The Spirit of the Early Irish Monks

THE SPIRIT OF THE EARLY IRISH MONKS

Clonmacnoise Summer School August 22 2014

When we say someone has spirit we mean they have energy, enthusiasm, heart. I take the title I’ve been given in that spirit, if you’ll excuse the pun. I’ve lived twenty years in the spirit of an ancient Irish foundation. I’ve also visited and studied many more. Preparing this lecture has given birth to an idea: Why don’t we publish a list of all these foundations and inspire people to go on pilgrimage to as many as possible, perhaps putting information and inspirations on the Reconnections web site?

The spirit of poetry

There is an early record of a 6th c bard named Gemman presenting St. Finnian of Clonard (who taught many of the so-called ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’) with a beautiful poem, in which many of his virtues were extolled. For his fee the bard asked not for money, but for fertility of produce in his lands. Finnian told him ‘Sing over water the hymn which you have composed, and sprinkle the land with that water.’ The bard did as he was directed, and it was said his land produced abundant fruit. (Finnian: Irish Life, ed. Whitley Stokes, Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore. Oxford 1890. Vol. 2.)

We know that Columba wrote many poems and that he campaigned to preserve the role of the bard in Irish society. We learn that when monks met wandering bards on their travels they stopped and listened to their songs. We know that Irish monks wrote down stories and poems from their folk heritage in order to preserve it. The following is thought to be by Columba:

Delightful to me to be on an island hill, on the crest of a rock, that I might often watch the quiet sea;

That I might watch the heavy waves above the bright water, as they chant music to their Father everlastingly….

That I might bless the Lord who rules all things, heaven with its splendid host, earth, ebb, and flood...

The spirit of awareness of God in creation

Colman was educated at Saint Enda's (f.d. March 21) monastery in Aran. Thereafter he was a recluse, living in prayer and prolonged fastings, at Arranmore and then at Burren in County Clare.

Colman loved birds and animals. He had a pet rooster who served as an alarm clock. The rooster would begin his song at the breaking of dawn and continue until Colman would come out and speak to it. Colman would then call the other monks to prayer by ringing the bells.

But the monks wanted to pray the night hours, too, and couldn't count on the rooster to awaken them at midnight and 3:00 a.m. So Colman made a pet out of a mouse that often kept him company in the night by giving it crumbs to eat. Eventually the mouse was tamed and Colman asked its help:

"So you are awake all night, are you? It isn't your time for sleep, is it? My friend, the cock, gives me great help, waking me every morning. Couldn't you do the same for me at night, while the cock is asleep? If you do not find me stirring at the usual time, couldn't you call me? Will you do that?"

It was a long time before Colman tested the understanding of the mouse. After a long day of preaching and travelling on foot, Colman slept very soundly. When he did not awake at the usual hour in the middle of the night for Lauds, the mouse pattered over to the bed, climbed on the pillow, and rubbed his tiny head against Colman's ear. Not enough to awaken the exhausted monk. So the mouse tried again, but Colman shook him off impatiently. Making one last effort, the mouse nibbled on the saint's ear and Colman immediately arose--laughing. The mouse, looking very serious and important, just sat there on the pillow staring at the monk, while Colman continued to laugh in disbelief that the mouse had indeed understood its job.

When he regained his composure, Colman praised the clever mouse for his faithfulness and fed him extra treats. Then he entered God's presence in prayer. Thereafter, Colman always waited for the mouse to rub his ear before arising, whether he was awake or not. The mouse never failed in his mission.

The monk had another strange pet: a fly. Each day Colman would spend some time reading a large, awkward parchment manuscript prayer book. Each day the fly would perch on the margin of the sheet. Eventually Colman began to talk to the fly, thanked him for his company, and asked for his help:

"Do you think you could do something useful for me? You see yourself that everyone who lives in the monastery is useful. Well, if I am called away, as I often am, while I am reading, don't you go too; stay here on the spot I mark with my finger, so that I'll know exactly where to start when I come back. Do you see what I mean?"

So, as with the mouse, it was a long time before Colman put the understanding of the fly to the test. He probably provided the insect with treats as he did the mouse--perhaps a single drop of honey or crumb of cake. One day Colman was called to attend a visitor. He pointed the spot on the manuscript where he had stopped and asked the fly to stay there until he returned. The fly did as the saint requested, obediently remaining still for over an hour. Colman was delighted. Thereafter, he often gave the faithful fly a little task that it was proud to do for him. The other monks thought it was such a marvel that they wrote it done in the monastery records, which is how we know about it.

But a fly's life is short. At the end of summer, Colman's little friend was dead. While still mourning the death of the fly, the mouse died, too, as did the rooster. Colman's heart was so heavy at the loss of his last pet that he wrote to his friend Saint Columba (f.d. June 9). Columba responded:

"You were too rich when you had them. That is why you are sad now. Great troubles only come where there are great riches. Be rich no more."

The spirit of obedience

Obedience was essential, for without it a community cannot maintain its harmony. Stories circulated of extra-ordinary feats of obedience. Scribes left a letter unfinished in their manuscript because they were so keen to set off at the call of the bell to prayer. In Carthac’s monastery, many students were named Colman. As they worked beside a river the brother in charge shouted ‘Colman, get into the water’. Twelve Colmans immediately threw off their clothes and jumped into the river! A story went the rounds that some monks at Comgall’s monastery were crossing the sands while the tide was out. A member of the community reproved a youth for some failing. The youth gladly prostrated himself on the sand as a sign of submission. The monks forgot about it. When they returned to the monastery the youngster was missing. They sent people to search for him. He was found still lying prostrate on the sand, in imminent danger of death, since the tide was rising. The monk who had rebuked him had neglected to tell him to rise up!

The spirit of penance

Penance nowadays is often thought of in a negative light, but in the early Irish tradition it is thought of positively, as making an act of dedication for love of God, in order to overcome and leave behind the things that have hindered that love. The person making an act of penance is like a lover saying to their spouse ‘I give you the gift beyond price - myself, all of it, always. To help me to do this I will visibly, so you can have no doubts, leave behind all counter attractions to you, and accompany only you. In this way you will know at all times that you alone are the love of my life.’ In this light penance becomes something beautiful.

A poem from Kuno Meyer’s (trans.) Ancient Irish Poetry expresses a person’s longing to wander off to a remote cabin make vigil:

Feeble tearful eyes for forgiveness of my passions.

Eager wailings to cloudy Heaven

Sincere and truly devout confession

Fervent showers of tears …

Then there were the Penitentials. These were inspired by 4th c Christians who went into the Egyptian desert to do battle with inner demons and to live for God alone. They became known as Athletes of Christ because they daily engaged in spiritual exercises - combat against eight destructive weaknesses (gluttony, love of money, rage, self-pity, lust, laziness, self-advertisement and arrogance) and ceaseless practice in building up their eight opposite strengths, or virtues. British and Irish Christians, too, although their geography was nothing like that of Egypt, sought out what they termed ‘deserts’ in bog, woodland or islands. Hence the many places in Britain and Ireland named ‘desert’ in one form or another.

Columbanus drew up Penitentials based on overcoming those eight destructive passions. On the mainland of Europe Penitentials were less effective than those drawn up in Celtic lands. There a person might confess their sins to a priest they hardly knew, who would declare that they were forgiven without them having to make restitution to anyone they had wronged. An act of self-discipline the priest might suggest was often perfunctory, and rarely increased real self mastery. Penitentials produced by Celtic leaders were more far reaching, and relational. They involved what today is called restorative justice.

Columbanus exported these most rigorous fitness training programmes to the continent. These influenced many people, including local bishops who sought Columbanus out as a spiritual guide. There are large collections of Penitentials in places as far from Ireland as Warsaw and the Ambrosian Museum, Milan.

The principle was cure by contraries. So the goals were

1. To acquire mastery over personal drives by doing without good, as well as bad, things.

2. To develop positive strengths by doing good works. The purpose of these was to learn to channel energy creatively that had previously been used in a negative way.

3. To instil a habit of appreciation, particularly of God’s Presence in all things and at all times. The chanting of psalms was the main method.

4. To start a healing process by making restitution to any wronged person.

1. Gluttony includes excessive eating, drinking, or talking. Doing without is the principal remedy.

2. Avarice is love of money. Columbanus’ antidote was to foster generosity in the disciple, which develops their trust in God’s Providence, and others’ trust in them. One exercise was to give money to the poor.

3. Rage includes verbal abuse, violence to a person or their property, abortion and murder. Quarrelsomeness had to be replaced with understanding, damage to property with replacement items, injury with medical attention, angry words with acts of forgiveness, and murder with an offer of time and effort in lieu of that which the dead person might have given.

4. Self pity includes small-mindedness. Columbanus urged all young people to chant psalms of praise. And so on

The spirit of devotion

Abbot Colman’s Alphabet of Devotion was influential. Scholars can’t agree which Colman wrote it, but some think it was the Colman to whom Columba requested at an assembly of the leading nobles and clergy of Ireland that a site be granted for a monastery to Colmán in Meath (Lynally).

John Carey has made a translation of this wonderful text in his anthology King of Mysteries - Early Irish Religious Writings (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 231-2). In his introduction he describes it as ‘a collection of precepts and maxims, arranged in sequences of varying length, which reflect a keen perception of the ethics and psychology of the contemplative life. Drawing on the monastic treatises of John Cassian (died 435), on the sapiential books of the Old Testament, and probably on native wisdom literature as well, the author distils his teachings into phrases of two or three words each - statements whose crystalline economy of expression demands slow and meditative reading; its audience was evidently a monastic one: the text speaks of rising at the summons of the bell, obedience to the prior, and communal life with the brethren. It is conceived, like much Irish didactic literature, as a series of instructions given by a master to his disciple... It was clearly intended to sink deep within the memories of those who heard it and, once absorbed, to guide them from within.’

‘Faith with action … humility without favouritism … simplicity with wisdom … work without grumbling… confession without excuse, the Christian life without pretence -all these are contained in holiness. It is then that a person is holy, when he or she is full of divine love.’

Colman mac Beognae The Alphabet of Devotion

The spirit of life-long learning

The eight century Irish monastic Rules that have survived urge monks to treat each visitor as if they were Christ. Monasteries provided meals for the poor and the pilgrims. At Saint Brigid’s double monastery for women and men at Kildare they even provided barrels of beer and of apples. This poem, found in a ninth-century manuscript belonging to the monastery of St. Paul in Carinthia (southern Austria), was written in Irish and has often been translated. Although it is about Brigid’s hospitality as a girl before she took vows I will read it because it is too good to omit:

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.