Wisdom of the Celtic Saints 0877934924, 9780877934929

Citation preview

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EDWARD C. SELLNER

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

of Che

Digitized by tile Internet Arcliive in

2015

https://archive.org/details/wisdomofcelticsaOOsell

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isdom

EDWARD C. SELLNER Illustrations

by Susan McLean-Keeney

AVE MARIA PRESS

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

Edward

Sellner is associate professor of and spirituality at the College Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he

pastoral theology of St. is

also director of the masters

program in theology.

Sellner, who holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Notre Dame, is the author of numerous journal articles. His books include Mentoring: The Ministry of Spiritual Kinship (Ave Maria Press) and Soul-Making: The Telling of a Spiritual Journey (Twenty-Third Publications).

Susan McLean-Keeney is a graduate of the Fine Arts program of where she also earned a master's degree in art history. As a Fulbright Exchange Teacher in and a frequent traveller to the British Isles, she has visited and studied many of the Celtic holy sites which she illustrates. McLean-Keeney is an art instructor at Coon Rapids High School and has taught for Inver Hills Community College, Artist

the University of Minnesota

both in Minnesota.

© 1993 by Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN 46556 No part of this book may be used or reproduced any manner whatsoever without written permission, except

All rights reserved.

in

in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

International Standard

Book Number: 0-87793-492-4

Library of Congress Catalog Card

Cover and

text

Printed and

Number: 92-74778

design by Elizabeth J. French

bound

in the United States of America.

For

my students, past and present, and

for

Thomas Merton, my guide

In every generation

wisdom lives in holy souls

and makes them friends

of

God.

(Wisdom 7:27) Friendship is nothing else but wisdom. (Aelred of Rievaulx)

Table of Contents Preface

8

Maps of Main Celtic Monastic Sites 10/11 13

Introduction The Early

Celtic

Church 15 21

Celtic Spirituality

Spiritual Kinship with Jesus 28 Symbols and Sacred Numbers 31 Listening with the Heart 42

Stories

and Sayings From

Celtic Lives

Aidan of Lindisfame 49 Brendan of Clonfert 57 Brigit of Kildare

69

Canair of Bantry Bay 77 Ciaran of Clonmacnois 79 Columcille of lona 89

Cuthbert of Lindisfame 101

David of Wales 113 Ethne and Fedelm of Connacht 123 Findbarr of Cork 126 Hild of Whitby 136 la of

Cornwall 146

Itaof Killeedy

148

Kevin of Glendalough 156

Maedoc of Ferns 166 Monesan of Britain 174

Non of Wales Patrick of

176

Armagh

180

Samthann of Clonbroney 192 Conclusion 201 Bibliography 206 7

47

Preface been an intellectual interest of mine for my Irish ancestors from County Mayo, me at an unconscious level much within it has probably lived deep longer. I became acquainted with the history of the early Irish church as a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame while Celtic spirituality has

years, although, because of

researching the ministry of soul friendship for my doctoral dissertation. In 1982, when I visited England and Ireland for the first time

with my wife, JoAnne, I was profoundly affected by the rugged beauty of the mountains, forests, lakes, and seashores, the carvings of the saints on the high crosses, and, not least, the friendliness of the people. Since that trip I have taught courses on the history of Celtic Christianity at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, given retreats and workshops on Celtic spirituality and soul friendship in parishes and at national conferences, and written extensively on those subjects, especially as they relate to lay leader-

Over the past decade I have also made numerous journeys to important monastic sites in Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales where the Celtic saints once lived. My appreciation of Celtic history and spirituality has been enriched by the comments and questions of my students, and in unexpected ways my trips abroad have deeply touched both my imagination and my heart. As a result of those experiences, I am acutely aware of the living presence of the past and of our ability even now to communicate with the saints in prayer— and they with us. As Thomas Merton's The Wisdom of the Desert introduced readers to the desert Christians of the third and fourth centuries who acted as spiritual guides, I hope this book will acquaint more ship.

people with those spiritual leaders of the early Celtic church who lived from the fifth through the eighth centuries. These men and

women were

influenced significantly by the earlier stories and ministries of the desert Christians, primarily lay people who lived

and Egypt. While the desert Christians referred to their spiritual guides as abbas (fathers) or ammas (mothers), the word the early Celtic Christians used to describe their own tradiin Palestine, Syria,

mentors was anamchara, Gaelic for "friend of the soul" or simply "soul friend." An anamchara is someone with tion of spiritual

whom we can share our greatest joys 8

and deepest

fears, confess

our worst sins and most persistent faults, clarify our highest hopes and perhaps most unarticulated dreams. A saying, found in the medieval Book ofLeinster, attests to the widespread popularity of soul-friendship in the early Celtic church.

St. Brigit,

Ireland's

best-known female saint, is quoted as telling a cleric who visits her regularly that "anyone without a soul friend is like a body without a head." Although this form of ministry was eventually identified in the Roman Catholic church with the ordained priest in the sacrament of reconciliation, in the earliest days of Celtic Christianity such relationships were open to lay people and ordained, women and men alike. The stories and sayings of the Celtic saints found in this book come from a variety of sources. Some were discovered while I was doing research at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England, and at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland, during a leave of absence from my teaching. Others I have found in various sources since my return to the United States. Stories from two of the Irish women saints' Lives, those of Ita and Samthann, were especially translated for this book by Irish scholars Reverend Diarmuid O'Laoghaire, S.J., and Reverend Peter O'Dwyer, O. Carm., while a colleague, George Rochefort, translated one of the stories of St. Brigit. I am grateful to them for their contribution. Because most of the other Lives were translated in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, I have modernized the translations when appropriate and, of course, edited the selections. Enhanced by the artwork of my friend, Susan McLean-Keeney, I hope they will be conducive to reflection, meditation, and prayer. This book Catherine,

is

dedicated to

my

students at the College of

St.

who continue to teach me much about women's com-

and spirituality. It is also dedicated to Thomas Merton, whom I never met in person, but who has inspired me with his writings, the stories of his life, and certain dreams in which he has appeared. In Merton's journal, written a few years before his death in 1968, he writes: "I am reading about Celtic monasticism, the hermits, the lyric poets, the pilgrims, the sea travelers, etc. A whole new world that has waited until now to open up for me." I hope this book will open up for you, the reader, new horizons too. petence, leadership,

9

Main Celtic Monastic Sites

Ireland

Bango] • Glencolumbkille

Nendrum

•

Downpatrick Inishmurray ^

Devenish

Armagh

Louth Kells

•

Inisboffm