| ST. BRIDGIT, OR BRIDGET, V. AND BY CONTRACTION, BRIDE, ABBESS, AND PATRONESS OF IRELAND |
| Feast: February 1
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| She
was born at Fochard, in Ulster, soon after Ireland had been blessed with the
light of faith. She received the religious veil in her youth from the hands of
St. Mel, nephew and disciple of St. Patrick. She built herself a cell under a
large oak, thence called Kill-dara, or cell of the oak; living, as her name
implies, the bright shining light of that country by her virtues. Being joined
soon after by several of her own sex, they formed themselves into a religious
community, which branched out into several other nunneries throughout Ireland;
all which acknowledged her for their mother and foundress, as in effect she was
of all in that kingdom. But a full account of her virtues has not been
transmitted down to us, together with the veneration of her name. Her five
modern lives mention little else but wonderful miracles. She flourished in the
beginning of the sixth century, and is named in the Martyrology of Bede, and in
all others since that age. Several churches in England and Scotland are
dedicated to God under her name, as, among others, that of St. Bride in
Fleet-street; several also in Germany, and some in France. Her name occurs in
most copies of the Martyrology which bears the name of St. Jerome, especially in
those of Esternach and Corbie, which are most ancient. She is commemorated in
the divine office in most churches of Germany, and in that of Paris, till the
year 1607, and in many others in France. One of the Hebrides, or western islands
which belong to Scotland, near that of Ila, was called, from a famous monastery
built there in her honor, Brigidiani. A church of St. Brigit, in the province of
Athol, was reputed famous for miracles, and a portion of her relics was kept
with great veneration in a monastery of regular canons at Aburnethi, once
capital of the kingdom of the Picts, and a bishopric, as Major mentions.[1] Her
body was found with those of SS. Patrick and Columba, in a triple vault in
Down-Patrick, in 1185, as Giraldus Cambrensis informs us:[2] they were all three
translated to the cathedral of the same city; but their monument was destroyed
in the reign of king Henry VIII.[3] the head of St. Bride is now kept in the
church of the Jesuits at Lisbon.[4] See Bollandus, Feb. t. 1, p. 99.
Endnotes 1 Major de Gestis Scotor. 1. 2, c. 14. 2 Topogr. Hibern. dist. 3, c. 18, Camden, &c. 3 Camden. 4 Bolland. p. 112 and p. 941, t. 1, Februarii. (Taken from Vol. I of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, & Company) |
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