Friday, 3/18/16
Yesterday we remembered Ireland’s great St.
Patrick. And, if you don’t mind, today I’d like your help in remembering Finian,
a saint who did as much as Patrick for Ireland and the world.
Finian came along in the first half of the Fifth
Century when Rome’s civilization had expired, and when bears were roving free
all over Europe. Finian, on a mission to save our civilization, left an aged
Patrick, and won admittance at a monastery in Wales.It was a place that boasted
a fund of sheepskin manuscripts of the Scriptures and of the Western World’s best
literature.
I have no idea of how Finian enlisted young
men to raise the sheep and to copy the texts, but as other wild men from Scandinavia
were beating down the walls of that monastery in Wales, Finian escaped to
Ireland with his priceless trove of manuscripts.
In 510, the year Benedict was founding his
monastery at Mount Casino, Finian set up his monastery and scriptorium at Clonard
in Meath. (With all communications gone, Finian and Benedict might not have
head of each other.)
In Ireland, Finian again took to enlisting young
men for raising sheep and for copying manuscripts on the sheepskins.They were preserving the Bible and Latin and Greek literature for he world. Then, as the
monastery of Clonard matured, it sent out monks to found monasteries throughout
western and southern Ireland.
In 1980 I flew to Ireland and rented a car for
looking around by myself. One day I stopped at the church in a town called Neenagh
where I discovered an amazing set of church windows. They were dedicated to St.
Columba and St. Brendan, but also to Saints Ciaran and Laisren, and others I’d
never heard of.
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