The Celtic Connection
For
more than six hundred years from 400 to 1200 C.E., monastic biographers
in the Celtic churches of Ireland, Northern England, Cornwall,
Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and Brittany composed the Lives of
literally hundreds of Celtic saints. These records leave a wealth of
information about soul friendship and its immersion in the everyday life
and spirituality of Celtic Christianity. Also revealed is how common
soul-friend relationships were between men and men, women and women, and
women and men and the importance of everyone having a soul friend even
among non clerics.
Records
tell us within a hundred years after the missionary activities of Saint
Patrick in the fifth century, saint after saint were involved in soul
friend relationships.
Finnian,
who around 520 established the great monastery of Clonard, is
considered the patriarch of early Irish monasticism. He tutored and
acted as a spiritual guide to so many of the early founders of the other
large monastic communities, Columcille of Iona and Ciaran of
Clonmacnoise among that number. Finnian, himself had been mentored from
boyhood by Foirtchernn of Britain. As an adult he had a number of soul
friends: Caemon of Tours in Gaul, and David, Gildas, and Cathmael.
Ita
as Finan evidently acted in a similar capacity. She taught so many
young men who later became leaders in the early Celtic church that she
became known as the "Fostermother of the Saints of Erin." One of these
is Brendan of Clonfert. Famous for his voyages, he frequently turned to
Ita for advice throughout his life.
A
person may have a number of mentors and soul friends through out their
lifetime. Often starting from an early age. Kevin of Glendalough is
typical of this model. According to an early hagiography, he had "three
elders to whom he was handed over as a child, so that he might learn
Christ."
As
Anam Caram, these early saints engaged in a great variety of ministries
and roles. Some, like Patrick, Brigit, and Columcille, are clearly
portrayed in their Lives as healers and spiritual guides to the tribes,
as the druids and druidesses had once been before them.
Others
such as Finnian, Ita, and Aidan, functioned as teachers and tutors both
to younger and older students alike. Many of them, including Findbarr
of Cork, David of Wales, and Hild of Whitby, were powerful founders of
monasteries, a role that definatley involved good communication and
administrative skills.
As
in the case of Brendan and Columbanus, a large number were missionaries
and pilgrims. They willing to lived extremely harsh lifestyles, far
from friends and kin, to bringing the gospel to pagan lands.
Many
of these soul friends were mystics and visionaries, like Samthann of
Clonbroney and Maedoc of Ferns, who prayed intensely and had seer,
intuitive abilities to read the future and, more important, the heart.
All of them were pioneers, reconcilers, and confessors who, despite a
very active life, valued deep freindships and solitude.
We
know from the few hagiographies of female "saints" as well as the
stories in the men's Lives that refer to women in the early Celtic
church, that some of the greatest and most competent of the soul friends
were Irish women. Brigit, Ita, Samthann, Moninna, and in Northumbria.
The anglo-saxon Hild of Whitby, who, through Aidan's mentoring, was
thoroughly immersed in Celtic spirituality. These woman funtioned as
teachers, administrators, guides, preachers, and confessors in the
Celtic tradition.
Whether
female or male saints, it is interesting to note how often they are
pictured, like the desert Christians, sitting, praying, studying,
writing, or teaching in their cells. The scholar Charles Plummer says
that in addition to the common buildings of each monastic community
(that is, the chapel, the oratories, refectory, school, and
guest-house), cells were constructed for individuals or small groups of
monks.
Older
members, ascetics, and anchorites would probably have had their own
separate cells. Many of these cells were of the beehive type still
visible today in all their terrible beauty on Skellig Michael, off the
Ring of Kerry in Ireland. This type of cell definitely had room for more
than one inhabitant.
In
his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Venerable Bede
tells us that during the early days of the Celtic church large numbers
of people from England "left their own country and retired to Ireland
either for the sake of religious studies or to live a more ascetic life.
In course of time some of these devoted themselves faithfully to the
monastic life. Others preferred to travel round to the cells of various
teachers and apply themselves to study." Cells were frequently shared
between teachers and students, confessors and those seeking forgiveness,
and anam caram.
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