OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Feasts

  • God's Fine Disciple: An Irish View of Saint John the Apostle

    “Disciple of the Lord,
    ever-angelic John,
    a goodly, handsome-haired man,
    with bright blue eyes,
    red-cheeked and fair of face,
    with gleaming teeth and dark brows,
    red-lipped, white-throated,
    skilful and dextrous,
    with supple lithe fingers,
    fair-sided, light-footed,
    noble, slender and serene,
    distinguished,
    bright with holiness,
    friend of Christians,
    expeller of the dark devil,
    God’s fine disciple”

    ‘Episodes from the Life of John, the Beloved Disciple’ in Maire Herbert and M. McNamara, trans., Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation (Edinburgh, 1989), 92.

    On December 27 the Irish calendars record what the Martyrology of Gorman describes as ‘The chief feast of John the Apostle’. I have already written about the Irish tradition concerning the apostle John in a post which can be found here. In it you will find some other selections from the Irish apocryphal writings on the Apostle John, writings which draw on common sources but which reflect distinctive Irish embellishments of the text. They are preserved in a 15th-century manuscript, the Liber Flavus Fergusiorum.

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  • ‘Archangel of the Archangels’

    Now the reason why the Archangel Michael is called the Chief is the following: When God made the world he appointed a determinate chief to all creatures separately; viz., Lucifer for the demons; the sun for the stars; Mount Sion for the mountains; the river Jordan among rivers; the vine among trees; the dove among birds; the lion among beasts; the leviathan among fishes; Christ over mankind. Thus at that time the Archangel Michael was appointed in the chief place and supremacy over the angels of heaven; it is he who announces in the presence of God the intercessions which the saints make with Him; he is the archangel of the archangels; the star above stars; the brilliant fire: it is he who weeps and laments over the souls that are in hell; for when the folk of hell see the countenance of St. Michael the Archangel, they say: “O Michael, thou art our chief; thou art our king; thou labourest ever in our behalf.” Then Michael makes them this reply: “I beseech the Lord for ever for the souls of mankind.”

    Homily XXVII ‘On the Archangel Michael’ in R. Atkinson, ed. and trans., The Passions and Homilies from Leabhar Breac, (Dublin, 1887) 456-457.

  • 'Greetings, kind cross..the medicine of our wounds'

    September 14 is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and to mark the feast below is a short quotation from a disciple of Saint Columbanus, Saint Attala of Bobbio. Attala was not himself an Irishman but followed Saint Columbanus into exile from Luxeuil and succeeded him as Abbot of Bobbio:

    E.Lawless, Ireland (1912)

    Abbot Attala of Bobbio, who died in 627, was said in his Life by Jonas to have wept copiously when a cross was brought to him on his deathbed. ‘Greetings, kind cross’ he said ‘which bore the price of the world [and] which carrying eternal banners brought the medicine of our wounds. It is you who smeared with His blood came down from heaven into this vale of tears in order to save the human race’.

    Giles Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 76.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2016. All rights reserved.