I write to explore deeper meaning in everyday experiences of my priesthood, art, music, adventures, and relationships.
The Celtic Saints
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Published in the South Jetty Newspaper
While the saint word has fallen away from that mid-February holiday of Eros-Love, I am grateful we have held onto it for this month's celebration of St. Patrick's. Dear St. Patrick did more than the legendary snake-drive, and I don't think it was he who asked people to wear green (or drink green). As a young man of 16, Patrick arrived in Ireland as a slave, kidnapped from his home. There he tended sheep and in that pastoral setting he learned to pray and as he wrote, "felt God's love fill my heart and strengthen my faith." He escaped on a ship, but later returned to Ireland after a series of mystical experiences persuaded him his mission field was there. St. Patrick may be the most popular of the Irish or Celtic Saints, but he is not necessarily the most interesting.
Consider St. Brendan, who like other monks of the region, launched himself off in a small boat, letting the Holy Spirit direct his course to carry the Good News of the love of Jesus to other lands. Then there is St. Brigid who was an abbess of both monks and nuns, who led a remarkably generous life caring for the poorest of her neighbors. The Celtic Christians wrote about God's good creation, where they found inspiration and community with the Holy Trinity. Living so close to the sea can certainly have that influence; some were even known to have wild animal companions who would come visit or help direct them in finding a good place to build a hermitage or monastery.
Whether we use churchy language to describe it or not, the spirituality of knowing God's presence in nature is what led many of us to come live on this island where we get to live among wild animals, and witness beauty of God's creation all the time. We can't help but feel connected to the great mystery when we are exposed to nature. I call that God.
Some of the Celtic saints left us with poetry and prayers that acknowledge God's handiwork, like St. Columba's Rock: "I hear the heaving waves chanting a tune to God in heaven, I see their glittering surf." One of my favorite hymns comes from St. Patrick's Breastplate, a beautiful Trinitarian, poem (370 in our Hymnal) celebrating Christ's all encompassing presence. It reads, "I bind unto myself today the virtues of the star lit heaven, the glorious sun's life giving ray, the whiteness of the moon at even, the flashing of the lightning free, the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, the stable earth, the deep salt sea, around the old eternal rocks...Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger."
This St. Patrick's Day, take time to recognize and honor the spirituality we have inherited from the Celtic Saints; their way is well suited for our island home, here connected as we are to their own coastands by the deep salt sea.
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