From the Latin Life, O’Donoghue
Page 257
About this time, as we read in Adamnan's Life of St. Columba; (L. iii.. c. xvii) "four
great holy founders of monasteries came from Ireland to visit St. Columba in the
island of Hinba.” These were St. Comgall, founder of the great monastery and school
at Benchor (Bangor, hodie) on the southern shore of Belfast Lough; St. Canice,
founder of Aghaboe and Kilkenny; St. Cormac Ua Liathain, a favourite disciple of St.
Columba's, whom he had appointed abbot of his great foundation at Durrow (county
Westmeath), when he was leaving Ireland for Iona; and St. Brendan of Clonfert, the
greatest "founder of monasteries" of them all. These holy men invited their host, St.
Columba, to celebrate Holy Mass in their presence; and then, as Adamnan relates:
"During the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, St. Brendan Mac Ua Alti
saw, as he told Comgall and Cannech afterwards, a ball of fire, like a comet, burning
very brightly on the head of Columba the whole time he stood before the altar
offering the Holy Sacrifice."
This notable reunion of these illustrious saints took place on the island of Hinba,
(Not surely identified; it lay not far from Iona ) where St. Columba founded an
oratory or cell, some time after his establishment at Iona, and whither he retired
occasionally for. closer and less distracted communion with God than he found
possible at his greater church and monastery there. Adamnan relates, circumstantially,
several of those retreats of Columba to this island, and the wonderful manifestations
of the Divine favours and the communications of the Holy Spirit made to him there
on such occasions.
On this occasion of the visit of St. Brendan and his saintly companions to the
island, St. Columba was probably engaged in one of those spiritual retreats, and the
globe of fire which St. Brendan was permitted to behold flaming over his head during
the celebration of the Holy Mass, was, no doubt, a meet emblem of the fulness and
fervour with which the Spirit of God communicated His graces to the ardent soul of
the saint while celebrating the divine mysteries.
St. Brendan was several years older than the other saints who were present. He was
then, probably, far beyond his eightieth year, for the incident must have occurred
some years after the founding of the monastery at Iona by Columba, in A.D. 505,
when St. Brendan had already passed that great age. It is hard to think
Page 259
that the venerable patriarch would, at such a period of his life, have travelled from the
shores of Lough Corrib or from Clonfert, hard by the Shannon, over land and sea, to
distant Iona or Hinba, for the mere purpose of a friendly visit to St. Columba, and we
may well believe that the arduous journey had a much higher and holier purpose. We
have already seen (see page 213, ante) "that St. Brendan had laboured long and
successfully in an apostolic mission in North Britain and the Isles, of what was
afterwards called Scotland, more than twenty years before Columba had set foot on
Iona or commenced his first mission amongst his kinsmen, the Albanian Scots; and
we may surmise that even amid the cares and duties of his arduous ministry in Ireland
during all those years, our saint did not lose sight of, nor a loving interest in, the fruits
of his apostolic labours among the Orkneys and the Isles, of which he has been since
honoured as the apostle. He very probably visited the scenes of those early labours
from time to time, in order to preserve and promote the growth of the seed of
Christian faith and morality that he had sown; and perhaps it was in the course of one
of those tours of visitation, which he continued to make even in his extreme old age,
that the incidental visit to Columba on the island of Hinba took place. Here he found
the great saint who was destined to be his worthy successor in the apostolate of that
land and of those isles wherein he himself had laboured so zealously; and it may have
been that, though, like the high priest of old, he was then the "lamp of God about to be
extinguished," he saw in the vision of the "globe of fire, blazing like a comet, over the
head of Columba," the augury and the consoling assurance that this new apostle of the
Northern Picts and of the
Page 260
Orkneys and the Isles, as Columba has been justly styled, was raised up and specially
blessed by God to carry on, with more signal success and more glorious results, the
apostolic work he had himself commenced many years before.
If St. Brendan thus evinced a paternal interest in the fruits of his early missions in
North Britain by those kindly visits to the scenes of his labours there, we must believe
that he failed not to make similar visits occasionally to those religious foundations
throughout Munster, and especially those in and near his native district in West Kerry,
which were the earliest, and therefore probably the dearest, objects of his holy zeal
and solicitude. It would be strange, indeed, that the venerable father should favour his
spiritual children in the islands of Bute and Kilbrandon and Tirree, and many other
islands on the coasts of North Britain, with those paternal visits, and omit similar
tokens of an affectionate interest in the holy communities at Inis-da-droman, on the
Shannon, and at Ardfert, his first love, and at the other monasteries of West Kerry,
who all venerated him as their founder and their holy patron. He therefore visited all
those houses from time to time, probably to the latest period of his life; and perhaps it
was on one of the latest of those visitation tours among his West Kerry foundations,
that the incident occurred to him that is related in the interesting story (see page 278,
postea) of the "Holy Well of Brendan's Anointing," where he is said to have sailed in
his currach; from one of his oratories on the Blasquet Islands, across Dingle Bay, to
visit the little monastery of his disciple St. Beoan, in the Glen (bar. of Iveragh),
Page 261
the remains of which are still known as Kilbeoanigh (the cell or church of St. Beoan).
While we contemplate the venerable patriarch thus visiting his spiritual children in
his numerous religious houses in Ireland and Scotland, we may feel how justly
Adamnan ranks him among "the great holy founders of monasteries," and we may
well apply to him the praises bestowed by (Life of St. Malachy, c. vi.) St. Bernard
upon another of them, St. Comgall of Bangor: "He was the parent of many thousand
saints, and the head of many religious establishments, that were holy and fruitful in
saints. . . . Indeed, the spiritual children of this holy man had so multiplied throughout
the whole of Ireland and Scotland, that in them would seem to have been verified the
words of the Psalmist: 'Thou hast visited the earth, and hast plentifully watered it;
thou hast many ways enriched it. The river of God is filled with water; fill up
plentifully the streams thereof and multiply its fruits." (Ps. lxiv.)
Page 265
In a Lectio Brevis (Cardinal Moran's Acti Sti. Brendani p. 140.) (Lesson) for his
Office, in some ancient MSS. we read of the vision of this holy death, with which St.
Columba was favoured in Iona: "On a certain day, while St. Columba was abiding in
Iona, he called very early in the morning for his attendant, Diarmuidh, and gave him
these orders: 'Let the sacred mysteries of the Eucharist be quickly prepared, for this is
the natalis (birthday) of blessed Brendan.' 'Wherefore,' said the attendant, 'do you
order such solemnities for the Mass to-day, as no messenger has come from Ireland
with tidings of the death of that holy man'?' 'Go,' said Columba, 'and do what I order,
in accordance with the vision I have had; last night I saw the heavens suddenly
opening, and choirs of angels descending to meet the soul of the blessed Brendan, and
so great and incomparable was the brightness, that for a while it illumined all the
world within my view. For then his soul was borne upwards by the ministry of the
angels, in exultant procession, before the throne of the Divine Majesty, where it is
now crowned with the brightest laurel-wreath of a glorious reward