That USA In the present day story on St. Patrick was fairly strong. If you wish to see an ideal instance of recent (perhaps postmodern) protection of the Celtic saints, all it is advisable to do is dig into this current New York Occasions story about St. Brigid: “As Eire’s Church Retreats, the Cult of a Feminine Saint Thrives.”
That is a kind of pattern tales wherein one thing that may be very a number of many years outdated is described as a moderately stunning new pattern as a result of it was new to the reporters and editors who did this story.
I’ve been studying about feminist and even neopagan interpretations of St. Brigid and different Celtic saints since, oh, the late Nineteen Eighties and I’m positive that this pattern is older than that.
So right here we go once more. As soon as once more, the theme is that one thing outdated and moderately conventional (and thus unhealthy) has turn out to be one thing new and progressive (and thus good). Right here is the overture:
KILDARE, Eire — Across the yr 480, as legend has it, a freed slave named Brigid based a convent beneath an oak within the east of Eire. To feed her followers, she requested the King of Leinster, who dominated the realm, for a grant of land.
When the pagan king refused, she requested him to offer her as a lot land as her cloak would cowl. Pondering she was joking, he agreed. However when Brigid threw her cloak on the bottom, it unfold throughout 5,000 acres — creating the Curragh plains, which nonetheless stretch beside the non secular settlement she based at Kildare (from the Irish Cill Dara, “church of the oak”).
A millennium and a half later, a renewed cult of Saint Brigid is flourishing in Kildare, even at a time when the Roman Catholic church is in retreat in Eire, weakened by clerical intercourse abuse scandals, rising secularism and — Catholic feminists say — by its refusal, regardless of a collapse within the numbers of its all-male priesthood, to offer equal standing to girls.
A lot of the revitalized curiosity is the results of the Brigidines’ emphasis on nature, ecology and therapeutic, and their shift away from the patriarchal religion of conventional Irish Catholicism.
Let me stress that this moderately New Age story angle is legitimate, even whether it is fairly outdated. The query is whether or not this prolonged function ignores the centuries of religion surrounding the older views of St. Brigid.
The answer? Ignore the previous and, if potential, even leap up and down on it. Try this passage:
At nightfall on the eve of Saint Brigid’s Day this yr, rather than muttered rosaries, a number of hundred worshipers, largely girls, lit candles from a central flame by the properly. They watched as Angela Seoighe, a retired native instructor, hand-wove an enormous Saint Brigid’s Cross — a twist of rushes or straw that many Irish households nonetheless dangle yearly to guard towards sickness and hearth. One other nun from Solas Bhride, Sister Phil O’Shea, recited a brand new sort of prayer.
“The earth is waking from its winter sleep,” she intoned. “Simply pay attention — Brigid brings the spring.”
It’s all in regards to the phrase “muttered.” Right here’s one other instance:
Margaret Hebblethwaite, a number one English author on Catholic issues, attended this yr’s vigil at Saint Brigid’s Nicely.
Whereas she had heard the identify of Saint Brigid as a toddler, Ms. Hebblethwaite had solely just lately realized that, unusually, Brigid and her feminine successors ruled not solely nuns however male monks, as properly. Furthermore, it’s believed that Brigid, regardless of being a girl, was ordained as a bishop.
Be aware the obscure phrases — “it’s believed” — that erase the necessity to any on-the-record materials in regards to the centuries of debate in regards to the function of St. Brigid and different abbesses in some Celtic monasteries.
It’s one factor, for instance to “lead” a monastery that features monks in addition to nuns. It’s one thing else to “govern” it. And, sure, St. Brigid is regularly seen, in icons, holding a workers — since she is an abbess. That doesn’t imply that she was ordained as a priest or bishop.
However why talk about particulars and debates linked to church historical past when — talking in obscure, omniscient New York Occasions paraphrase — you’ll be able to write just about something that you really want in probably the most influential newspaper on Planet Earth?
Oh properly. No matter. Nevermind.
I really feel the necessity for a blast of Celtic religion from St. Patrick, as in these bracing traces from the well-known “Breastplate Prayer” related to this saint.
In opposition to the demon snares of sin,
The vice that offers temptation drive,
The pure lusts that struggle inside,
The hostile males that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In each place and in all hours,
In opposition to their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.In opposition to all Devil’s spells and wiles,
In opposition to false phrases of heresy,
In opposition to the data that defiles,
In opposition to the guts’s idolatry,
In opposition to the wizard’s evil craft,
In opposition to the dying wound and the burning,
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Shield me, Christ, until Thy returning.Christ be with me, Christ inside me,
Christ behind me, Christ earlier than me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to consolation and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in peril,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of pal and stranger.
New Agey? Not likely.
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FIRST IMAGE: Icon of “St. Patrick, Enlightener of Eire,” featured at UncutMountainSupply.com