Wednesday, 11/23/16
The Church today honors St. Columban who lived 1500 years
ago. Let’s look at how he fit into those years. Pope Celestine I, in the year 430,
sent Patrick to Ireland as its first bishop. In the following decades, the barbarian
invaders from the East brought an end to all European civilization. Not a
school, not a town was left. And bears roamed freely everywhere.
But in Ireland, a monk called Finian had secreted away the Bible’s
scrolls as well as copies of the best of Greek and Roman literature; and at a
place called Clonard, Finian set a team of young monks to work, making copies
of all the fine religious and secular literature.
In 600 Columban, one of Finian’s monks crossed into a bear-infested
France, Italy and Scotland , setting up monasteries and schools, bringing about
a re-birth of Western Civilization.
Coming down almost to the present, in 1910, little Ireland
had as many priests as the rest of Europe and Asia, and the major seminary,
Maynooth, began sending its surplus priests to China the Philippine’s. South
America, Burma.
The pope from 1914 on, Benedict 15, asked them to take as
their patron that Columban who spread the faith fifteen centuries ago. By 1965
the Columbans had a thousand priests, founding parishes and seminaries all over
Asia and South America.
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