Weekly Roundup 05/09-11/09
This weeks upcoming Scottish Saints and some articles you might have missed from our website.
A round up of the upcoming weeks Saints and some articles you might have missed last week.
Beauty and Strength: The Catechism Part 5
Fr Aidan Nichols moves his min-series onto the climax of the revelation of God to humanity.
Scottish Catholicism and Psychogeography
Stephen Watt urges us to re-imagine our public spaces as not merely neutral and functional, but places we can encounter God in and reclaiming them as Catholic yet in the spirit of the hospitable.
St Kieran 516-549AD | Feast Day 9th September
St Kieran, a son of a Carpenter and chariot builder, was born in Connacht, Ireland around 516AD. He studied under St Finnian in Clonard (not to be confused with St Finan of Scotland), who himself was a significant and important Irish Saint. He reputedly spent 7 years with the holy St Enda on Aran before moving to a monastery in central Ireland called Isel. He was eventually moved off that by the other monks for showing ‘excessive charity’. After some time on Hare Island he and few other companions began the great Clonmacnoise Monastery on the banks of the Shannon in Offaly, and he became its first Abbot. This monastery lasted for around 1000 years before it fell to the dissolution of the monasteries in 1552. It was a renowned and important centre for Irish and European learning throughout its existence, a university and important place for artisans and Kings.
St Kieran has a strong connection with Argyll and had the friendship and admiration of St Columba. One colourful story recounts how all the Irish Saints of his day prayed for his early death, except St Columba! St Kieran’s chief connection with Argyll lies on Davaar, at the mouth of Campbelltown Loch. There in a cave he spent some time and apparently prayed so much on one particular rock by the mouth of the cave, you could see his knee imprints! He died around 549AD and is buried in Clonmacnoise. He was apparently meant to have asked the monks to leave his bones buried on the hill and his spirit preserved, so that he would not become relics. There are churches on Lismore, Islay, Argyll and Barvas dedicated to this Saint. There are also churches in Caithness, Kincardineshire and Ayrshire dedicated to a Saint of the same name, but it is disputed whether it is the same Saint we are talking about here.
There is also some scholarly chatter that he is St Piran of Cornwall, due to linguistic evidence and a copy of an early Irish medieval text in Exeter Cathedral.
So here we are again, trying to pick through evidence of a life which at points seem contradictory and can also seem at times like a number of Saints rolled into one. Did he ever come to Davaar? It is certainly not beyond the bounds of travel that he did. I would however like to look at the man himself.
He was the son of a carpenter, died young and whose legacy helped build Catholic Ireland and ultimately Scotland. Similarities with the life of Jesus abound here, possibly deliberate or possibly not. What is clear is; he was a humble man, a prayerful man, a man of great charity and someone who although only given a short time used every minute of it. He died around the age of 30 or 32 having given over his life to God and God richly used it to his glory. What might happen if we all took steps today to begin giving God our whole life? What could He accomplish through you? To finish on a rather apt scripture:
Wisdom of Solomon 4:7-9
But the righteous one, though he die early, shall be at rest. For the age that is honourable comes not with the passing of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years. Rather, understanding passes for grey hair, and an unsullied life is the attainment of old age.