St.Brigid: Keeper Of The Celtic Flame

One of the most interesting and dynamic saints of Christendom was St. Brigid (or Bridget) of Kildare in Ireland; also known across the Irish Sea - especially in Scotland and Wales - as St. Bride. Though she was an abbess and followed the Christian faith, Brigid became loosely connected by the Irish with her mythical namesake: a Celtic goddess rooted in the cultural mist of pre-Christian Europe. The abbess came along at a major turning point in Irish spiritual life, when Patricius - better known as St. Patrick - was urging the Irish people to abandon their traditional beliefs and embrace the Way of the Cross. Patrick's efforts met with much success, partly the result of a general weariness among the people with the constant turmoil and bloodshed of Celtic clan rivalry. Though this rivalry continued for centuries, the adoption of Christianity did have a significant unifying influence.

Some of the aspects of everyday life that come under the patronage of St.Brigid were also associated with the goddess Brigid: smiths, the hearth, poets or bards, midwifery and healing. As a Christian spiritual figure, St.Brigid became associated with something more specific: in today's terminology the "disempowered" of humanity, including the displaced, the impoverished, and socially stigmatized people such as the disabled and illegitimate children. Brigid the goddess and Brigid the saint were both associated with the element of fire, first as the fire of inspiration and later as the fire of devotion; in both instances being the element of purification and renewal.

Though there are contradictory details about St.Brigid's childhood, there is no doubt that she was a spiritual leader around the 5th century A.D. in Ireland. Her most famous achievement was the establishment of a unique Christian community among some oak trees west of modern-day Dublin; appropriately this place became known as Kil-dara, or Church of the Oaks, now known as Kildare. Here she played the role of abbess, and in keeping with the Celtic traditions to which she was accustomed, Brigid's abbey accommodated both men and women.

Almsgiving was a central aspect of Brigid's creed, and it is perhaps this for which she is best known. This concept is in no way unique to Christianity; one of the Five Pillars of Islam - called zaka - is the practice of donating a portion of one's property to those in need (to symbolically legitimize what one owns). The aboriginal peoples of the Americas have their potlatches and other "giveaways". These are just two examples. There are numerous stories about Brigid's acts of charity, perhaps the most famous being her donation of her nobleman father's prized sword to a beggar. This occurs while her father is trying to sell her off as a servant to the King of Leinster (an old Irish province). As one writer says:

Her father notices the sword missing when he brings the king out to inspect her. Brigid declares that she would gladly give all she had, all her father had, and all the king had in order to aid the destitute. Impressed by her piety, the king tells Brigid's father he could not accept her as a bondmaid, as he could never pay a price worthy of her. (D. MacGowan).

Another writer suggests that Brigid at one point in her life assisted her aging mother (possibly a Pictish slave) in running a dairy, and true to form, she often thought nothing of distributing a portion of the produce to the hungry. Overall, Brigid's charitable behavior - in light of her privileged background - exemplified the once revered concept of noblesse oblige.

St.Brigid has always been a Catholic saint, though it should be pointed out that in her time, practically all Christians were Catholics. Like all Catholic saints she has been assigned a "name day," but Brigid's day - February 1 - has an added significance directly connected with pre-Christian Celtic customs and beliefs. It coincides with the ancient Celtic feast day called Imbolc or Oimelc, which marked the "quickening of the earth" and the promise of approaching spring. Strangely this day receives little attention these days in comparison with the heavily commercialized St.Patrick's Day (still big in North America) on March 17, St.David's Day (March 1)- popular in Wales, and in French Canada, the day devoted in Quebec to St.Jean Baptiste (June 24). Note that all three of these saints were men and, too, that there are nationalistic overtones to these special dates (Irish and Welsh self-determination; the Quebec separatist movement in Canada). Perhaps the fact that Brigid's name day has maintained a low profile has to some extent been a blessing in disguise - preserving a truly spiritual, non-partisan quality to her special day. Few followers of Brigid would want to see this day - also known as Candlemas - degenerate into the fiasco that Christmas has widely become.

It can be fairly well established that St. Brigid was a living, breathing woman; not only what one writer called a "disguised Celtic divinity." Literacy was highly valued and respected in early Christian Ireland, and the monks and abbesses of the time - already well-versed in the Erse or Irish-Celtic tongue - were quick to learn to speak and write Latin (in many ways replacing the old bards and druids as the historians and storytellers of their culture). The first known written account of St. Brigid's life was by a monk of Kildare named Cogitosus (650 A.D.). Apparently Brigid was born around 453 A.D. near Dundalk in County Louth, Ireland, to a pagan chieftain of Leinster named Dubhtach and one of his slave wives, Brocessa. She died at Kildare around 523. Brigid was named in honour of the goddess whom her father revered, and in accordance with his wishes she eventually became a priestess of the goddess at Kildara, originally a pagan Celtic sanctuary. She was introduced to the Christian faith by a pupil of St.Patrick named Bishop Mel. She then changed Kildara into a Christian abbey. Her enthusiasm instilled in her a very personal mission: to establish more abbeys where a uniquely Celtic brand of Christianity could thrive. These abbeys would be composed of both men and women existing basically in a state of equality, at a time when the head Church in Rome was becoming increasingly hostile towards feminine power and sexuality and forbidding intimacy between monks and their female companions. This patriarchal censure flew in the face of traditional Celtic customs, and Brigid could not forget her cultural roots and refused to recognize what to her were unfamiliar and unnatural social/spiritual tendencies. In a nutshell, she was repelled by the increasing misogyny of Christian dogma; she thus remained somehow connected to her goddess namesake in spite of the efforts of Rome to eradicate what were regarded to be "pagan" beliefs and practices.

St. Brigid - probably more than the two great male Celtic saints: Patrick and Columba - was the "Keeper of the Celtic Flame," and Brigid the goddess was (as aforementioned) the patroness of the spirit inherent in fire. She was one of the oldest and most revered Celtic deities, and traces of her worship can be found all the way from Ireland through the Scottish Hebrides islands then eastwards to parts of France. The Brigid of Ireland and Bride of Scotland were one and the same goddess, not surprisingly as there was constant migration back and forth across the Irish Sea for centuries. In the pre-Christian Celtic nature religion with its animism and belief in "totems," Brigid was associated with the rowan tree (or mountain ash), birds like the heron and duck, domesticated animals such as cattle and goats, and physical sites such as spring-fed wells. She was thought to be the source of inspiration tapped by the Celtic bard, a kind of shaman-poet. The goddess continued to inspire writers and poets right up to the 19th century. One such person was a Scottish man who lived and wrote on the famous Scottish isle of Iona in the Inner Hebrides, who liked to write under a female pseudonym: Fiona MacLeod (his actual name was William Sharp). Here is a vivid portrayal of Brigid as Bride set on Iona:

It was while the dew was yet wet on the grass that on the morrow Bride came out of her father's house, and went up the steep slope of Dun-I (a large hill). The crying of the ewes and lambs at the pastures came plaintively against the dawn. The lowing of the kye (cows) arose from the sandy hollows by the shore, or from the meadows on the lower slopes. Through the whole island went a rapid, trickling sound, most sweet to hear: the myriad voices of twittering birds from the dotterel in the seaweed, to the larks climbing the blue slopes of heaven.

This was the festival of her birth, and she was clad in white. About her waist was a girdle of the sacred rowan, the feathery green leaves flickering dusky shadows upon her robe as she moved. The light upon her yellow hair was as when morning wakes, laughing in wind amid the tall corn. As she went she sang to herself, softly as the crooning of the dove. If any had been there to hear he would have been abashed, for the words were not in Erse (Irish Gaelic), and the eyes of the beautiful girl were as those of one in a vision. (Fiona MacLeod).

Right up to the 19th century, England's ruling class maintained a relentless policy of repression and brutality towards Irish Catholicism and Irish culture and would have succeeded in completely "anglicizing" Ireland had it not been for the stubborn resistance of its people. Now Ireland (Eire) is an independent state which is decidedly Catholic and fervently celebrates its Celtic heritage. Many contemporary Irish artists - like the ancient bards - proudly communicate this heritage through writing and music and even maintain Gaelic names. Across the Irish Sea in Scotland and Wales, and even in pockets of North America like Canada's Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia), the "Celtic Flame" indeed burns brightly.

At one time the female followers of St. Brigid literally, as well as symbolically, tended a sacred flame representing their faith. In spite of outside interference and interruptions, this ritual was enacted by Brigid's nuns for almost 1000 years after their saint's death. This is reminiscent of the sacred fires kept burning by the Zoroastrian priesthood (the Magi) of pre-Islamic Iran (Persia). In both instances the "eternal flame" was a symbol for faith and spiritual purity. The flame was finally doused by the same forces of Henry VIII who destroyed the Downpatrick monument. It is possible that the sacred flame at Kildare pre-dated St. Brigid and was kept going by druids, though upon her conversion, the saint dedicated the same fire to the spirit of Christ.

February 1 or Candlemas was co-opted by the Church as a day for consecrating all candles to be lit in churches during the upcoming liturgical year, perhaps to downplay the pagan origins of Imbolc, an important feast day in the ancient Celtic calendar. Imbolc translates roughly as "in the belly," meaning the "belly" of Mother Earth. Another name for this day was Oimelc, which translates as "milking of the ewes". Both names allude to the concept of Nature's abundance - like the cornucopia - and the goddess Brigid, to whom the day was originally dedicated, was also associated with fertility and fecundity. In Celtic mythology Brigid was the daughter of an earth god named Dagda and his wife Boann (after whom the River Boyne in Ireland is named); thus there was always a strong connection in the ancient Celtic mind between Brigid and the earth. The earth as she represented it was a great nurturing mother, and the goddess, too, always had a maternal and nurturing nature.

One folk custom that survives in some parts of Ireland to this day is the practice of fashioning crosses out of reeds or straw called "St. Brigid's Crosses," which are hung in and around dwellings on February 1 to invite prosperity and ward off evil during the coming year. This, too, acknowledges a connection in the popular mind between the saint and the earth goddess. The Church attempted to divert the Celtic faithful's pagan leanings by associating St. Brigid with the official mother figure Mary, and in some places the saint came to be known as "Mary of the Gaels." St. Brigid's pagan associations however have always made the Catholic Church somewhat uneasy, so it should come as no surprise that she never receives the official veneration given to Saints Patrick and Columba.

It is difficult to paint an accurate picture of St. Brigid - whether as priestess/saint or compassionate human being - in light of a scarcity of available historically reliable information. Some of the details of her life have been handed down to posterity by knowledgeable people, whereas much said about Brigid is the product of overactive imaginations and exaggeration. What we can see clearly, though, is that this unique saint - one of the few Christian women to achieve such fame - straddled two worlds simultaneously. Though a wholehearted voice for a religious creed based in Rome and ultimately rooted in the Middle East, St. Brigid of Ireland was also thoroughly knowledgeable of her own Celtic people's traditional wisdom and beliefs. She, therefore, embraced a Christian philosophy that satisfied her own convictions as a Celt, a woman, and a caring person. She was a courageous spiritual renegade who was, in many ways, ahead of her time. Brigid was a feminist before the term had ever been coined, an advocate of Celtic culture far in advance of the popular Celtic revival of our own time.

The writer of this brief account of St. Brigid's life and spiritual legacy is not - and never has been - a Catholic by faith. Nonetheless I was inspired by this great woman and historical/legendary figure when I first read about her a few years ago, and see this Irish saint as a powerful symbol of human courage and compassion. Aside from the "growing pains" of Brigid's native Ireland that frequently capture the media's attention, the entire developed, Western world is in a state of ongoing crisis which only the blindly self-satisfied can choose to ignore. The rapid growth of technology and the "Information Highway" have led to great advances for humanity at large, but a heavy price has been paid. The concept of a "Common Good" has been pushed aside by rampant individualism and the pursuit of private gain, and in its wake has resulted in not only a form of spiritual bankruptcy but very tangible social and economic problems as well.

St. Brigid herself was born into a world of strife, want, and confusion, yet she transcended what was around her and continued to believe in humanity's potential and capacity for unity. She is therefore not only a Christian or Celtic figure, or example of feminine strength and wisdom, but also a relevant and timely symbol for all humankind. The philosophy Brigid expounded and lived is a powerful antidote for the greed and callousness so prevalent in our modern world now obsessed with "Millennium Madness." The latter phenomenon is yet another diversion - like wars and spectator sports - to desensitize us to the gross inequalities and resulting social chaos that many would rather ignore because it's unpleasant to acknowledge and deal with.

St. Brigid - unlike such saints as Francis, Dominic, or Benedict - has no established order of worshippers, perhaps because of her controversial qualities and vague connections with Celtic "paganism." However, this is not to say that she does not continue to inspire many Catholics. All over Ireland and the British Isles there are churches named after St. Brigid or St. Bride (even one in London) as a lasting memorial to the saint's name. Here in North America, there is one Catholic women's organization that calls St. Brigid their patron saint; this group dates back to the latter part of the 19th century. Originally called the "Daughters of Erin," in 1906 it became allied with the older Ancient Order of Hibernians (Hibernia having been the Roman name for Ireland) and functioned as a Ladies Auxiliary organization. To quote from one of their Internet websites:

In 1984 at the National Convention in Albany New York, the name was changed to the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians. The primary purpose of LAOH was to protect young immigrant Irish girls, to assist them in securing employment, to provide social interaction with Irish and Irish Americans to help them from becoming homesick and discouraged.

In concluding I would like to quote from a "table grace" attributed to St. Brigid; these simple words aptly reflect the saint's spiritual philosophy: