Produced by Michael Gray, Diocese of San Jose




  THE
  LIFE OF SAINT BRIDGET

  VIRGIN AND ABBESS
  PATRONESS OF IRELAND


"O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory! for the memory
thereof is immortal: because it is known with God and with men, and
it triumpheth, crowned for ever." WISD. iv, 1.

NEXT to the glorious St. Patrick, St. Bridget--whom we may consider
his spiritual daughter in Christ--has ever been held in singular
veneration in Ireland. Even in the neighboring kingdoms of England
and Scotland, as a foreign writer affirms, this great saint has,
after the glorious Virgin Mother of God, been singularly honored and
revered. [1] A pity, then, it is, that we know so little of her
hitherto, and that our means of knowing much are still so scanty. We
are not able to give more than a biographical sketch, but the facts
are so interesting, and above all so edifying, as will in some
measure compensate for their fewness. To commence, then, our account
of the great patroness of Ireland:


NATIVITY OF ST. BRIDGET--HER EARLY PIETY--SHE EMBRACES THE RELIGIOUS
STATE AND FOUNDS SEVERAL MONASTERIES--HER SAINTLY DEATH.

ABOUT the year of our Lord, 453, was St. Bridget born. The place of
her nativity was Tochard or Taugher, in the vicinity of Dundalk,
though her illustrious father, Dubtach, and her mother Brocessa or
Brotseach, of the noble house of O'Connor, usually resided in
Leinster. During her youth every attention, which parents of
distinguished rank and eminent piety could employ, was assiduously
paid to her education. Great things were expected from her; "during
her infancy her pious father had a vision, in which he saw men
clothed in white garments pouring, as it were, a sacred unguent on
her head, thereby prefiguring her future sanctity. While yet very
young, Bridget, for the love of Christ our Lord, whom she chose for
her spouse, and to whom she was closely united in heart and spirit,
bestowed every thing at her disposal on His suffering members, the
poor, and was the edification of all who knew her. She was
surpassingly beautiful; and fearing, in consequence, that efforts
might be made by her many suitors to dissolve the sacred vow by which
she had bound herself to the Lord, she besought Him to render her
deformed, and to deprive her of that gracefulness of person which had
gained for her such admiration. Her petition was instantly heard, for
her eye became swoln, and her whole countenance so changed, that she
was permitted to follow her vocation in peace, and marriage with her
was no more thought of.

"After a short interval, and when she was about twenty years old, [2]
the young virgin made known to Maccaille a bishop, and a disciple of
St. Patrick, and who had seen over her head a pillar of fire, her
determination to live only to Christ Jesus, her heavenly Bridegroom,
and he quite approved of her pious resolve, and consented to receive
her sacred vows. On the appointed day, the solemn ceremony of her
profession was performed, after the manner introduced by St. Patrick,
the bishop putting up many holy prayers, and investing Bridget with a
snow-white habit and a cloak of the same color, after she had put off
her secular ornaments. While she inclined her head on this happy
occasion to receive the sacred veil, a miracle of a singularly
striking and impressive nature occurred; that part of the wooden
platform adjoining the altar on which she knelt recovered its
pristine vitality, and put on, as all the bystanders witnessed, its
former _greenness_ and verdure, retaining it for a long time after.
At the same moment Bridget's eye was healed, and she became as
beautiful and lovely as ever." (Lessons in Office of St. Bridget.)

Encouraged by her example, three, or, as some say, eight, other
ladies made their vows with her, and in compliance with the wish of
the parents of these her new associates, the saint agreed to found a
religious residence for herself and them in the vicinity. A
convenient site having been fixed upon by the bishop, a convent--the
first in Ireland--was erected upon it; and, in obedience to the
prelate, Bridget assumed the superiority. Her reputation for sanctity
became greater every day, and in proportion as it was diffused
throughout the country, so increased the number of candidates for
admission into the new monastery. The bishops of Ireland soon
perceiving the important advantages which their respective dioceses
would derive from similar foundations, procured that the young and
saintly abbess should visit different parts of the kingdom, and, as
an opportunity offered, introduce into each one the establishment of
her institute.

While thus engaged in a portion of the province of Connaught, a
deputation arrived from Leinster to solicit the saint to take up her
residence in that territory; but the motives which they urged were
human, and such could have no weight with Bridget. She was insensible
to every argument founded on friendship and family connections (for,
as we have already said, she was of Leinster descent, and had spent
in that province a great portion of her youth); it was only the
prospect of the many spiritual advantages that would result from
compliance with their request, that induced her to accede, as she
did, to the wishes of the respectable body which had petitioned her.
Some time after, the saint taking with her a number of her spiritual
daughters, journeyed to Leinster, where they were received with many
demonstrations of respect and joy, the people exulting at the great
spiritual good which they were about to confer on the province. The
site on which Kildare now stands appearing to be well adapted for a
religious institute, there the saint and her companions took up their
abode. To the place appropriated for the new foundation some lands
were annexed, the fruits of which were assigned to the little
establishment. This donation, indeed, contributed to supply the wants
of the community, but still the pious sisterhood principally depended
for their maintenance on the liberality of their benefactors. "Mercy
having grown up" with Bridget from her very childhood, she contrived
out of their small means to relieve the poor of the vicinity very
considerably, and when the wants of these indigent persons surpassed
her slender finances, she hesitated not to sacrifice for them the
moveables of the convent. On one occasion, when their distress was
unusually grievous, the spouse of Christ, imitating the burning
charity of St. Ambrose and other great servants of God, sold some of
the sacred vestments that she might procure the means of relieving
their necessities. She was very generous and hospitable too,
particularly to bishops and religious, and so humble, that she
sometimes attended the cattle on the land which belonged to her
monastery.

The renown of Bridget's unbounded charity drew multitudes of the poor
and necessitous to Kildare; the fame of her piety attracted thither
many persons of distinction also, who were anxious to solicit her
prayers or to profit by her holy example. In course of time the
number of these so much increased, (and what an additional proof does
it not afford of the thirst for spiritual improvement indulged by our
ancestors!) that it became necessary to provide accommodation for
them in the neighborhood of the new monastery, and thus was laid the
foundation and origin of the town of Kildare. [3]

The spiritual exigencies of her community and of those numerous
strangers who resorted to the vicinity, having suggested to our saint
the expediency of procuring the locality to be erected into an
episcopal see, she represented it to the prelates, to whom the
consideration of it rightly belonged. Deeming the proposal just and
useful, Conlath, a recluse of eminent sanctity, illustrious by the
great things which God had granted to his prayers, was, at Bridget's
desire, chosen the first bishop of the newly-erected diocese. In
process of time, it became the ecclesiastical metropolis of the
province to which it belonged, [4] probably in consequence of the
general desire to honor the place in which St. Bridget had so long
abode. Over all the convents of her institute established throughout
the kingdom, a special jurisdiction is said to have been exercised by
Conlath and his successors in the see of Kildare; but the evidence
supplied by historians on this point is by no means of a conclusive
character: the only inference that can be deduced from their
statements is, that, in virtue of his dignity as metropolitan, the
bishop of Kildare was specially charged with the care of the
Bridgetine convents established within the province.

The desire of the holy abbess for the permanent residence of a
prelate at Kildare being accomplished, she applied herself
unreservedly to the care of the community over which she immediately
presided, and was to them in her every act what the devout A Kempis
means by "a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine." "Her
sanctity was attested by many miracles. She was constantly occupied
in promoting the good of others; she often cleansed the lepers,
healed the sick and languishing by her prayers, and obtained sight
for one blind from his nativity. Nor was the spirit of prophecy
wanting to her; numerous were her predictions of future things."
(Office, 3 Less. Roman Breviary.)

The most eminent persons of her time either visited or corresponded
with St. Bridget. Besides several others, St. Albeus, bishop of
Cashel or Emly, and St. Brendan of Clonfert, conferred with her on
religious subjects; and the celebrated Gildas is said to have sent
her, as a token of his esteem, a small bell cast by himself. [5]

After seventy years devoted to the practice of the most sublime
virtues, corporal infirmities admonished the saint that the time of
her dissolution was nigh. It was now half a century since, by her
holy vows, she had irrevocably consecrated herself to God, and,
during that period, great results had been attained, her holy
institute having widely diffused itself throughout the green isle,
and greatly advanced the cause of religion in the various districts
in which it was established. Like _a river of peace_, its progress
was steady and silent; it fertilized every region fortunate enough to
receive its waters, and caused them to bloom forth spiritual flowers
and fruits with all the sweet perfume of evangelical fragrance. The
remembrance of the glory she had procured to the Most High, as well
as the services rendered to dear souls ransomed by the precious blood
of her divine Spouse, cheered and consoled Bridget in the infirmities
inseparable from old age. Her last illness was soothed by the
presence of Nennidh, a priest of eminent sanctity, over whose youth
she had watched with pious solicitude, and who was indebted to her
prayers and instructions for his great proficiency in sublime
perfection. [6] The day on which our abbess was to terminate her
course (Feb. 1, 523) having arrived, she received from the hands of
this saintly priest the blessed body and blood of her Lord in the
Divine Eucharist, and as it would seem, immediately after her spirit
passed forth, and went to possess Him in that heavenly country where
He is seen _face to face_ and enjoyed without danger of ever losing
Him. Her body was interred in the church adjoining her convent, but
was some time after exhumed, and deposited in a splendid shrine near
the high altar. Cogitosus, who lived two centuries later, thus
describes the church which then contained this valuable treasure:
"The church of Kildare enclosed an ample space of ground, and was of
a height proportioned to its extent. The building was divided into
three compartments, each one of them remarkable for the vastness of
its dimensions, yet by the ingenuity of the architect, one roof
skilfully adapted, covered the entire. The eastern division of the
structure, terminated at north and south by two of its exterior
walls, while a wooden partition extending to the north and south, and
separated by a small interstice from the eastern extremity of the
church, formed the enclosure of the sanctuary. Adjoining the latter,
and at its northern and southern points, were two doors, by one of
which the bishop and his assistant entered to celebrate the Holy
Mass, and perform the other public offices; while by the other the
nuns were admitted on the days on which they were to receive the Holy
Communion. The nave of the church was again divided into two parts
with separate entrances. One division was appropriated to the male
portion of the congregation, the other was exclusively reserved for
females. The appearance of the edifice was very pleasing, continues
the same author, by the number of windows distributed through the
entire building. On the eastern extremity, the limit of the
sanctuary, was a variety of sacred images, which met the eye the very
moment one entered the porch of the church, and the interstices were
filled up with suitable decorations. At either side of the altar
stood the sacred shrines of St. Bridget and St. Conlath, which were
adorned with a profusion of precious metals exquisitely wrought,
studded with costly gems and stones of great price, and surmounted by
diadems of gold and silver, types of the glory with which the Lord
rewards His faithful servants." (Vita St. Brigid.)

In the following (the 9th) century, the country being desolated by
the Danes, the remains of St. Bridget were removed in order to secure
them from irreverence, and transferred to Down, were deposited in the
same grave with those of glorious St. Patrick. The Bridgetines, the
holy order founded by this holy virgin, and her most precious
memorial, continued to flourish for centuries after her decease, and
gave many saints to Ireland.



[1] Hector Boethius' History of Scotland, L. 9

[2] The age of twenty years was that required by the Irish Church to
making the monastic vows. (Synod St. Patric. ch. 17.)

[3] Kildare got its name from there being a very high oak tree near
St. Bridget's habitation. _Kil_ signifying cell--_Dura_, oak tree.

[4] Cogitosus Vita St. Brigida.

[5] Dr. Lanigan, ch. 9, sect. 5, Eccles. Hist. Ireland.

[6] "Nennidh was a student, perhaps at Kildare, when St. Bridget
happening one day to be with some of her nuns near the monastery, saw
him _running very fast and in an unbecoming manner_. Having sent for
and inquired of him whither he was running in such haste, he replied,
as if in jest, _To the Kingdom of Heaven_. Whereupon the saint
gravely said, _I wish I deserved to run along with you to-day to that
Kingdom, pray for me that I may reach it_. Affected by these words,
the young man besought her to recommend him to God that he might
pursue a steady course towards Heaven. She promptly acquiesced, and
the consequence was his commencement from that moment of a life of
perfection."--Dr. Lanigan, 9 ch. 5 section, Eccles. History.