December 12: Colman, Finian, and Thomas Holland

John and Thommy

Good morning
I love you


December 12
[It’s 12/16 and I’m falling behind. And December has a plethora of biggies as well as keeping up day to day….]


St. Colman of Glendalough d. 659

An abbot mentioned in the Irish calendars.

It’d be nice to be mentioned. A sign of remembrance. A gift of recognition. Hopefully as one of the good guys.

Many of the Williams are abbots. And I often compare what I do as hospital ceo or service line leader or when just a consultant [mercenary? A no responsibility for outcomes role?]. especially when the task is reform. Very much like the abbot saints.

Abbot qua head of family. Very personal to us, too. How will we be mentioned in the calendars of our lives?






St. Finian of Clonard d. 549

Teacher of the Irish Saints
Teacher of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland

St Finian was born in Myshall, County Carlow, Ireland. We have no control over where we are born or to whom we are born. That’s God’s call. And it must matter since it matters to Him. You were born in Nashville. Baptized on NYC, the same font as your father at St Elizabeth’s of Hungry. Born to your mother and me, an Irish catholic boy from nyc – way far from nyc in Nashville, via Buffalo, Albany, Portland, Lenox, Tuscaloosa, Eugene, Staten Island, Bayville, Tuscaloosa again, Birmingham, Auburn Hills, Covington, and on to Nashville – where you were born before you were moved away from your father to Greensboro [ you are from Nashville and now also from your father. I am sorry for that part. But I digress.]

As a young man, St Finian founded three Churches for the new religion spreading across Ireland. And then he decided that asceticism and the monastic way of life was the best way for him to serve God and Church.

St Finian was trained in Wales by Sts Cadoc and Gildas. It does matter to whom you go for your training. Discerning your mentors, teachers, trainers is as important, maybe probably moreso, than discerning your vocation. What is God calling you to do? And who is it who is best suited to facilitate your doing that?

St Finian returned to Ireland and built monasteries, schools, and churches. First at Aghowle in county Wicklow. Then, in 520 he began Clonard at Meath on the River Boyne which was his most famous – Clonard became the most famous monastery of sixth century Ireland – a reputation still resplendent today. The monastery served Ireland and the Church and all their people through the sixteenth century. Famous because? St Finian drew thousands of disciples by his asceticism and his teaching. And those who came to learn from the holiest and the best had in their midst more of the same holiness and accomplishment. The best do draw the best. The holiest do draw the holy. It is important, your discerning whom you choose to follow; whom you choose to learn from.

St Finian is known as the Teacher of the Irish Saints, the one who trained the Twelve Apostles of Ireland because the best of the best came to his renowned scriptural and missionary school at Clonard and left there to found other monasteries. St Finian is the father of Irish Monasticism – long before Benedict did his thing on the continent.

We are also known by our disciples, those who learn from us, those who come to us to learn, those to whom we pass it forward. The Twelve Apostles of Erin – the most renowned of Finian’s students were: Ciaran of Saighir and Ciaran of Colonmacnois, Brendan of Bir, Brendan of Clonfert,Columba of Terryglass, Columba of Iona, Mobhi, Ruadhan, Senan, Ninnidh, Lasserian mac Nadfraech, and St Canice [Kenneth]. In the office of St Finian we read:
Regressus in Clonardiam
Ad cathedram lecturae
Apponit diligentiam
Ad studium scripturae.




Bl. Thomas Holland, S. J. b. 1600 d. 1642

Jump ahead a thousand years and across the Irish Sea.

Thomas Holland, aka Thomas Sanderson and Thomas Hammond – well, you know why the aka and you know the story of yet another martyr to the English mission, yes?

Thomas Holland was born at Sutton, near Lancashire, England.

Thomas Holland left England to study for the priesthood. It is just possible that you have to leave hearth and home[land] to pursue your vocation, to live your life free of persecution and repression of your faith and religion; to prepare yourself for your mission in life – to leave so as to be able to return with more skills, more maturity, more grace; return to do good and right in the midst of your persecutors….

Thomas Holland was ordained in 1624 from the seminary in Valladolid, Spain. The Jesuits had been founded in 1540 and were riding a crest of magnetism as the Pope’s marines. That Thomas Holland entered the Society of Jesus in its home country where he was studying is not so much a surprise.

In 1635-ish, Thomas Holland, S.J., returned home to serve God and Church throughout the isles until he was arrested in London in 1642.

Thomas Holland was hanged, drawn, and quartered for being treasonous to his home[land] because he remained faithful to his faith and church and religion. Tyburn qua Greensboro?

I love you
dad