THE COMING MONTH

IN SEPTEMBER, we celebrate two of the Twelve Great Feasts of the Church Year, the Nativity of the All-Holy Virgin on 8th/21st, and the Universal Exaltation of the Holy Cross on 14th/27th. We also have the principle feast of our own heavenly protector, St Edward the Martyr, on 3rd/16th of the the month. All these three feasts are celebrated with a Vigil service of the preceding evening. Unfortunately in our time attendance at Vigil services seems to have waned. A generation ago, certainly within the memory of the present writer, attendance at the Vigils of the major festivals was simply part and parcel of church life, and not some kind of optional extra. Certainly then, no conscientious Orthodox would have thought of approaching to receive the Holy Mysteries on the feastday if he or she had not attended the Vigil. This shows a spiritual understanding that we seem to be grave danger of losing. After all, although it is during the Liturgy that we celebrate the greatest of the mysteries of the Christian Faith, the Eucharist, it is in the services of Vespers and Mattins (combined in the Vigils) that we are instructed, and so spiritually nourished, regarding the meaning of the festival that we are celebrating. Before she plunged into a kind of neo-Protestantism (not so good as the old form!) the contemporary Roman Catholic communion followed a course that many Orthodox seem intent on following, becoming simply “Mass observers.” 1st September on the church calendar is the beginning of the Church New Year, maybe we could make a “New Year’s resolution” to apply ourselves to this necessary, and spiritually nourishing, part of our Christian commitment.

Having little space this issue, let us simply recall one of the saints we celebrate this month:-

The Venerable Kieran of Clonmacnois (9th / 22nd) was a sixth century monastic father in Ireland. His name is sometimes latinised to Queranus. His father was a carpenter in Meath. However, the king of that area afflicted his people with heavy taxes and the family left to settle in Connaught. It was while they were thus “economic migrants,” and still on their journey that the blessed Kieran was born in a field at Ay. He was baptised by St Justus, and the family evidently prospered, because in due time he was sent to the school attached to the monastic house of St Finnian of Clonard. When he came to adult years, with the blessing of St Finnian, he went to the monastery of St Nennid on one of the islands in Lough Erne. St Nennid was also a disciple of St Finnian and the two saints already knew each other. St Nennid had at that time been consecrated a Bishop and it maybe that he had invited St Kieran to join his newly established monastery to help in the administration, as his episcopal duties obviously required him to be absent from the monastery on numerous occasions. After some time, wishing to ascend the ladder of the virtues, St Kieran went to the great monastery of St Enda of Arran, and that great Elder put him to work thrashing the corn for the monastery. For seven years he kept this humble obedience, and St Enda was comforted by divine revelations concerning the virtue of his disciple. Then seeking virtue again, he moved again - to the monastery of St Senan of Inniscathig. Here he was put in charge of caring for the strangers and visitors, but so generous was he to the poor that he incurred the wrath of the some of the other monks and he felt it expedient to leave the monastery. He settled on an island in Lough Rie, and there disciples gathered round him and a monastery was founded which he ruled for seven years. In 548 A.D., he was granted a parcel of land at Clonmacnois by King Dermit, and so entrusted his first founded house to the spiritual care of Adamnan, and himself founded what was to become one of the most illustrious monastic houses in the history of the Island of Saints and Scholars, Clonmacnois. The King greatly revered St Kieran, and at his request laid the first stone of the foundation with his own hands. St Kieran, although his name has ever since been linked with Clonmacnois, did not live long after the foundation of this house. He died of the pestilence the year after its foundation. He, a carpenter’s son, is said to have died like another carpenter’s Son, at the age of thirty-three, being “made perfect in a short time.” The great St Columba of Iona is said to have revered his memory and to have taken soil from his grave as a blessing. When once he found himself in trouble at sea, St Columba sprinkled some of this soil on the raging waters and called upon the saint’s help, and was thus saved from shipwreck and drowning.