Irish women should follow St. Brigid, not just St. Patrick

more men trying to run women's lives. just stay away from all those cults, catholics, christians all of the cults and you'll be alright. god has done nothing for the people on earth since and that's because THERE IS NO GOD NEVER WAS NEVER WILL BE

@ eiriamach, back in the 5th century AD (the times of St. Brigid et al), there was hardly any official declarations of saints by the then “Vatican”. The Vatican in the Rome we know today didn’t exist back then – there was no St. Peter’s Basilica, no Vatican State and no Congregation for the Causes of Saints and certainly no Roman Catholic Church... there was only the Christian Church spread through Europe. The original Church erected over St. Peter’s grave in his honour in the early Christian centuries, said to have been made mostly of timber, covered some of the ground now occupied by St. Peter’s Square, which was once a Roman circus or games arena, used for horse and chariot races, like today’s Piazza Navona and the Circus Maximus in Rome were once (as “erudited” from a British TV documentary).

Seanmor… it was a convent and a monastery, not a co-ed school. It was a place dedicated to prayer. The monks were cloistered in their own quarters and the nuns in theirs but all reputedly celebrated Mass together. @ Gearoid4, thanks for kind comments but I hardly think myself erudite! Your own posts are far more studiously enlightening and my thanks to you for posting them.

It is said that Brigid ran a co-ed school in Kildare, which woould have put her centuries ahead of her time. At this side of the pond there are many church's that bear her name, but the one in NYC's lower Eastside is very lucky to be still standing, despite Cardinal Egan's strong desire to demolish it.

Thanks for your very erudite contributions, Jacers as they are very much appreciated. St Brigid was never formally canonized by the Vatican but she is fully recognized as a saint by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. In the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology, Brigid is listed under 1 February with the Latin name Brígidae. I think that the feast day of St Brigid is listed within the national calender of Ireland by the Irish episcopate with the permission of the Holy See. She has been omitted from the general Roman Calender not due to any malicious intent but rather because of the vast number of existing Saints that are listed there already.

Niall writes, "the stories of her good deeds and extraordinary acts ensured she was canonized well before most of her contemporaries." When was Brigid canonized? I suppose you could say she was "canonized" as virtually all saints from the island of saints and scholars were "canonized," i.e., by the acclamation of the people, but certainly not by the Vatican. In fact, about a half-century ago, the Vatican officially pronounced her life undocumented and decreed therefore Brigid herself would never be officially canonized (like Patrick and Colm Cille). They're not sure she ever lived or that there's any truth to the legends about her. Not that it matters what they think! I doubt she'd wish to be a selling point for today's Roman Church.

(My final say on this to PaMa) I have to say this to PatriciaMarya: Thank you so, so so very much for sharing your experience with St. Brigid and her straw Cross with all who read ICentral. It proves that St. Brigid, like St. Patrick, like St. Keteri and St. Mary MacKillop haven’t gone away, you know, despite the time since their human deaths and can still reach out to every one of us. You, I, and many others are blessed to know that. Thanks to you, Patricia, the memory of the everlasting flame of the love that St. Brigid has for you and our Christ, which you found in an isolated church’s altar to the Lamb of God, Our Lord, is alive, well and flourishing. Thank you so much. Like meself, I don’t think you will ever appreciate enough the enormity of the contribution of your simple question has been on Irish Central and my simple, fekkin, long-winded answer. Again, my thanks to you PaMa, and to St. Brigid for finding you, and for her re-finding me, through you, on Irish Central.

Dem flipping ditto doubling posts agin! (More for PaMara and others…) There, also in the legion of Saints, canonised or not, are the 14 ordinary Irish men and women (i.e. ordinary fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters and single people in different parishes) of Ireland who were of the many who persevered to keep the faith alive in Ireland during the Penal Laws time, who gave up their lives for that (for that read “murdered by British Crown Forces for refusing to tell where Masses were being held or where a priest might be found in a secret hideaway” ), who were blessed a few years ago in St. Peter’s Square - no official feast days for them either, but many of us Irish Catholics remember them every day in thanks for keeping the #Faith of Our Fathers # (and Mothers) alive for us to be privileged to have today. Likewise, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American Indian female saint, has a feast-day celebrated only in America but I don’t know the date. I’d bet there’s a lot of feather-waving, whooping, dancing and beating drums celebrating her on whatever day it is – and rightfully so – just as we Irish do the same, in celebrating the privilege of having our faith in Jesus Christ renewed each St. Patrick’s Day. (One final say to PatriciaMarya… )

(More for PaMara and others… it always gets me goat up as to why we use abbreviations when the word ‘abbreviation’ itself is so long for typing out) Anyways, PaMara, for examples of local saints whose feast-days are revered in their own countries but not on the RC Church’s official calendar of saint days (and that’s without adding the saints of RCC-conjoined Catholic Churches), you have Saint Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first and only saint (as of now, more to come) who was once excommunicated by Vatican rules but was canonised by the same rules reverted just a few years ago, 2009 or 2010 (I’m not sure of which), who is not on the official Church calendar of Saints’ feast days - but she is officially celebrated in Australia on 8th August (Seanomelb, note that date in yr diary). (More for PaMa (oops! there goes dem fekkin abreevos again!) and others…)

(More for PaMara and others… it always gets me goat up as to why we use abbreviations when the word ‘abbreviation’ itself is so long for typing out) Anyways, PaMara, for examples of local saints whose feast-days are revered in their own countries but not on the RC Church’s official calendar of saint days (and that’s without adding the saints of RCC-conjoined Catholic Churches), you have Saint Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first and only saint (as of now, more to come) who was once excommunicated by Vatican rules but was canonised by the same rules reverted just a few years ago, 2009 or 2010 (I’m not sure of which), who is not on the official Church calendar of Saints’ feast days - but she is officially celebrated in Australia on 8th August (Seanomelb, note that date in yr diary). (More for PaMa (oops! there goes dem fekkin abreevos again!) and others…)

(…more for PatriciaMarya …) However, each country in the world, like Ireland, the Vatican recognises the right of each person in each country to keep holy, to honour and to celebrate the feast days of local saints like Ireland’s Saints Brigid (Feb 1st), Patrick (March 17th), Colmcille (aka Columba, 9th June), the navigating St Brendan (May 16th), the hermit St. Kevin of beautiful Glendalough in Wicklow (June 3rd) and the martyr-Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (the seat of the present-day Irish Cardinal Brady) St. Oliver Plunkett (July 1st), whose skull you can see in St. Peter’s Church in Drogheda, Co. Louth, south of the “Border” in Ireland (note that, IrelandNorth). Not all of them have big celebratory parades every year… and thanks be ta jaysus for that, I say, otherwise we’d get no work done anywhere in Ireland! (More for PatMary and others, (Patricia, pls pardon the abbreviation; I’ll go with PaMara for now ‘cos me typing fingers are aching…)

@ PatriciaMarya – Nice story of you finding St. Brigid’s Cross on the altar in the west of Ireland on that sad occasion of yours, thanks for sharing it, much to my delight and, I’m sure, to the delight of other ICentral readers and contributors. Yr question… No, St. Brigid's Sainthood has not been rescinded by the Vatican. But actually, like St. Patrick’s feast-day, her feast-day was dropped from the official world-wide list of Church feast days’ calendar not long ago, simply because there aren't enough days in the calendar year to fit in all the canonised saints, including recently-declared saints. As far as I know, the RC Church officially wraps up honouring them all, each year, on 1st November, the Holy feast day of All Saints Day; perhaps Gearoid4 or Carroll09 could perhaps get back to us to expand on that. (More for PatriciaMarya …)

Thanks IrelandNorth for the 'border'-line “correction” and the chuckle on Mother Sinéad! I only refer to Nth or Sth Ireland on ICentral for the benefit of IC readers outside of Ireland. Downpatrick is, after all, located in a part of Ireland governed by another country. But to me, Dublin-born like Lord Edward Carson was, all of Ireland is my beloved country as it was for Brigid, Patrick and Colmcille.

I can't believe my great fortune because back in 2010, I travelled to Ireland, the West, for the first time to assist a pal in finding a retirement home and to cast my Mom's ashes. I got to visit a church that had the Straw Cross on its altar and got to read and to revere Brigid. For some reason, I had been told that the Vatican, in its infinite wisdom, had rescinded Bridid's Sainthood! Is this true? Please help me find out this fact.

jacersagain! County Kildare is in eastern Ireland (ie Leinster). Your too preoccupied with that increasingly insiginficant meridian line drawn by insecure planter stock way back when. WIth the crumbling Holy Roman Empire, perhaps their a marketing opportunity for a reformation of a divine feminine church. Is Mother Sinéad available?