Saints Preserve Us!

(All the excerpts below are from Golden Treasury, edited/translated by Kuno Meyer.)

“I call on the seven daughters of the sea, who shape the threads of long life. Three deaths be taken from me, three lives given to me, seven waves of plenty poured for me. May ghosts not injure me on my journey in my radiant breastplate without stain. May my name not be pledged in vain; may death not come to me until I am old. I call on my Silver Champion , who has not died and will not die; may time be granted to me of the quality of bronze. May my form be exalted, may my law be ennobled, may my strength be increased, may my tomb not be readied, may I not die on my journey, may my return be ensured to me. May the two-headed serpent not attack me, nor the hard grey worm, nor the senseless beetle. May no thief attack me, nor a company of women, nor a company of warriors. May I have increase of time from the king of all. I call on Senach of the seven lives, whom fairy women suckled on the breasts of good fortune. May my seven candles not be quenched. I am an invincible fortress, I am an unshakable cliff, I am a precious stone, I am the symbol of seven riches. May I be the man of hundreds of possessions, hundreds of years, each hundred after another. I summon my good fortune to me; may the grace of the Holy Spirit be on me.”

It sounds almost like a prayer, doesn’t it, a Christian prayer, especially the part at the end about the Holy Spirit. But though it is a prayer, it’s pagan, what’s called a ‘breastplate,’ a traditional prayer to invoke or gird on, like armor, divine protection. That’s why though there are a few mentions of three, and one mention of the Holy Spirit, there’s a lot more mention of sets of seven, and fairies and a Silver Champion. Sounds great, doesn’t it—who among us couldn’t use a Silver Champion now and then?

What it also clearly is, is Irish. It’s rife with that eternal Irish gift for words, their lyrical, lilting, evocative, potent language. This talent for language has strong roots in the Irish bardic tradition and also in the role of spoken and sung prayer in earlier pagan, Druid, tradition. And grounded as it is to the realms of fairy and legend, it made a strong foundation for Irish Christianity. Consider this other breastplate, alike in rhythm and beauty, in this English translation from the original Gaelic of an 8th century invocation called St. Patrick’s Lorica:

“Today I gird myself with a great strength, the invocation of the Trinity, belief in the threeness, confession of the oneness, on my way to meet the Creator. Today I gird myself with the strength of heaven, the light of the sun, the brilliance of the moon, the glory of fire, the impetuosity of lightning, the speed of the wind, the profundity of the sea, the stability of earth, the hardness of rock.

Today I gird myself with God’s strength to guide me; God’s power to support me, God’s wisdom to direct me, God’s eye to anticipate for me, God’s ear to hear for me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to protect me, God’s path to stretch before me, God’s shield to guard me, God’s host to save me from ambushes of devils, from temptations of evil, from assaults of nature, from all who wish me ill, far and near, solitary and in crowds.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ under me, Christ over me, Christ to the right of me, Christ where I lie down, Christ where I sit, Christ where I rise, Christ in the heart of everyone who scrutinizes me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.”

There again is that musical, rhythmic feeling for language, this time turned entirely to serve Christianity. Here again is a wealth of detail, and potent phrases, but this time God is a Silver Champion, and Christ another. The almost chanting quality of the invocations of God and Christ create a quality that is particularly characteristic of Irish Christianity: the intimate connection that the Irish clearly felt and expressed, not only to Jesus, but also to Mary and other Biblical characters and even times.

Christianity was not native to the Ireland—it was brought by St. Patrick in the fourth century, a man who became one of developing Christianity’s most powerful voices, not only in Ireland but across Europe. Whether or not St. Patrick did as legend says and chased all the snakes out of Ireland, he unquestionably established Christianity there, and gave it a firm foundation which arguably made Ireland with its many abbeys, scriptoria, adherents and scholars, one of the most powerful agents for the faith’s dissemination throughout the West.

One of the most important ways that Ireland perceived its relationship to early Christianity was in its saints, who were a significant presence in Irish Christianity from the very beginning. Along with St. Patrick, who was a historical figure, a man who lived and died over 1500 years ago, there were many other figures such as Saint Brendan, Saint Ite, Saint Brigit. Some of these were also historical figures and others were derived from Ireland’s earlier pagan faith. Regardless of their origins, many of the Irish saints act in ways that recall and reconnect the Irish with events and individuals of earlier, Biblical, times. St. Brendan, for example, is most renowned for his miracle-laden sea voyage, which mirrors the similar voyage of the apostle Paul, and recalls also the shorter sea-excursions of Jesus.

Brigit is another example—from one of Ireland’s primary pagan goddesses, she endured Christianity’s advent, becoming one of the most important of of the early Irish saints. Like Jesus healing blindness in the Gospel of John, parallel accounts exist of St. Brigit performing similar miraculous healing. There is striking sameness in the blindness the person suffers from, and in the quality of the miraculous healing provided. The miraculous powers saints were believed to possess were an important way that Ireland felt closely connected to Christianity in its earliest, purest, form–the miraculous era that Jesus inaugurated—which was accessible also to certain Irish sacred figures, who could act almost in his stead. This acting in the role of Jesus is of course the special desmesne of saints - they possess powers for saving action and intervention beyond the capacities of most mortal people, echoing the role of the messiah.

As with many of the female Irish saints, writings which celebrate St. Brigit borrow heavily on her earlier pagan identities and also aspects of the fairy otherworld which was such a rich part of Irish legend and folk tradition, and a place where females with miraculous and supernatural powers abounded.

“Sit safely, Brigit, in triumph on Liffey’s cheek to the strand of the sea; you are the princess with ranked hosts above the children of Cathair Mor. Beyond telling at any time is God’s counsel for virgin Ireland. though the shining Liffey be yours today, it was once another’s land…

Leogaire was king to the sea, and Ailill Ane, a great reversal… The music of its bent hard anvils, the sound of its songs from the tongues of poets; the fire of its men at the great contest, the beauty of its women at the high assembly.

Its mead-drinking in every household, its fine steeds, and its many tribes; its clanking of chains on men’s wrists under the blades of bloody five-edged spears. Its lovely melodies at every hour, its wineshop on the blue wave, its shower of silver of great brilliance, its gold neckbands from the lands of Gaul....

Brigit in the land I behold, where each in turn has lived, your fame has proved greater than that of the king you are superior to them. You have an everlasting principality with the King (of Heaven) apart from the land where your sanctuary is.”

A lesser-known tribute honors St. Ite—a sixth century Munster saint who was credited with having nursed the infant baby Jesus. This poem from the tenth century recounts:

“It is Jesuseen I nurse in my little hermitage...The nursing that I do in my house is not the nursing of any common man. Jesus with the men of heaven lies against my heart each night. Young Jesuseen, my eternal fortune, he bestows and does not default. The King who rules all things, it would be grievous not to pray to him. It is noble, angelic Jesus and not any ordinary cleric that I nurse in my little hermitage—Jesus, son of the Jewess. Princes’ sons, kings’ sons, though they come into my territory, it is not from them that I expect advantage; better I like Jesuseen. Sing a chorus, girls, to the man you own your little rent to—Jesuseen, who is in his home above, although he is at my breast.”

The simplicity of the language in this poem is belied by its complex transcendental understanding of the relationship between St. Ite and Jesus. Ite, an historical figure from Munster, is not merely an Irish woman born many centuries after Jesus’ death; she is not bound by common realities. Ite is also the nurse of Jesus. Even though the very words attributed to her acknowledge that he was another woman’s baby, and a Jewish woman at that, still Jesus, at once a baby and the King of heaven lies against her heart each night, nursing even as he resides in heaven.

And there is something especially poignant about the paradoxical attitude towards mundane existence in this poem—though she lives in a humble abode, still no distance, geographic or historical is admitted between her or Jesus, no difference of culture or context triumphs. Just as Jesus himself is believed to triumph over the most basic realities of life, even death, so too does her faith allow Ite to triumph over any estrangement from the most intimate and tender connection with her Lord.

To be sure, not all prayers were so peaceful, though all bespeak that same sense of familiarity and relationship. This muscular prayer to St. Michael possesses the same intimacy as some of the biblical psalms, though it is more imperious and offers a glimpse of the more martial capacities of a saint:

“Angel! great-miracled Michael, carry my request to the Lord. Do you hear me? Ask of the forgiving God forgiveness for all my great evil. Do not delay! Carry my greedy request to the King, to the High King. Bring help, bring protection to my soul in its hour of leaving earth. To meet my waiting soul come stoutly with many thousands of angels. Warrior, against the crooked, twisting, warring world come to my help indeed. Do not spurn what I say, do not desert me while I live! I choose you to redeem my mind, my sense, my body. Intercessor, victorious fighter, angelic slayer of Antichrist!”

The lynchpin of Irish Christianity has been its saints—who defy the laws of time and place, who may not only be invoked, but far more, they may be admonished, complimented, comforted, courted, even cajoled with astonishing directness and and presumption. The Irish saints, and Jesus and God to whom they are conduits, are friends, relatives, saviors, mothers, avengers. The saints are as much rooted in Ireland, in pagan Druid tradition, in fairy lore and local ways, as they are somehow able to transcend all that. The Irish saints make a remarkable, unparalleled bond between the worldly life of the Irish, and the ethereal longings of the Irish spirit, with an appeal that can call across centuries and even across theologies. It is impossible to hear the words of early Irish Christianity and not feel some of its appeal, from biblical times and lands to Dark and Middle-age Ireland to we moderns in America, Irish or not. And it is good for us to consider what we can learn from the passion and poetry, the intimacy and honesty and heritage that are so apparent in Irish prayer and the Irish vision of holiness and sainthood. Saints, preserve us. Amen.