OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Hymns

  • ‘I beseech a wonderful king': The Hymn of Saint Sanctán

    Below is a hymn attributed to Saint Sanctán (Santán), who, although he is described in the Martyrology of Oengus on his May 9 feast day as ‘famous Bishop Sanctán’, remains intriguingly obscure. Canon O’Hanlon’s account of the saint, which can be read at the blog here records the traditions concerning his British origins and those of his brother Saint Matoc (Madog). The Preface to the hymn, preserved in the early eleventh-century Irish Liber Hymnorum, says that it was composed as Saint Sanctán was on a visit to his brother at the island which bore his name, Inis Matoc. The island’s location has never been identified, although Canon O’Hanlon notes that an island in the lake of Templeport, County Leitrim had been suggested. He also notes that as the the Preface makes clear, up until the visit which inspired the hymn Saint Sanctán was ‘completely ignorant of the Scottish language; but, that he miraculously obtained the gift of Irish metrical composition’. A most timely and useful miracle indeed! Below is the text of Saint Sanctán’s hymn, with a tribute to the author appended, taken from the 1898 translation of The Irish Liber Hymnorum by Bernard and Atkinson:

    PREFACE TO ST. SANCTAN’S HYMN.

    ‘I beseech a wonderful king” Bishop Sanctan composed this hymn, and it was on his going to Clonard westward to Inis Matoc that he composed it; he was brother to Matoc, both of them being of British race, but Matoc came into Ireland earlier quam Bishop Sanctan. Causa autem haec est, to free it ab hostibus, and that his brother should be allowed (to come) to him in insulam; Scoticam uero linguam usque ad horam hanc non habuit sed deus ei tam cito eam donauit. Tempus autem dubitatur.

    St. Sanctan’s Hymn.

    I beseech a wonderful King of angels,
    for it is a name that is mightiest;
    to me (be) God for my rear, God on my left,
    God for my van, God on my right!

    God for my help,—holy call—
    against each danger, Him I invoke!
    a bridge of life let there be below me,
    benediction of God the Father above me!

    Let the lofty Trinity arouse us,
    (each one) to whom a good death (?) is not (yet) certain!
    Holy Spirit noble, strength of heaven,
    God the Father, Mary’s mighty Son!

    A great King who knows our offences
    Lord over earth, without sin,—
    to my soul for every black-sin
    let never demons’ godlessness (?) visit me !

    God with me, may He take away each toil!
    may Christ draw up my pleadings,
    may apostles come all around me,
    may the Trinity of witness come to me!

    May mercy come to me (on) earth,
    from Christ let not (my) songs be hidden!
    let not death in its death-wail reach me,
    nor sudden death in disease befal me!

    May no malignant thrust that stupefies and perplexes
    reach me without permission of the Son of God!
    May Christ save us from every bloody death,
    from fire, from raging sea !

    From every death-drink, that is unsafe
    for my body, with many terrors!
    may the Lord each hour come to me
    against wind, against swift waters!

    I shall utter the praises of Mary’s Son
    who fights for good deeds,
    (and) God of the elements will reply,
    (for) my tongue (is) a lorica for battle.

    In beseeching God from the heavens
    may my body be incessantly laborious;
    that I may not come to horrible hell
    I beseech the King whom I have besought.
    I beseech a wonderful King.

    Bishop Sanctan … a sage
    soldier, angel famous pure-white,
    may he make free my body on earth,
    may he make holy my soul towards heaven !

    May there be a prayer with thee for me, O Mary!
    May heaven’s King be merciful to us
    against wound, danger and peril!
    O Christ, on Thy protection (rest) we !

    I beseech the King free, everlasting
    Only Son of God, to watch over us;
    may He protect me against sharp dangers,
    He, the Child that was born in Bethlehem.

    J.H. Bernard and R. Atkinson (eds. and trans.), The Irish Liber hymnorum, Vol. II (Henry Bradshaw Society, London, 1898), 47-48.

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  • A Eucharistic hymn of fine theological and devotional quality': Sancti Venite

     

    The seventh-century Antiphonary of Bangor with its collection of Latin texts is one of the greatest surviving treasures of early medieval Irish Christianity. The twelve hymns preserved within include one, the Sancti Venite, labelled as ‘Hymnus quando communicarent sacerdotes’.

    F.E. Warren, the Victorian editor and translator of the manuscript of the Antiphonary, now housed at the Ambrosian Library at Milan, commented:

    This Hymn is evidently from its title a ‘Communio’ or ‘Antiphona ad accedentes ’ to be used during the Communion of the Priests, of whom there would be many, headed by the Abbot himself, in such a monastery as Bangor.

    He goes on to say:

    It consists of eleven quatrains or stanzas of four lines each. The lines are iambic penthemime, and trochaic dimeter catalectic alternately. It has been fancifully suggested that there are eleven stanzas in this Hymn because there were eleven Apostles who were present at the institution of the Eucharist and received it worthily.

    F.E.Warren, ed. and trans., The Antiphonary of Bangor, Part II (London, 1895), 44.

    The very fact that the Sancti Venite is a Eucharistic hymn marks it out from the other hymns in the Antiphonary of Bangor, which relate to the monastic hours. It indicates that a hymn was sung during the taking of communion in early Irish monasteries, at least in Bangor, plus the Antiphonary also includes seven communion antiphons.

    Father Michael Curran, MSC, in his 1984 study The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy, describes the Sancti Venite as a ‘Eucharistic hymn of fine theological and devotional quality’.  He also mentions the ‘picturesque and fictional occasion of its composition’, a tradition which has been preserved in the
fifteenth-century Leabhar Breac, and summarised by Cardinal Moran in his 1864 essay on the teaching of the Early Irish Church regarding the Blessed Eucharist:

    In the ancient Irish preface to the hymn of St. Sechnall on St. Patrick, preserved in the Leabhar Breac, it is said that, on a certain occasion, whilst Sechnall was offering the holy sacrifice, our apostle went to visit him; and it was when Sechnall had finished the Mass, except taking the body of Christ, that he heard that Patrick had arrived at the place: leaving the altar, he prostrated himself at the feet of St. Patrick, and when both subsequently approached the church, they heard a choir of angels chanting a hymn at the Offertory in the church, and what they chanted was the hymn whose beginning is Sancti venite, Christi corpus ,’ etc., so that, from that time to the present, that hymn is chanted in Erin when the body of Christ is received”.

    Dr Moran goes on to give the entire text of the Sancti Venite, and a translation, which I reprint below so that we may all enjoy this wonderful hymn:

    1. “Sancti venite,
    Christi corpus sumite;
    Sanctum bibentes,
    Quo redempti sanguinem.

    2. Salvati Christi
    Corpore et sanguine,
    A quo refecti,
    Laudes dicamus Deo.

    3. Hoc sacramento,
    Corporis et sanguinis,
    Omnes exuti
    Ab inferni faucibus.

    4. Dator salutis,
    Christus filius Dei,
    Mundum salvavit,
    Per crucem et sanguinem.

    5 Pro universis
    Immolatus Dominus,
    Ipse sacerdos
    Existit et hostia.

    6. Lege praeceptum
    Immolari hostias:
    Qua adumbrantur
    Divina mysteria.

    7. Lucis indultor
    Et salvator omnium,
    Praeclaram sanctis
    Largitus est gratiam.

    8. Accedant omnes,
    Pura mente creduli;
    Sumant aeternam
    Salutis custodiam:

    9. Sanctorum custos,
    Rector quoque Dominus,
    Vitae perennis,
    Largitor credentibus

    10. Coelestem panem
    Dat esurientibus;
    De fonte vivo
    Praebet sitientibus.

    11. Alpha et omega
    Ipse Christus Dominus
    Venit, venturus
    Judicare homines.”

    1. Approach, you who are holy,
    Receive the body of Christ,
    Drinking the sacred blood
    By which you were redeemed.

    2. Saved by the body
    And blood of Christ,
    Now nourished by it
    Let us sing praises unto God.

    3. By this sacrament
    Of the body and blood,
    All are rescued
    From the power of hell.

    4. The giver of salvation,
    Christ, the Son of God,
    Redeemed the world
    By his cross and blood.

    5. For the whole world
    The Lord is offered up;
    He is at the same time
    High-priest and victim.

    6. In the law it is commanded
    To immolate victims:
    By it were foreshadowed
    These sacred mysteries.

    7. The giver of all light,
    And the Saviour of all,
    Now bestows upon the holy
    An exceeding great grace.

    8. Let all approach,
    In the pure simplicity of faith;
    Let them receive the eternal
    Preserver of their souls:

    9. The guardian of the saints,
    The supreme Ruler and Lord,
    The Bestower of eternal life,
    On those who believe in Him.

    10. To the hungry he gives to eat
    Of the heavenly food;
    To the thirsty he gives to drink
    From the living fountain.

    11. The alpha and omega,
    Our Lord Christ Himself
    Now comes: He who shall one day come
    To judge all mankind.

    Rev Dr. P. F Moran, Essays on the Origin, Doctrines, and Discipline of the Early Irish Church,  (Dublin, 1864), 166-167.

    In an article on Irish Latin Hymns written in 1941 Dean Mulcahy lamented:

    “The hymn ought to be better known in the Ireland of our day; beautiful in itself, its value is enhanced by its antiquity, and by the glorious and irrefutable record it furnishes of the sound faith planted by St. Patrick in the Irish church.”

    “The Irish Latin Hymns: “Sancti Venite” of St Sechnall and “Altus Prosator” of St Columba’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record,Vol. 52 (1941), 386.

    What a blessing that this hymn was preserved at Bobbio and rediscovered in Milan and reintroduced to its native land.

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

  • 'Mary the Virgin: your own holy mother': Devotion to Our Lady in the Early Irish Church

    Our Lady of Dunsford, Co. Down

    As May is the month traditionally dedicated to Our Lady, I have been enjoying some of the early Irish sources which pay tribute to her.  It is worth reflecting on the fact that the year 431, the year in which Pope Celestine sent Palladius as the first bishop to the Irish believing in Christ, is the same year in which Saint Cyril of Alexandria was defending Mary’s claim to be Theotokos, the god-bearer, at the Council of Ephesus. So, what evidence is there of devotion to Our Lady in the centuries following Christianity’s arrival up until the year 1200?

    I will begin with the Irish calendars which refer to both the person of the Blessed Virgin and to her feast days. The Prologue to the ninth-century Martyrology of Oengus draws a contrast between Pilate’s haughty queen ‘whose splendour has vanished since she went into into a place of mould. Not so is Mary the Virgin..Adam’s race…magnifies her, with a host of angels.’ Saint Oengus often describes Christ in relation to His Mother as the ‘Son of holy Mary’ or as ‘Mary’s great Son’, and he begs God in the Epilogue to his Martyrology to ‘heal my heart for sake of Mary’s Son’. He is no less enthusiastic when recording Marian feasts. February 2 is ‘The reception of Mary’s Son in the Temple’, August 15 the ‘great feast of her commemoration, very Mother of our Father, with a host of kings, right splendid assembly!’, September 8 is the day ‘Thou shalt commemorate Mary’ and at December 25  he declares ‘At great marvellous Christmas, Christ from white-pure Mary was born’. We can find the idea of Our Lady as Queen of All Saints reflected in the Irish Martyrologies too. In the Epilogue to the Martyrology of Oengus, there is a description of the various companies of heaven being grouped around important figures of the universal Church. Stanza 249 begins with ‘the troop of martyrs around Stephen’ and ends with ‘the troop of holy virgins around Mary.’ The later martyrologist, Marianus O’Gorman, whose very name is a Latinization of the Irish Máel Muire, meaning someone devoted to Our Lady, records at November 1 ‘On the venerable day of Allhallowtide behold ye the Lord Himself, the angels, a mystical band and all the saints of heaven, hosts with clear white purity, around great honourable Mary.’

    Irish monastic poems, hymns and devotional texts reflect the same understanding. A Litany to Christ known as the Scúap chrábaid ‘The Broom of Devotion’, ascribed to Colcu úa Duinechda, an eighth-century scholar and lector from Clonmacnoise, includes this petition “I beseech you by all the holy virgins throughout the whole world, with Mary the Virgin, your own holy mother’. Later the author begs to be heard ‘For the sake of the pure and holy flesh which you received from the womb of the virgin’ and ‘For the sake of the holy womb from which you received that flesh without loss of dignity’. Also from the eighth century are the two poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan, published in 1964 by Professor James Carney, having been re-discovered as a neglected seventeenth-century manuscript of Friar Michael O’Clery’s in the National Library of Ireland in the 1950s. The poet addresses both of his works to Our Lady and the first poem is all the more remarkable because it begins with Blathmac wishing to join with Her in keening Her son:

    Come to me loving Mary that I may keen
    with you very dear one.
    Alas that your son should go to the cross,
    he who was a great emblem, a beautiful hero.

    The image of Our Lady of Sorrows is something we associate more with the later Middle Ages, with Saint Brigid of Sweden, with the Servites etc., yet here this Irish poet centuries earlier wishes to compassionate the sorrowful mother. He ends his poem saying:

    Come to me loving Mary,
    head of pure faith,
    that we may hold converse with the
    compassion of unblemished heart. Come.

    Blathmac also uses a particularly Irish form of endearment when seeking Our Lady’s intercessory power, asking:

    Let me have from you my three petitions,
    beautiful Mary, little bright-necked one;
    get them, sun of women,
    from your Son who has them in His power’.

    Another eighth-century work of special interest is the hymn composed by Cú Cuimhne of Iona, Cantemus in omni die, ‘Let us sing every day… a hymn worthy of holy Mary. I have previously published a Victorian hymnographer’s translation of the text here, but below is a more recent and literal translation:

    Let us sing every day,
    harmonising in turns,
    together proclaiming to God
    a hymn worthy of holy Mary.

    In two-fold chorus, from side to side,
    let us praise Mary,
    so that the voice strikes every ear
    with alternating praise.

    Mary of the Tribe of Judah,
    Mother of the Most High Lord,
    gave fitting care
    to languishing mankind.

    Gabriel first brought the Word
    from the Father’s bosom
    which was conceived and received
    in the Mother’s womb.

    She is the most high,
    she the holy venerable Virgin
    who by faith did not draw back,
    but stood forth firmly.

    None has been found, before or since,
    like this mother –
    not out of all the descendants
    of the human race.

    By a woman and a tree
    the world first perished;
    by the power of a woman
    it has returned to salvation

    Mary, amazing mother,
    gave birth to her Father,
    through whom the whole wide world,
    washed by water, has believed.

    She conceived the pearl
    – they are not empty dreams-
    for which sensible Christians
    have sold all they have.

    The mother of Christ had made
    a tunic of a seamless weave;
    Christ’s death accomplished,
    it remained thus by casting of lots.

    Let us put on the armour of light,
    the breastplate and helmet,
    that we might be perfected by God,
    taken up by Mary.

    Truly, truly, we implore,
    by the merits of the Child-bearer,
    that the flame of the dread fire
    be not able to ensnare us.

    Let us call on the name of Christ,
    below the angel witness,
    that we may delight and be inscribed
    in letters in the heavens.

    In addition to these devotional texts, we also have an Irish apocryphal text, the Transitus Mariae, the Passage of Mary, which deals with the traditions surrounding Her Assumption into heaven. Scholars believe these traditions reached Ireland, possibly from Syria, in the seventh century. Here is how the Transitus Mariae depicts the end of Our Lady’s life:

    24 Thereupon Christ, son of the living God, came with the angels of heaven, who were singing heavenly harmonies for the Saviour, and in honour of Mary. Christ greeted the apostles, and Mary saluted him, saying: “I bless you, son of the heavenly father. You have fulfilled all your promises, and have come yourself [for me]”.

    25-27 When Mary had finished saying these words, the spirit of life departed from her, and the Saviour took it in his hands with reverence and honour. The archangels of heaven rose up around her, and the apostles saw her being raised up by the angels, in human form, and seven times brighter than the sun. Then the apostles enquired whether there was any other soul as bright as the soul of Mary. Jesus answered and said to Peter: “All souls are like that after baptism. When in the world, the darkness of bodily sin adheres to them. No one else in the world is able to avoid sin as Mary could, therefore Mary’s soul is brighter than the soul of every other person in the world”.

    Finally, we have the tradition of regarding our national patroness Saint Brigid as Muire na nGael, the Mary of the Irish, a type of the Virgin Mary.  This tradition can be traced through the centuries beginning with the early seventh-century prophecy preserved in genealogical sources relating to Leinster. It tells of the great saint to come ..’who shall be called, from her great virtues, truly pious Brigit; she will be another Mary, mother of the great Lord’. Various of the Lives of Saint Brigid describe her in similar terms, and she is equated with Mary in the List of Parallel Saints, which compares Irish saints with important figures of the universal Church. And I can think of no better way to close than with the ending to the hymn of Saint Broccán Clóen, published by the seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, in his Trias Thaumaturga which says:

    ’There are two virgins in heaven who will not give me a forgetful protection, Mary, and Saint Brigid. Under the protection of them both may we remain’.

    Amen to that.

    Sources and Resources:

    The two major historical studies of devotion to Our Lady in Ireland I used are(1) Helena Concannon’s  The Queen of Ireland: An Historical Account of Ireland’s Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (Dublin, 1938) and (2) Peter O’Dwyer, O.CARM., Mary: A history of devotion in Ireland (Dublin 1988).

    Translations of the Irish martyrologies are available through the Internet Archive at https://archive.org

    For the poems of Blathmac see James P. Carney [ed.], The poems of Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan: together with the Irish Gospel of Thomas and a poem on the Virgin Mary, Irish Texts Society, 47, London: Irish Texts Society, 1964.

    The ‘Broom of Devotion’ is one of the texts included in the collection edited by Oliver Davies and Thomas O’Loughlin Celtic Spirituality. Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1999).

    The translation of Cantemus in omni die can be found in the anthology edited by T.O. Clancy and G. Márkus O.P.,  Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery (University of Edinburgh Press, 1995).

    The Transitus Mariae is among the texts included in M. Herbert and M. McNamara MSC., Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation ( Edinburgh, 1989).
    Sources for Saint Brigid can be found in Noel Kissane, Saint Brigid of Kildare- Life, Legend and Cult (Dublin, 2017).

    Finally, the photograph shows the medieval stone statue of Our Lady of Dunsford taken on a visit to Saint Mary’s church in Chapeltown in 2017.  Local historian Duane Fitzsimons has written a book about the statue’s rediscovery and the parish which houses it called Under the Shade of Our Lady’s Sweet Image – The Story of a Unique Coastal Parish in the Diocese of Down and Connor (Killyleagh, 2016).

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