jan 21 Brigid b. 452 d. 525

Thommy and John

Good morning
I love you.


January 21
Brigid b. 451 d. 525


Women. How do you get to know women? To better complete yourself. To increase the probability of a holy and peaceful marriage [if that is your vocation]. To best communicate with fifty percent of our universe no matter where you live, no matter what work you do.

One source, of course, is the women you grow up with - mother, aunts, cousins, grandmothers. Except for Kelly, I do not recommend any of them as models to use; from what little I know of Ginger and Donna, they might fit the bill. Your mother’s and grandmothers’ influences are imprinted as well as genetic - for better and for much worse.

Then there is Mary. Your relationship with, your devotion to, Our Holy Mother, The Mother of our brother, Jesus, is an essential component to your relationship with any woman - including your relatives. She is the, THE, standard with which women should determine how to best live life as a woman - daughter, wife, mother, cousin, and child of God.

After Mary, we are given the saints. No dearth of woman saints - e.g., Elizabeth Ann Seton, Mother Teresa, ….

St Brigid [not, we are admonished by some, Bridget - though spelling is not a Gaelic forte, and we have various translations brought down to us or adopted by parents for their daughters along the way], Brigid is the Mary of the Gael, patroness of Ireland.

This would be a good place to insert a digression into Ireland of the 5th and 6th century. It’s worth the trip if only because it is our heritage. An essential place and time in our own collective unconscious. There are several books in my library - fiction, religious, and historical. Or take a trip to a library; even in Greensboro you’ll find a plethora of volumes. Try a trip to Ireland yourself - hear the lilt of the language as you read what our forebears did that helped make us who we are….

Brigid was a princess in County Louth. Born in 451, while Patrick was proselytizing Ireland. [Patrick died 493]. Try to imagine life in the clan; understand the place and value of an Irish warrior princess - especially as a wife for the prince or Ri of another clan. Then figure out how this girl refused marriage and became a nun. Christianity was new to the isle. The place of woman in the Irish church, though, was not unlike it was throughout the culture - not unlike the place of the modern version of the Irish princess warrior in our own expended family. [e.g., Kelly and my cousins Lynn and Chris and Joan et al. and Aunts Catherine, Helen, Mary, Molly...]

Brigid became a nun under the auspices of St Macaille, bishop of Offaly, a disciple of St Mel, whose mother was St. Patrick’s sister. (St. Mel also received the vows of Brigid. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Mel told Macaille, Mel read the Episcopal consecration over Brigid. Mel proclaimed that Brigid alone of the abbesses of Kildare would be a bishop - and her successors, while not being bishops themselves, would continue to have a bishop’s jurisdictional authority. This authority was respected until the Synod of Kells in 1152. Know the place of women in our lineage!

Kildare comes from the abbey that Brigid and her seven companion virgins founded under a large oak tree in the plains of Magh Life: the convenant of Cill-Dare, the church of the oak. [ya think the culture of druids had an influence too?] At Cill-Dare, Brigid founded two monastic institutions - for men, for women.

Brigid also founded a school of art, including metal work and illuminations. From the Cill-Dare scriptorium we have the wondrous book of the 'Kildare Gospels'.

It is important to know the history, the context, the stories brought down to us, not only to understand who Brigid was but how our faith was formed in the crucible of fifth century Ireland; and subsequently brought to us today.

In the Irish tradition, we have innumerable exaggerated stories told of St Brigid. Our patroness was one of the most remarkable people, Irishwomen, of the fifth century. A hymn by St Ultan starts thus: “In our island of Hibernia, Christ was made known to man by the very great miracles which he performed through the happy virgin of celestial life, famous for her merits through the whole world.”

St Ninndh administered the viaticum to Brigid. And the story goes that his right hand was then encased with a metal covering to prevent its ever being defiled. There are many degrees of veneration to which to go - not only for Brigid and Mary but also for the love of your life. [an iron covered hand may be a bit too much in our modern era….]

From the Book of Armagh we have, “Between St. Patrick and St. Brigid, the columns of the Irish, there was so great a friendship of charity that they had but one heart and one mind. Through him and through her Christ performed many miracles.”

Get to know more good women - they will change your lives for the better….

I love you,
dad