OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Tag: Vignettes

  • Saint Columbanus and the Dangers of the Forest

    We continue the octave of posts in honour of the 1400th anniversary of the death of Saint Columbanus with a glimpse into how the saint dealt with the dangers of life in the forests. I am particularly pleased that the author here is none other than dear old Canon O’Hanlon, as he did not live to publish a November volume of his Lives of the Irish Saints. He did, however, begin the serialisation of what I am sure would have formed his chapter on Saint Columbanus in a short-lived Irish literary magazine, alas it doesn’t seem like he got the chance to conclude it. Here he brings us a vignette from the biography of Saint Columbanus by the monk Jonas of Bobbio:

    It was a custom of the Saint to make solitary excursions through the forest, and on a certain occasion, when taking with him the Sacred Scriptures, he fell into a reverie of thought, whether it would be preferable for him to suffer violence from men or wild beasts. He concluded at length, that it would be more desirable to sustain the rage of beasts rather than that of men, since the latter sort of violence could not take place, without the loss of immortal souls. Thereupon, he prayed and armed himself with the sign of the cross. No sooner had he performed these actions, than a troop of twelve wolves rushed towards him and surrounded him on every side. The Saint cried out, “O Lord incline to my aid, O Lord hasten to my assistance.” He remained immoveable and intrepid, although the wolves caught hold of his garments. They at length left him, and fled into the recesses of the forest. Scarcely had Columban escaped this danger, when he overheard the voices of certain Swiss robbers, who were lurking in the woods. He passed the forest unobserved by them, and thus escaped a second danger. Taking a longer ramble than usual from his cell, he one day penetrated a hitherto unexplored recess of the forest, where he discovered a large cave, in the side of a precipitous rock. Upon entering, he found a bear, which had here taken up its place of concealment. Columban drove the animal away, without its attempting the least injury against him, and what was still more remarkable, it dared not return afterwards to the den it formerly occupied. This occurred at a place about seven miles distant from Anegrai.*

    * Jonas, Vita S. Columbani. n. 15.

    Rev. John O’Hanlon, ‘ Life of Saint Columbanus, Abbot of Luxeu’ in The Irish Harp: a monthly magazine of national and general literature: Volume 1, 1-4 (1863), 112.

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  • Adamnan, the Poor Scholar

    September 23 is the feast day of Saint Adamnan, abbot of Iona and biographer of Saint Colum Cille. In the episode below we see this great saint not as the accomplished churchman but as a struggling student who encounters King Finnachta and his entourage:


    Vignettes from the Lives of the Irish Saints: Adamnan, the Poor Scholar


    The sister of Finnachta invited him to come to her and feast in her dún for some days. It was before Finnachta, whom men called “The Festive”, was made Ard-Righ of Erinn. He set out with a great cavalcade, and as they journeyed towards Clonard of Meath, with laughter and light words, they came upon a young student who was trudging along the road with a small cask or churn on his back. The youth, on hearing the tramp of the horses,  made a hurried attempt to move off the road: but having struck his foot against a stone he fell, breaking the cask to pieces and spilling the milk with which it was filled. The cavalcade passed on at quick speed, and the student recovering himself set out among with them, and notwithstanding their speed and his own grief kept pace with them,  a fragment of the cask at his back, until at last he attracted the notice of the king, who smiled when he saw the excitement under which he laboured. Then the king accosted him and said: “We will make thee happy again, for we have sympathy with the unfortunate and the powerless. Thou shalt receive, O student,” said he, “satisfaction from me”. The youth (who was afterwards no less a person than the great scholar and divine, Saint Adamnan the founder of the Church of Rath-Botha, or Raphoe in Donegal, and Abbot of Iona after Columkill) then spoke to the king, whom he did not know at the time: “O good man,” said he, “I have cause to be grieved, for there are three noble students in one house, and there are three lads of us that wait upon them, and what we do is, one of us three goes round the neighbourhood to collect support for the other five, and it was my turn to do do this day; but what I had obtained for them has been lost, and what is more unfortunate, the borrowed vessel has been broken, while I have not the means of paying for it.”

    Then Finnachta ordered that full compensation should be made to Adamnan; and afterwards, when Finnachta was Ard-righ and the young scholar had the reputation of learning on him, the king brought him to Tara and made him his councillor. – Taken from O’Curry’s Translation of an old Irish MS.

    All Ireland Review Vol. 3, No. 2 (Mar. 15, 1902), p. 29

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • The Death of Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise

    XLIX. THE DEATH OF CIARAN

    35. Our most holy patron Kiaranus lived but for one year in his settlement of Cluain. When he knew that the day of his death was approaching, he prophesied, deploring the subsequent evils that would come to pass in his place after him; and he said that their life would be short. Then the brethren said unto him, “What then shall we do in the time of those evils? Shall we abide here beside thy relics, or shall we go to other places?” To them Saint Kiaranus said, “Haste ye to other quiet places, and leave my relics here like the dry bones of a stag on a mountain. For it is better for you to be with my spirit in heaven than beside my bones on earth, and stumbling withal.”

    Saint Kiaranus used greatly to crucify his body, and we write here an example of this. He ever had a stone pillow beneath his head, which till to-day remains in the monastery of Saint Kiaranus, and is reverenced by every one. Moreover, when he was growing weak, he would not have the stone removed from him, but commanded it to be placed to his shoulders, that he should have affliction even to the end, for the sake of an everlasting reward in heaven.

    Now when the hour of his departure was approaching, he commanded that he should be carried outside, out of the house; and looking up into heaven, he said, “Hard is that way, and this needs must be.” To him the brethren said, “We know that nothing is difficult for thee, father; but we unhappy ones must greatly fear this hour.”

    And being carried back into the house, he raised his hand and blessed his people and clerks; and having received the Lord’s Sacrifice, on the fifth of the ides of September he gave up the ghost, in the thirty-third year of his age. And lo, angels filled the way between heaven and earth, rejoicing to meet Saint Kiaranus.

    R.A.Stewart-MacAllister, ed. and trans., The Latin and Irish Lives of Ciaran, (London, SPCK, 1921).

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