OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Irish saints in Europe

  • Saints Marinus and Anianus, November 15

     At August 16 I noted that Canon O’Hanlon had found evidence from the manuscripts of the Irish Franciscan seventeenth-century hagiologist, Father John Colgan, that he intended to write about two little-known Irish missionaries to Bavaria on that date. The two are Saints Marinus and Anianus, the former described as a bishop and the latter an archdeacon, both of them were unknown to O’Hanlon. On February 23, 1863, his contemporary, the scholarly Anglican Bishop, William Reeves, delivered a paper on these two little-known saints to a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy. In it he discusses the evidence for their lives, martyrdom and translation of their relics, plus some speculations on the Irish names which may lie behind the Latinizations Marinus and Anianus. November 15 is the date of the martyrdom of Saint Marinus and the accepted feast day for the pair in Germany:

    The Rev. William Reeves, D.D., read the following paper: —

    On SS. Marinus and Anianus, two Irish Missionaries of the Seventh Century.

    The Academy owes to the vigilance of its excellent Librarian the recent acquisition of a volume which, independently of the value arising from its great rarity, possesses the merit of introducing to notice in this country two Irish Missionaries, whose names have escaped our ecclesiastical writers, and who, notwithstanding the deficiency of detail in their history, have yet a sufficient reality to render them a welcome accession to our recorded list of Irish worthies.

    The volume comprises three tracts. The first bears the title — “Das leben der Heiligen S.S. Marini Bischoues Martyrers, und Aniani Archidiaconns, Bekkeners die aus Irland in Bayrn kommen des Gotshauaes Rodt Patronm wordenseind. Durch Johan á Via der H. Schrifft Doctorn beschrieben“. The lower half of the title-page is occupied by an engraved plate, having in the middle a shield, which bears quarterly the arms of the monastery of Rot, and of Christopher the abbot, supported by two ecclesiastics, the dexter one vested in an episcopal, the sinister one in a sacerdotal habit. Between them is the inscription, “Christophorus.  S. Abbas. S. Marinvs. S. Anianvs. Patro. in Rot. 1579.” This German life, with the dedication, occupies nineteen leaves.

    The second tract is a Latin version of the same life, and bears the title — ” Vita S. S. Marini Episcopi Hybernobavari, Martyris, et Aniani Archidiaconi Confessoris, Patronorum Celebris Monasterii in Rota. Per Johan a Via Doct. Theol. conscripta, Monachii excudebat Adamus Berg. Anno M.D. LXXIX.” It has the same frontispiece as the former, except that it omits the date. To this tract is appended (fol 12 b) a “Sermo brevis cujusdam pii patris in Monasterio Rott ad Fratres ibidem pronunciatus.” The verso of the concluding folio (15) contains the enactment of the Council of Trent, Session 25, “De Invocatione, etc, Sanctorum.”

    The third tract is intituled, “Officium de Sanctis Marino Episcpo et Martyro et Aniano Archidiacono Confessore Celebris Monasterii in Rott Patronis. Jussu Reverendi in Christo Patris ac Domini, D. Christophori ejusdem Monasterii Abbatis vigilantissimi in ordinem redactum, et jam primum in lucem editum. Monachii excudebat Adamus Berg. Anno D.M. LXXXVIII.” On the title-page is an engraving of a circular seal, having on the field two shields, charged respectively with the arms of Rott and the abbot Christopher, with the legend + CHRISTOFF. ABBT. ZV. ROTT. Ao. 1588. This tract contains twenty six folios.

    The author, in his dedication to the abbot Christopher, expresses his regret that the notices of the patrons of this monastery which were scattered through the ancient annals belonging to the institution had not been put together in any regular order, and that they who had been set upon a candlestick to give light to all that were in the house, should, through the neglect of past generations, have been kept hidden under a bushel. He states that the acts of SS. Marinus and Anianus were preserved in three very ancient manuscripts, together with a sermon on the same subject by a learned and pious member of the fraternity, which he has annexed as a separate chapter to the Latin life. Munich, 6th of April, 1579.

    The following abstract of the Life contains the principal particulars of their history. Having alluded to the banishment and death of Pope Martin in 653, the narrative proceeds to say: 

    “Florebant tunc in Hybernia Scholae ac nunquam satis laudata literarum studia, adeo ut ex Scotia atque Britannia multi se pii viri eo conferrent, ad capessendam  pietatis disciplinam. In iis quoque in omni doctrinarum genere excellenter eruditi fuerunt duo hi sanctissimi viri, genere nobiles, ac professione Ecclesiastici, Sanctus Marinus cum S. Aniano, nepote suo ex suore: ille sacerdos et Episcopus, hic Archidiaconus: qui ambo ad modum Abrahae patriam cognatosque post se relinquentes, voluntario exilio, et mundum sibi, et se mundo crucifixerunt. Transfretantes enim mare quod Hiberniam secernit a Germania, venerunt peregrinantes in urbem Romanam, vel ut propriae saluti consulentes, devotionis suae, limina beatorum Apostolorum, Petri ac Pauli frequentando, satisfacerent desiderio: vel at Apostolicae Sedis, si quem forte Deus pastorem in eam reponeret, authoritate confirmati, praedicando errorum zizania authoritative evellerent et bonum verbi Dei semen in cordibus audientium insererent… Nam ubi Romam venerunt, non alta regum palatia, non porphyreticas statuas, non arces triumphales mirabantur, sed salutato eo qui tunc a Domino in eam sedem constitutus erat Pontifice, SS. Apostolorum limina frequentare, specus ac templa reliquorum Sanctorum visitare, votaque sua Deo offerenda ipsis commendare, unica illis voluptas erat. Et D. Laurentii memoria adeo delectabatur Marinus, ut ab eo tempore, quo ejus reliquias veneratus erat, simile sibi mortis genus pro Christi nominis gloria semper optaverit, atque a Deo ardentibus votis, si ejus voluntas esset, expetierit. Accepta autem ab Eugenio Summo Pontifice benedictione, cum authoritate ubilibet praedicandi verbum Dei, via qua venerant, revertebantur. An vero in societate D. Iodoci ipsi quoque fuerint, incertum est: qui cum esset filius regis Britanniae opulentissimus, amore Christi, regnum et omnem gloriam ejus circa idem tempus reliquit, et eremum intravit, ubi soli Deo serviens, miraculis claruit. Superatis igitur Alpium montibus, mox in vasta quadam eremo Boioariae, Noricae provinciae subsidentes, pedem figunt ad ipsas radices Alpium. Erat locus ille in quo consederant, ad quietem et contemplationem aptus, sed hominibus non prorsus impervius, omnis generis lignorum copia ac pascuis uberrimis pecundum gregibus valde accommodus. Quae res occasionem dedit, ut diu latere non possent, sicut nec ipsi optabant.” 

    Finding their labours among the pastoral inhabitants of the neighbourhood successful, they resolved upon settling in this region for the rest of their days, and erected huts for themselves over two caves about two Italian miles asunder. Here they led a life of solitude and self-mortification, meeting only on Lord’s days and festivals, when they joined in the services of the altar. And thus they continued, teaching both by precept and example, and crowned with success in their endeavours to convert the surrounding people, until at length a horde of barbarians, driven from the Roman provinces on the south, entered this territory, and proceeded to lay it waste. In their wanderings they arrived at the cell of S. Marinus, and the life thus relates the cruel treatment which he experienced at their hands : — 

    “Primum enim sancti viri supellectilem licet exiguam diripuerunt postes corpus verberibus afflixerunt, et jam tertio animam, meliorem hominis partem, tollere cupientes, ut Christum negare velit, solicitant. Sed cum in omnibus laqueos ante oculos pennati frustra tenderent, ne quicquam ad summam truculentiam immanitatemque reliqui facerent equlleo suspensum corpus flagris et aduncis ungulis diu saevissimeque lacerando usque ad denudationem costarum excarnificant. . . . Desperantes igitur victoriam, sententiam mortis super eam pronunciant, igni adjudicant. Continuo ergo, celeri manu ligna congerunt, struem componunt maximam, igni succendunt, et S. Martyrem, aridis ruderibus dorso alligatis (quo facilius totus in cineres solveretur) supra truculenter injiciunt.”

     It happened that at the same time S. Anianus, who had escaped the notice of the barbarians, was released by a natural death from the trials of this life; and thus both master and disciple on the same day— namely, the 17th of the Calends of December, that is, the 15th of November, which afterwards became the day of their commemoration — passed to a happy immortality, while their remains were consigned to a common tomb, where they rested for above a hundred years. At the end of this period, the circumstances of their death and interment were made known to an eminent and devout priest named Priam, who resided in a neighbouring village. He, it is stated, communicated the matter to a bishop called Tollusius, who repaired to the spot, and having ordered a solemn fast, on the third day exhumed the remains with due solemnity, and conveyed them to the village of Aurisium, now known as Ros, where they were deposited in a sarcophagus of white polished marble, within the church of that place. This invention is loosely stated to have occurred in the time of Pepin and Caroloman, kings of the Franks, when Egilolph was in Italy; and it is added — ” Priamus praesbyter, jussus a domino Episcopo Tollusio, vidi omnia et scripsi: et testimonium his gestis perhibeo, et testimonium meum verum est, quod ipse scit, qui benedictus est in saecula, Amen.”  

    From this place the reliques of the two saints were subsequently transferred to a spot near the river Aenus (now the Inn), which obtained the name of Rota from a little stream that flowed past it into the Inn, and here they were to be seen beneath the high altar of the choir.

    A Benedictine Monastery was founded at Rot, in 1073, by Chuno or Conon, Count of Wasserburg and his charter, of that date, makes mention of the “altare SS. Marini et Aniani.”

    In a bull of confirmation granted by Pope Innocent II., in 1142, Rot is styled ” praefatum SS. Marini et Aniani monasterium.” Mabillon, who states that he visited this monastery in one of his journeys, describes it as the Benedictine Monastery of SS. Marinns and Anianus, but he takes no notice of the patron saints themselves in the earlier part of his “Annals.” Baderos, however, gives a short memoir of them, which he illustrates by two engravings, ‘ representing respectively the martyrdom of S. Marinus, and the angelic vision of S. Anianus, to which he assigns the date 697.

    Under the year 784, this author makes mention of another Marianus, who also was an Irishman. He came to Bavaria in company with St. Virgil of Saltzburg, and was one of the two companions who were sent by him with Declan to Frisingen. The festival of this Marinus was the 1st of December, and his ashes were believed to be efficacious in curing certain diseases.

    As regards the names, it is not clear what is the Irish equivalent for Anianus; but Marinus is beyond all question a Latin translation of Muiredhach, which is derived from muir (mare), and signifies “belonging to the sea.” The name is of very early occurrence: thus, Muiredhach, the first bishop and patron of Killala, who is commemorated at August 12, is mentioned under the form of Muirethacus in the early part of the eighth century. In like manner, the name of the celebrated Briton, Pelagius, is understood to be a Greek form of the British Morgan, which is equivalent to Marigena. We have in the Irish calendar a name closely allied to Morgan, in the form Muirgein, which means “sea-born,” and is of conmion gender, for it is applied in one instance to an abbot of Gleann hUissen, now Killeshin; and in another to the celebrated Mermaid, in whose case it is interpreted liban, that is, “sea-woman.”

    The name Marinus is to be distinguished from Marianus, as the latter is derived from the name Maria, and represents, in a Latin form, the Irish Mael-Muire, “servant of Mary.”

    Rev. W. Reeves, ‘Two Irish Missionaries of the Seventh Century’, PRIA, Volume 8, (1861-64), 295-301.

     

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  • An Irish Bishop Saint: Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy

    October 25 is the feast of Blessed Thaddeus [Tadhg] McCarthy,  a fifteenth-century Irish Bishop who, having been unjustly deprived of his see, set off to obtain redress in Rome only to die alone on his return journey. Yet although he belongs to a very different world than that of the early medieval period saints this blog usually features, I am nevertheless aware of a thread of continuity which links him to them. In
    his popular title ‘The White Martyr of Munster’, Blessed Thaddeus
    reflects the Irish understanding of martyrdom as preserved in the Cambrai Homily: 

    The white martyrdom for someone is when they part for the sake of God
    from everything that they love, although they may suffer fasting and
    hard work thereby.

     

    Furthermore, as an Irishman who died and was buried in Italy, he is following in the footsteps of those peregrini of the Golden Age of the Irish mission to Europe, from the great Saint Columbanus to Cathadulus of Taranto, Donatus of Fiesole or Ursus of Aosta.  This was a link acknowledged by Fra Anselmo Tommassini, in his 1937 study Irish Saints in Italy:

    Our pious pilgrimage throughout the various provinces of Italy in search of traces of Irish sanctity comes to an end with a strangely pathetic figure whose humility is equalled only by his dignity. Our last Irish saint [Blessed Thaddeus] links up in the most curious fashion with the first one encountered on this side of the Alps, with that St. Ursus, the apostle of the Valle d’Aosta, who gave his name to so many churches and hospitals…

    For it was in one of these hospitals, the Hospice of the XXI, where twenty-one beds were reserved for the use of poor pilgrims and an institution served by the Canons of Saint Ursus of Aosta, that Blessed Thaddeus died on October 24/25, 1492. Interestingly, Saint Ursus of Aosta’s feast is February 1, the same day as that of Ireland’s national patroness Saint Brigid.

    Four centuries years later the people of Blessed Tadhg’s homeland rejoiced in the rediscovery of his memory, in the official confirmation of his cultus and in the translation of his relics from Ivrea to Cork. Below is a Pastoral letter from someone very much involved in these celebrations, the then Bishop of Cork, Thomas (Alphonse) O’Callaghan, O.P. detailing the life of Blessed Thaddeus and commending him as an intercessor to his flock:

    An Irish Bishop Saint 
     
    In his Pastoral, the Bishop of Cork  says: —
    ‘With feelings of heartfelt  joy we announce to you that it has  pleased His Holiness Leo XIII. to confirm, by his apostolic
    authority, the veneration that has been paid since the close of the
    fifteenth century to the Servant of God, Thaddeus McCarthy, Bishop of
    Cork and Cloyne. Henceforth he will be revered by us with the title of
    Blessed. His feast will be celebrated in the diocese each year
    throughout all future time, and Mass will be offered in his honour. 
     
    He
    was of the princely house of McCarthy, and was born in the year 1455, at a
    time when his family was just regaining its former power in Munster.
    Numerous buildings and castles, the ruins of which are scattered through
    the diocese, and with which we are familiar, were erected by his
    kinsmen and contemporaries, Cormac McCarthy Laider, who was appointed
    his protector in Cork by the Sovereign Pontiff, Innocent VIII., built
    Blarney Castle, and many churches in the neighbourhood of our city. He
    founded Kilcrea Abbey and the Abbey of Ballymacadane. Gifted with a rare
    natural disposition, and trained from his childhood in the practice of
    virtue, Thaddeus had hardly completed his studies when, despising all
    worldly allurements, he hastened to enrol himself in the ranks of the clergy. The fame of his learning, of his piety, and of his other
    virtues, spreading and increasing from day to day, he was, while yet in
    the flower of his youth, and already effulgent with sanctity, appointed
    by the Sovereign Pontiff, Sixtus IV., to govern the See of Ross; and he
    received episcopal consecration in the Church of St. Stephen (del Caeo),
    in Rome, on the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross, A.D. 1482.
    Having become in very soul the model of his flock, he ruled the Church committed to his care with prudence and diligence. By his devotion to
    religion, and his zeal for souls, he merited to be praised as the best
    of pastors. Like our Divine Lord, whose life he imitated, he carried a
    heavy cross; and in the exercise of his episcopal duties he was opposed,
    and calumniated, and denounced as a mercenary pastor, and as a steward
    of iniquity. The intrigues of his enemies went so far that the mind of
    the Sovereign Pontiff, Innocent VIII., was turned against him, and he
    was visited with severe ecclesiastical penalties. He bore his
    humiliation in perfect patience, without a word of complaint, and his
    virtue, tried on the touchstone of tribulation, attained in a short time
    the arduous summit of perfection. The innocence of Thaddeus was soon
    after proved, and his sanctity was made so evident that the same
    Pontiff, Innocent VIII., resolved not only to restore him, but to call
    him to still greater honours. He appointed him to the united Sees of
    Cork and Cloyne, regarding him rather as an angel than a man, and
    deeming him worthy of the greatest favours. When, by the bitter
    persecution of powerful enemies, and by the laws that then excluded the
    native Irish from ecclesiastical benefices,
    he was again forced into exile, he left Cork clad in the meanest attire
    in the garb of a pilgrim, and proceeded to Rome. Having worshipped at
    the Tomb of the Apostles, he laid his cause before the Vicar of Christ,
    who received him with affectionate cordiality, furnished him with
    strong-worded letters, and denounced in the severest terms the trespass
    on the liberty of the Church. In returning on foot he stopped to rest at
    Ivrea, in Piedmont, where, poor and unknown, he was received into the
    Hospital for Pilgrims. There, broken down from privations and toil,
    wearied by long travelling, and already ripe for Heaven, he delivered
    up his soul to God on October 24, 1492, in the thirty-seventh year of his
    age. 
     
    His death was announced by a light from Heaven shining in a
    marvellous manner, and the strangeness of the event attracted many to
    the bedside on which were laid his mortals remains. The Bishop of Ivrea,
    Nicholas Garigliatti, accompanied by his clergy, hastened to the spot,
    and discovered that the poor pilgrim was the Bishop of Cork and Cloyne.
    His body, attended by a great multitude of the faithful, the clergy, and
    civil magistrates, was carried to the Cathedral in solemn procession,
    which the accounts of the time say was rather a triumph than a funeral.
    It was placed under the High Altar, in the same sepulchre with St.
    Eusebius, patron of the Diocese of Ivrea, where it has since been
    venerated, and God willed the remarkable sanctity of His servant should
    be attested by many miracles. 
     
    It remains for us, dearly beloved
    brethren, to pay due honour to his memory, and to have recourse to his
    intercession, that by his prayers we may obtain what we stand in need
    of. Though forgotten during the centuries in which it was sought to blot
    out all traces of our religious history and our traditions, we may
    trust that he has not ceased to plead for us at the Throne of God, and
    that he has ever been, as the Prophet Jeremiah was to the Jewish nation,
    a lover of his brethren, who prays much for the people.”  Catholic Press, (Sydney, NSW), Saturday 4 April 1896, page 21
     
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  • Saint Gall and the Miracle of the Fishes

     October 16 is the feast of Saint Gall, the Irish Apostle to Switzerland. I have previously introduced him and his formidable monastic superior, Saint Columbanus, here. The relationship between the two was not always a harmonious one and they eventually went their separate ways. My earlier post includes an account of a posthumous miracle of healing attributed to the intercession of Saint Gall, now we can look at another miracle in which he features. This one involves the catching of fish and was recorded in the Life of Saint Columban by the Monk Jonas. In the healing miracle Gall appears as the aged and venerable Abbot of the monastery which bears his name, but here he is at an early stage of his monastic career under the authority of his own master, Columbanus. This miracle is rich in scriptural allusions and echoes the Miraculous Draught of the Fishes recorded in chapter five of the Gospel of Saint Luke. There the disciples have been unsuccessfully trying for a catch throughout the night and are sceptical when Jesus commands them to let down their nets, but obeying find that they catch so many fish they can hardly bring them ashore. The Apostle Peter is overcome by his sense of unworthiness but is told “Fear not: from henceforth thou shalt catch men (Lk. 5:10). Since Columbanus and his companions had left Ireland to evangelize in continental Europe this analogy too is fitting. And, of course, when Saint Gall obeys his master the reward is great:

    19. At another time he [Columban] was staying in the same wilderness, but not in the same place. Fifty days had already elapsed and only one of the brethren named Gall was with him. Columban commanded Gall to go to the Brusch and catch fish. The latter went, took his boat and went to the Loignon river. After he had gotten there, and had thrown his net into the water he saw a great number of fishes coming. But they were not caught in the net, and went off again as if they had struck a wall. After working there all day and not being able to catch a fish, he returned and told the father that his labor had been in vain. The latter chid him for his disobedience in not going to the right place. Finally he said, “Go quickly to the place that you were ordered to try.” Gall went accordingly, placed his net in the water, and it was filled with so great a number of fishes, that he could scarcely draw it.

    D. C. Munro, ed., Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol. II, Life of St. Columban, by the Monk Jonas, No. 7, (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press), p.12.

     

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