Celtic Saints July 7

[Celtic Daily]

* St. Maelruain of Tallaght
* St. Illtyd of Llantwit Abbey
* St. Boisil of Melrose
* St. Medran and St. Odran of Muskerry
* St. St. Merryn of Cornwall
* St. Ercongota of Faremoutiers
* St. Ethelburga of Faremoutiers
* St. Hedda (Haeddi) of Winchester


St. Maelruain of Tallaght, Abbot
-------------------------------------------
Died 792.

"Labour in piety is the most excellent work of all. The kingdom of
heaven in granted to him who directs study, him who studies, and him who
supports the student."
--Saint Maelruain.

Saint Maelruain was the founder and abbot of the monastery of Tallaght
in County Wicklow, Ireland, on land donated by King Cellach mac Dunchada
of Leinster in 774. Tallaght Abbey became the mother house of the Culdee
movement, which Maelruain co-founded with Saint Oengus.

The name Tallaght (Irish Tamlachta), derived from tam, plague, and
lecht, stone monument, records the burial place of some of the earliest
inhabitants of Ireland, the Parthalonians, who were swept off by a
plague about 2600 BC. Tallaght is situated in the barony of Uppercross,
5 miles south of Dublin. The monastery the site was donated in honour of
God and St. Michael the Archangel by Cellach (d. 18 July, 771) of the Ui
Donnchada, grandson of a Leinster king, Donogh (d. 726).

The Culdee movement, intended to regularise the rules of Irish
monasticism according to traditional ascetical practices, was codified
in several of the saint's writings: The teaching of Mael-ruain, Rule of
the Celi-De, and the monastery of Tallaght, promoted both the ascetic
and the intellectual life, promoted community prayer with repetitions of
the Psalter and genuflections, insisted upon stability and enclosure,
and called for clerical and monastic celibacy.

In typical Irish fashion, the Culdee movement was marked by strong
asceticism. Women were discussed as "men's guardian devils." Ascetic
practices included total abstinence from alcohol. Sundays were observed
like the Jewish Sabbath. Vigils in cold water or with the arms extended
in cruciform and self-flagellation were recommended. The movement failed
because it
lacked all constitutional means of making the reform permanent, although
it called for tithes from the laity to support it.

Like other Irish reformers, Maelruain emphasised spiritual direction and
confession of sins by establishing rules for both. Tallaght's devotional
life was marked by special veneration of both its patrons: the Blessed
Virgin and Saint Michael the Archangel.

Intellectual and manual work were integral to life at Tallaght. There
are, Maelruain wrote, "three profitable things in the day: prayer,
labour, and study, or it may be teaching or writing or sewing clothes or
any profitable work that a monk may do, so that none may be idle."

Maelruain, with Oengus, was also the compiler of the martyrology named
after that place. The movement led to the production of the Stowe
Missal, formerly enshrined, which is a unique record of early Irish
liturgical practices.

Ss. Medran and Odran of Muskerry, Ireland
-------------------------------
6th century. The brothers Saints Medran and Odran were disciples of
Saint Kieran of Saighir. One of the brothers remained with Kieran until
the end; the other founded a monastery at Muskerry and became its abbot
(Benedictines).


St. Merryn
--------------
Date unknown. Saint Merryn is the titular patron of a place in Cornwall.
He may be identical with the Breton saint honoured at Lanmerin and
Plomelin. During the medieval period, the legendary Saint Marina was
believed to have been its patron. For this reason, the Cornish St.
Merryn observed the feast on July 7, whereas the Breton feast was on
April 4 (Farmer).


St. Ercongota of Faremoutiers, Virgin
---------------------------------------------------
(also known as Ercongotha, Erkengota)
Died 660; feast day at Ely and Faremoutier is February 21 and at Meaux,
February 26.

Ercongota was the daughter of King Erconbert of Kent and Saint Sexburga,
who became abbess of Ely. Together with her aunt, Saint Sethrida, she
was a nun at the double monastery of Faremoutier under her aunt, Saint
Ethelburga. Ercongota died while still young, but Saint Bede relates
traditions of her visions and prophecies. She visited the older nuns to
say farewell and ask their prayers before her death. Angelic visitors
arrived at the monastery at the moment of her death. The fragrant scent
of balsam emanating from her grave at St. Stephen's Church testified to
her sanctity (Benedictines, Farmer).


St. Ethelburga of Faremoutiers, Abbess
------------------------------------------------------
(also known as Aubierge, Adilburh)
Died c. 664. The daughter of King Anna of the East Angles, Ethelburga
longed to live the life of a nun. It seems that she lived in a family of
saints that included her sister Saint Etheldreda.

Her eldest sister, Saint Sexburga, married King Erconbert of Kent.
Sexburga influenced her husband a great deal. The Venerable Bede says
that Erconbert was "the first English king to order the complete
abandonment and destruction of idols throughout the kingdom." He also
ordered everyone to observe the Lenten fasts. Their daughter, Saint
Ercongota, entered a convent in Gaul with her aunts Ethelburga and
Sethrida because, according to Bede, "as yet there were few monasteries
in England."

About 660, Ethelburga succeeded her convent's founder, Saint Fara and
her half-sister Sethrida, as abbess of the monastery of Faremoutier in
the forest of Brie. She began to build a church there dedicated to all
twelve Apostles, but she died before completing it and was buried in the
half-finished building in 665. Later the nuns decided they could not
afford to complete the church and Ethelburga's relics were reinterred in
the nearby church of Saint Stephen the Martyr. At that time, her body
was
found to be incorrupt.

Ethelburga is mentioned in the Roman, French, and several English
martyrologies (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopaedia,
Farmer).

In art, Saint Ethelburga is depicted as an abbess carrying the
instruments of the Passion. She is invoked to cure rheumatism (Roeder).


St. Hedda (Haeddi) of Winchester, Bishop
----------------------------------------------------------
Died 705. In 676, Saint Hedda, an Anglo-Saxon monk and abbot, probably
of Whitby where he had been educated, was consecrated bishop of the
divided diocese of Wessex by Saint Theodore. He moved his see from
Dorchester, near Oxford, to Winchester, corresponding to the emergence
of Southampton-based Saxons as more powerful than the settlers of the
Thames Valley. He was a great benefactor of Malmesbury and King Ina's
chief advisor, who acknowledged Hedda's help in framing his laws.

Hedda ruled the diocese for about 30 years, spanning the reigns of King
Centwine, Saint Caedwalla, and Ina. Little, however, is known of his
episcopate except that he translated the relics of his predecessor,
Saint Birinus, and was highly esteemed by his contemporaries. Saint Bede
said that he was "a good and just man, who in carrying out his duties
was guided rather by an inborn love of virtue than by what he had read
in books."

There were many cures at his tomb; others occurred when dust taken from
it was mixed with water. Hedda's relics can still be found in Winchester
Cathedral. His name was added to the Roman Martyrology by Baronius in
the 16th century, although his feast was already kept at Crowland Abbey
and in the monasteries of Wessex (Attwater, Benedictines, Farmer).

He may be shown in art ordaining Saint Guthlac of Croyland (Crowland)
(Roeder).


St. Sethrida (Saethryth), Abbess Virgin
-----------------------------------------------------
Died c. 660; feast day formerly on January 10. Saint Sethrida was the
stepdaughter of King Anna of the East Angles (or Saxons?). She entered
religious life at the abbey of Faremoutiers-en-Brie under it foundress
Saint Burgunofara, whom she succeeded as abbess. She is half-sister to
SS. Etheldreda, Sexburga, Ethelburga, and Withburga (Benedictines,
Gill).

St. Illtud, Abbot
---------------------
(also known as Illtyd, Iltut, Illtut)

Died c. 505 (another source says 450-535).

Illtud, clearly an outstanding figure and one of the most celebrated
Welsh saints, laboured chiefly in the southeastern part of the country.
His vita written circa 1140 has little historical value; but the Life of
Saint Samson, composed about 500 years earlier, has some important
references. This author names him as a disciple of Saint Germanus of
Auxerre, who ordained him. It calls Illtud 'the most learned of the
Britons in both Testaments and in all kinds of knowledge,' and speaks of
his great monastic school.

This establishment was Llanilltyd Fawr (Llantwit Major in Glamorgan),
where other prominent saints besides Samson are said to have been
Illtyd's pupils. The monastery of Llantwit survived in one form or
another until the Norman conquest (1066).

The author of Samson's Life also describes Illtud's death, in
illustration of the saint's power of prophecy. The passage is an
impressive one, but it does not state where or when the death took
place.

Nevertheless, most of his life is derived mainly from oral traditions.
According to them, he was the son of a Briton living in Letavia,
Brittany (some scholars believe Letavia is an area in central Brednock,
England, rather than in Brittany), who came to visit his cousin King
Arthur of England about 470.

The later vita says that Illtud married Trynihid and then served in the
army of a Glamorgan chieftain. When one of his friends was killed in a
hunting accident, Saint Cadoc is said to have counselled him to leave
the world behind. This is, of course, improbable because Cadoc would
have been a mere lad.

Illtud and Trynihid took Cadoc's advice and lived together as recluses
in a hut by the Nadafan River until he was warned by an angel to
separate from her. He left his wife to become a monk under Saint
Dubricius, but after a time resumed his eremitical life by a stream
called the Hodnant. He attracted many disciples and organised them into
the Llanwit Major monastery, which, according to the ninth-century Life
of Saint Paul Aurelian, was originally "within the borders of Dyfed,
called Pyr," usually identified as Calder (Caldey) Island off Tenby. The
monastery soon developed into a great foundation and a centre of
missionary activity in Wales.

Many miracles were attributed to him (he was fed by heaven when forced
to flee the ire of a local chieftain and take refuge in a cave; he
miraculously restored a collapsed seawall), and he is reputed to have
sent or taken grain to relieve a famine in Brittany, where the place and
church names attest to some connection with Illtud.

His death is reported at Dol, Brittany, where he had retired in his old
age, at Llanwit, and at Defynock. One Welsh tradition has him as one of
the three knights put in charge of the Holy Grail by Arthur, and another
one even identifies him as Galahad (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney,
Doble, Walsh).

St. Boisil (Boswell) of Melrose, Abbot
---------------------------------------
Died c. 664. Comm. also January 23 and February 23.

Saint Boisil was the prior of the famous abbey of Melrose (Mailross),
situated on the Tweed River in a great forest in Northumberland, while
Saint Eata was abbot. Both were English youths trained in monasticism by
Saint Aidan. Saint Bede says that Boisil was a man of sublime virtues,
imbued with a prophetic spirit. His eminent sanctity drew Saint Cuthbert
to Melrose rather than to Lindisfarne in his youth. It was from Boisil
that Cuthbert learned the sacred scriptures and virtue.

Saint Boisil had the holy names of the adorable Trinity ever on his
lips. He repeated the name Jesus Christ with a wonderful sentiment of
devotion, and often with such an abundance of tears that others would
weep with him. With tender affection he would frequently say, "How good
a Jesus we have!" At the first sight of Saint Cuthbert, Boisil said to
bystanders, "Behold a servant of God!"

Bede produces the testimony of Saint Cuthbert, who declared that Boisil
foretold to him the chief things that afterwards happened to him. Three
years beforehand he foretold of the great pestilence of 664, and that
hehimself should die of it, but that Eata the abbot should survive.

In addition to continually instructing his brothers in religion, Boisil
made frequent excursions into the villages to preach to the poor, and to
bring straying souls on to the paths of truth and life. He was also
known for his aid to the poor.

Again, Boisil told Cuthbert, recovering from the plague, "You see,
brother, that God has delivered you from this disease, nor shall you
ever feel it again, nor die at this time; but my death being at hand,
neglect not to learn something from me so long as I shall be able to
teach you, which will be no more than seven days." So Cuthbert asked,
"And what will be best for me to read which may be finished in seven
days." To which Boisil replied, "The Gospel of Saint John, which we may
in that time read over, and confer upon as much as shall be necessary."

Having accomplished the reading in seven days, the man of God, Boisil,
became ill and died in extraordinary jubilation of soul, out of his
earnest desire to be with Christ.

During his life he repeatedly instructed his brothers, "That they would
never cease giving thanks to God for the gift of their religious
vocation; that they would always watch over themselves against self-love
and all attachment to their own will and private judgement, as against
their capital enemy; that they would converse assiduously with God by
interior prayer, and labour continually to attain to the most perfect
purity of heart, this being the true and short road to the perfection of
Christian virtue."

Bede relates that Saint Boisil continued after his death to interest
himself particularly in obtaining divine mercy and grace for his country
and his friends. He appeared twice to one of his disciples, giving him a
charge to assure Saint Egbert, who had been hindered from preaching the
Gospel in Germany, that God commanded him to repair the monasteries of
Saint Columba on Iona and in the Orkneys, and to instruct them in the
right manner of celebrating Easter.

The relics of Boisil were translated to Durham, and deposited near those
of his disciple, Saint Cuthbert, in 1030 (Benedictines, Delaney,
Husenbeth).