Augustine) the conspicuous one out of Africa.

    The scholiast notes comment:

    iin arrdraic a hAfraic .i. Augaistin .i. comad hé Augustin sapientissimus librorum sein.  L .i. Augustinus sapientissimus uir Affricorum. 

    the famous one out of Africa, i.e. Augustine, i.e. that may be Augustine sapientissimus librorum.- i.e. the wisest of the Africans.

    The Martyrology of Tallaght simply records 

    Augustini.
    episcopi. [in marg. magni.]

    In Irish popular devotion, Saint Augustine’s Day might be marked with a pattern day centred around a holy well, as for example at Kilshanny, County Clare. Augustinian monks founded a monastery here in 1189 and their patron seems to have displaced the native Irish saint to whom the well was originally dedicated.  There is a picture of the well here. Whilst, in this case, an earlier indigenous saint has been displaced, it needs to be remembered that in other cases the Augustinans were responsible for commissioning the Lives of the native holy men and women and for promoting their claims of association with religious foundations. 

  • 'The Lord's chaste apostle, Bartholomew to whom I pray'

    August 25 is the feast of Saint Barthlomew the Apostle, whom tradition says met a particularly gruesome death by being flayed alive. His feast appears on the Irish calendars with the Martyrology of Tallaght simply noting ‘Passio Bartholomei apostoli‘, at this date. The Martyrology of Oengus has a rather fuller entry:

    F. viii. cal. Septembris.
    Ro sreth scél a chesta cech leth co sál srúamach, iar mórchroich ro rígad in Bartholom búadach. 

    25. The story of his suffering has been declared on every side even to the streamy sea: after a great cross he has been crowned, the triumphant Bartholomew.

    The scholiast notes add:

    25. Bartolom. Bartholomeus in Indiam perrexit et in ea passus est sub Astrige rege eorum .i. gladio decollatus est, uel uiuus sepultus est, post pellem rasam suam de corpore toto ante, et sic uitam finiuit. 

    25. Bartholomew proceeded into India etc. i.e. he was beheaded with a sword, or he was buried alive, etc. 

    The twelfth-century Martyrology of Gorman also notes the feast at the beginning of its entries for the preceding day:

    24. E.

    Apstol cáid in Coimdedh
    Bartholom fris mbenaimm 

    The Lord’s chaste apostle, Bartholomew to whom I pray:,..

    Canon O’Hanlon also notes the feast in Volume 8 of his Lives of the Irish Saints:
    Festival of St. Bartholomew, Martyr. 

    The festival of St. Bartholomew, Martyr, was observed in the early Irish Church, on the 25th of August, as may be found in the “Feilire” of St. Aengus. There his name takes the Irish form Parrthalon. To this, the scholiast has added an explanatory note in Latin.  Wherefore it seems we are to regard him as St. Bartholomew, the Apostle, and whose Acts are fully set forth by the Bollandists, at this date. These Acts have a previous learned commentary by the editor, Father John Stilting, SJ.; and they are followed by a narratives of the posthumous honours, translations, relics and miracles of this celebrated Apostle of the Indies.

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  • 'The Clouds are Her Chariot' – The Feast of the Assumption, August 15

    August 15 is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and below are a couple of brief quotations relating to the feast connected with the monastery of Bobbio. Bobbio was, of course, founded by the Irish Saint Columbanus. In the late seventeenth century, a visiting Benedictine monk, Jean Mabillon, visited Bobbio and discovered in its library a wonderful codex dating from a thousand years earlier. The ‘Bobbio Missal’, as the codex is now known, has been described as ‘one of the most intriguing liturgical manuscripts that were produced in Merovingian Francia’. Earlier generations of scholars were keen to assert a firm Irish provenance for this seventh-century Gallican liturgy, but modern scholars have failed to prove any direct Irish link, apart from the manuscript’s location at Bobbio. In her 1938 historical account of Irish devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Helena Concannon quoted some snippets from it relating to today’s feast:

    From the Mass for the Feast of the Assumption found in the Bobbio Missal:

    “…her soul is wreathed with various crowns; the apostles render sacred homage to her, the angels intone their canticles, Christ embraces her, the clouds are her chariot, paradise her dwelling, where, decked with glory, she reigns amidst the virgin-choirs.”

    From a Sermon on the Assumption Preached at Bobbio:

    “Celebrating today (the preacher says) the Assumption of the Holy Mother Mary, dearest Brethern, it behoves you to rejoice in spirit, in that God has willed for your salvation to raise her from the earthly dwellings to the heavenly mansions. The Mother of Our Lord is assumed today by God, the Creator of all things, to the heavenly kingdom, and she who by her chaste child-bearing brought life to the human race, today ascends to Heaven to pray to God at all times for us. Let it be our prayer, whilst we keep the day of the Assumption, that she may assist us by her merits, and may protect us from the snares of Satan, that so through her we may deserve to attain the joys of Paradise.”

    The Queen of Ireland – An Historical Account of Ireland’s Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by Mrs Helena Concannon (Dublin, 1938), 41-42.

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