Celtic and Old English Saints 26 September =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= * St. Colman of Lann Elo * St. Meugant of Cornwall =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
St. Colman, Abbot in Ireland, Nephew of Saint Columcille (Elo Colman, Colman Elo, Colmanel) ------------------------------------------------------------ Born in Glenelly, Tyrone, Ireland, 555; died at Lann Elo (Lynally), September 26, c. 611. The Irish martyrology names about 300 saints with the name Colman. In fact, it is said that when Saint Carthage (f.d. May 14) cried out to his monks working by a stream, "Colman, get into the water!" 12 monks jumped in. This Saint Colman, of a Meath family, was deeply influenced by his uncle, Saint Columba (f.d. June 9). After his ordination as a young man, he visited his uncle on Iona and spent some time at Connor in Antrim (c. 590). He is primarily known as the austere founder of Lann Elo at Offaly near Durrow in Meath. He also founded and became the first abbot of Muckamore and later was bishop of Connor. He is generally thought to have been the author of "Aibgitir in Chrabaid" or the "Alphabet of devotion." When Colman suffered for a time from a memory loss, he said it was a punishment for his intellectual vanity. Saint Colman had many wise sayings, but one of the best remembered is that the three things that are strongest under the sun are the Church, fire, and water. Irish children often see fire on the bog in early spring when men are clearing the spreading grounds and they know what a terrifying sight it is when it becomes a living wall of flame that no man could quench. Colman-Elo said that the Church was like that: no man could overcome it. And when he saw the river in flood, uprooting trees and carrying away bridges, he said the same thing, "See the strength of that water! The Church is like that" (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Coulson, Delaney, Encyclopaedia). "Saint Colman and Baithin": This is a story of how Saint Colman's prayers for one of his students was answered by God. The little boy's name was Baithin. It was said that Baithin could never, ever remember anything he learned and he never remembered an injury. He was a boy with a sunny temperament, which was nice to have around, but it was frustrating for his teachers that he couldn't remember his lessons. So Colman and the boy's teacher determined to do something to make him remember. First the ten-year-old was warned to pay attention. After several reprimands, Colman slapped the boy, who stormed out of the school and into the woods. The saint followed him, but knew it would be impossible to find someone who wanted to hide in the woods. When Colman returned to the monastery, he went straight to the chapel to pray for Baithin's safe return--and that he would learn his lessons. At first Baithin was happy to have escaped into the sunshine and away from the stifling classroom. Gaily he pranced through the woods until he reached a clearing where he found a man with a bundle of stakes on his back. The man threw his bundle to the ground, picked out one of the stakes and thrust it deep into the earth. Baithin was curious. "'What are you doing?' "'Building a house.' "'What,' cried Baithin, 'building a house with one stick! How silly! You'll never do it.' "'Oh, yes,' said the man, 'I can and I will. If you stay here with me, you'll see me do it.'" Glad to have a chance to rest, Baithin sat down and watched. "Now, let me tell you how they built houses in those far- off days. First a circle of stakes was made; then more stakes, or wattles, were woven across through the standing ones. This made a wall, which was later plastered over with clay that dried quickly. Then a thatched roof was put on. A man could sleep in this and be snug and warm. We build our houses in a different way today, with cement blocks or brick, but still you must remember that the grandest and finest house is begun with just one brick, or one block." Baithin sat there watching as little by little the man completed a circle of stakes. He could see how a great thing was made of many small steps. The idea came to him that maybe, just maybe, if he stuck to his lessons, he might slowly be able to learn them. He didn't welcome this thought, because he didn't want to return to the school. To erase it from his mind, he jumped up and continued on, looking for something more interesting. "All at once the sun went behind a cloud and it began to rain. The boy ran under an oak tree to take shelter. He leaned against the trunk and looked up at the green, leafy roof over him. Then he noticed that there was just one opening in the leaves where a heavy drop kept coming through on to the ground. For want of something better to do, he dug his heel into the ground and made a hole under the drop, quite a good, deep, round hole to contain the water. Then he leaned against the tree again and watched. The water dripped into it, _drip-drop, drip- drop_, steadily like that, for it was a long heavy shower. Baithin kept on staring down until the hole was quite filled with rain. By the time the sun shone out again, what had been dry earth was now a little pool of water. And the thought came into the boy's mind, 'Learning is a bit like that, drop by drop and little by little. Perhaps if I had kept trying to learn like that, I would know my lessons now.'" The sun was shining again, but Baithin no longer felt so happy--he was hungry. Colman may be a stern teacher, but he always saw that the boys were fed. So, he determined to return to the monastery and try to learn little by little. Reluctantly he started back. He loved being free, but now he was determined that he would learn. When Baithin arrived at the school, he could not find Colman, because the saint was still praying for him in the chapel. Colman didn't want to be obliged to tell Baithin's parents that the child had run away. And he dreaded that thought of something terrible happening to the sunny little boy. So he continued praying until he received the answer he sought--Baithin coming to him with apologies. Baithin told Saint Colman about his adventures in the woods and what he had discovered. And Colman believed it to be such a good story that he wrote it down, just as the boy told him, so that Irish boys might always remember it. The saint thought it might help them to strive in their lessons as Baithin did, very slowly, with a small beginning, little by little. "Baithin was never again punished for lessons. Whenever he got impatient afterward, thinking the lessons too long, too hard, too altogether horrid, he remembered the single stick that had grown into a house, or the single drop of water that had grown into a pool, and this made him patient. He, too, became a priest like Colman, able not only to read books but to write them, too. He became quite as great as his master" (Curtayne). "Saint Colman's Pets": "Now, among the other virtues with which the Holy Ghost had endowed him, he was a great lover and keeper of evangelic poverty, and so marvellous a despiser of transitory things, that he would have no earthly possessions, nor gifts, nor kept any property of his own at all, unless you could call property three small creatures that Ketinus saith he had in friendliness about him, a cock, a mouse, and a fly. "The way that he used the cock was that its crowing wakened him at night to Lauds, as a bell might. But the offices rendered by the mouse and the fly were the stranger and more remarkable in that these whom nature has designed to the fret and annoyance of mankind, the amazing kindness of God directed, against the weight of nature, to attend upon His servants. "For this was the service of the mouse to the man of God, that it would not allow him to sleep or lie at peace beyond the fixed hour that he had laid down for himself in his holy vows: but when his body and his tired limbs, worn out with vigil and prayer and his other austerities, would have craved sleep and rest beyond the stern limits of his vow, the mouse, sometimes by gnawing at his clothes, sometimes by nibbling at his ear, would drag him from all quiet. Dear was this office to the man of God, for by it he saw not only his vows fulfilled, but himself provoked by a dumb creature to the service of God. "Yet scarcely less remarkable was the office of the fly. For when the man of God had leisure to read his holy books, the fly would trot up and down his codex: and should some one call him, or he had to go about other business, he would instruct the fly to sit down upon the line at which he had halted, and keep his place until he should return to continue his interrupted reading: which the fly infallibly would do. "Marvellous are these condescensions of the grace of God, and, as one might say, the collusions of Christ with His saints: yet incredible only to those who have too little thought for how marvellous is God in His praises, how gracious and tender His affection for those that sincerely love Him: and how befitting His ineffable loving kindness that those who have renounced all fellowship and service of men that their spirits may be swifter to serve Him, should themselves receive the good offices of dumb beasts, and a kind of human ministering: and the God whose high and tremendous majesty they acknowledge and adore should yet be found by them a benign and most indulgent friend. "And yet it befell, in the ruling of that divine wisdom that in strange vicissitude now takes its favours from the servants of God and now bestows them, now will have them comforted, and now left desolate: it befell, as the aforesaid Ketinus relates, that these three little creatures died, and their kind service and company was lost to the man of God. "And in heavy sorrow, he wrote of his loss to the friend of his spirit, St. Columba, Abbot of Iona, at that time living in austerity, far from his own land. And the story goes that in reply St. Columba wrote at once in jest and in wisdom, that 'there is neither lack nor loss where neither substance nor property is found': as though to question why a man of God, consecrated to supreme renunciation and to poverty, should set that heart on small things, which had renounced and spurned great things and high" (Colgan). Troparion of St Colman Elo tone 8 Following in the footsteps of thy renowned kinsman Columba, O Father Colman Elo,/ thou didst bring many in the Celtic lands to Christ by thy preaching and virtuous life./ Pray that we who hymn thee may be given grace to follow in thy footsteps that our souls may be saved. St. Meugant (Morgan) of Cornwall ---------------------------------------------- Died 6th century. Founded abbeys, churches, and crosses in Wales and Brittany with Saint Cadoc (f.d. September 25) and Saint Brieu (f.d. May 1) (Encyclopaedia). Troparion of St Mawgan tone 4 Renowned for thy fatherly teaching/ and the tirelessness of thy missionary endeavours, O Father Mawgan,/ thou art the inspiration of all who call on thee./ Entreat Christ our God that He would spare us to serve Him alone/ and thus attain the rewards of the Blessed. 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