Kitabı oku: «The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March», sayfa 4
S. Henry founded the bishopric of Bamberg, partly at the instigation of S. Kunegund, who obtained for the city such privileges, that it became a popular saying there, that Kunegund's silk threads defended Bamberg better than walls and towers. Pope Benedict VIII. visited Bamberg in 1020, for the purpose of consecrating the new establishment. Kunegund also built and endowed a Benedictine abbey for nuns, at Kaufungen, near Cassel. Before it was finished, in 1024, S. Henry died. On the anniversary of his death, in 1025, she assembled a great number of prelates to the dedication of her church at Kaufungen; and after the singing of the gospel, she offered on the altar a piece of the true cross, and then put off her imperial robes, and clothed herself with a poor habit; her hair was cut off, and the bishop put on her a veil, and a ring as a pledge of her fidelity to her heavenly Spouse. After she was consecrated to God in religion, she seemed entirely to forget that she had been empress, and behaved as the last in the house, being persuaded that she was so before God. She feared nothing more than whatever could bring to her mind the remembrance of her former dignity. She prayed and read much, worked with her hands, and took a singular pleasure in visiting and comforting the sick. Thus she passed the fifteen last years of her life, never suffering the least preference to be given her above any one in the community. Her mortifications at length reduced her to a very weak[Pg 53][Pg 54] condition, and brought on her last sickness. Her monastery and the whole city of Cassel were grievously afflicted at the thought of their approaching loss; she alone appeared without concern, lying on a coarse hair-cloth, ready to give up the ghost, whilst the prayers of the dying were read by her side. Perceiving they were preparing a cloth fringed with gold to cover her corpse after her death, she ordered it to be taken away; nor could she be at rest till it was promised that she should be buried as a religious in her habit. She died on the 3rd of March, 1040. Her body was carried to Bamberg, and buried near that of her husband. The greatest part of her relics still remains in the same church. She was solemnly canonized by Innocent III. in 1200.
She is represented in art with the ploughshares at her feet.
March 4
S. Lucius, Pope, M. at Rome, A.D. 253.
SS. Nine Hundred Martyrs on the Appian Way, at Rome, circ. A.D. 260.
S. Caius the Palatine, and xxvii. Companions, MM. at Rome.
S. Owen, Mk. at Lastingham, end of 7th cent.
S. Basinus, B. of Treves, circ. A.D. 672.
SS. Adrian, B. of S. Andrews, and Comp., MM. in the Isle ofMay, circ. A.D. 870.
S. Casimir, Prince of Poland, A.D. 1484.
S. LUCIUS, POPE, M
(A.D. 253.)
[Usuardus, Ado, Notker, Wandelbert, and Roman Martyrologies. Authorities: – Eusebius, the letters of S. Cyprian, Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and a Life by Guaiserius, a monk, (11th cent.)]
Saint Lucius was a Roman by birth, and one of the clergy of that church under SS. Fabian and Cornelius. This latter having been crowned with martyrdom, in 252, S. Lucius succeeded him in the pontificate. The emperor Gallus having renewed the persecution of his predecessor Decius, at least in Rome, this holy pope was no sooner placed in the chair of S. Peter, than he was banished, though to what place is uncertain. "Thus," says S. Dionysius of Alexandria, "did Gallus deprive himself of the succour of heaven, by expelling those who every day prayed to God for his peace and prosperity." S. Cyprian wrote to S. Lucius to congratulate him both on his promotion, and on having had grace to suffer banishment for Christ. Our saint had been but a short time in exile when he was recalled, to the great joy of his people, who went out of Rome in crowds to meet him. S. Cyprian wrote to him a second letter of congratulation on this occasion. He says, "He had not lost the dignity of martyrdom because he had the will, as the three children in the furnace, though preserved by God from death; this glory added a new dignity to his priesthood; so that he, a bishop, assisted at God's altar, who could exhort his flock to martyrdom by his own example as well as by his words. By giving such graces to his pastors, God showed where his true Church was: for he denied the like glory of suffering to the Novatian heretics. The enemy of Christ only attacks the soldiers of Christ: heretics he knows to be already his own, and passes them by. We supplicate God the Father and His Son, our Lord, giving thanks and praying together, that He who perfects all may bring you to the glorious crown of your confession, who, perhaps, has only recalled you that your glory might not be hidden; for the victim who owes his brethren an example of virtue and faith, ought to be sacrificed before their eyes."
Eusebius says that Lucius did not occupy the pontifical throne for above eight months. He seems to have died on March 4th, under Gallus, but how we know not. His body was found in the Catacombs, and was laid in the church of S. Cecilia at Rome, where it is now exposed to the veneration of the faithful. Considerable portions of the body of S. Lucius, M., are preserved at Bologna, and a head, purporting to be that of S. Lucius, was anciently one of the great relics of Roeskilde Cathedral. But these must be the remains of other saints of the same name, and it was an error of the clergy of Bologna and of Roeskilde to assert that these relics belonged to the martyred pope. That such a mistake may easily have been made is seen from the fact that two martyrs of the name of Lucius are commemorated on this day, the second being a companion of Caius the Palatine; and six in January, and as many in February, not to mention those in the other months. In the Schleswig Breviary, published in 1512, the feast of S. Lucius, Pope, M., was observed on account of the presence of the head of a S. Lucius, M., at Roeskilde, with nine lessons at matins, of which the six first were taken from the account of the Life and Translation of S. Lucius the pope, made by pope Paschal in 812.
S. CAIUS THE PALATINE, AND COMP., MM
(DATE UNCERTAIN.)
[Bede, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, Roman Martyrology. The names of the companions of S. Caius vary in the Martyrologies.]
S. Caius, and twenty-seven fellow soldiers, suffered for the faith at Rome. Caius was an officer of the palace, but under what emperor is not known. He was drowned in the sea.
S. OWEN, MK
(END OF 7TH CENT.)
[Anglican and Benedictine Martyrologies. Authority: – Bede, Hist. Eccl., lib. iv. c. 3.]
The venerable Bede says, "Owen was a monk of great merit, having forsaken the world with the pure intention of obtaining the heavenly reward; worthy in all respects to have the secrets of our Lord revealed to him, and worthy to have credit given by his hearers to what he said; for he came with Queen Etheldreda from the province of the East Angles, and was her prime minister, and governor of her household. As the fervour of his faith increased, resolving to renounce the world, he did not go about it slothfully, but quitting all he had, clad in a plain garment, and carrying an axe and hatchet in his hand, came to the monastery of S. Chad, at Lastingham: denoting that he did not go to the monastery to live idly, as some do, but to labour, and this he confirmed by his practice; for as he was less capable of meditating on the Holy Scriptures, he the more earnestly applied himself to the labour of his hands. In short, he was received by the bishop into the house aforesaid, and there entertained with the brethren, and whilst they were engaged within in reading, he was without doing such things as were necessary.
"One day, when he was thus employed abroad, and his companions were gone to the church, the bishop was alone, reading or praying in the oratory of that place, when, on a sudden, as he afterwards said, he heard voices singing most sweetly, and rejoicing, and appearing to descend from heaven. And this sound seemed to come from the south-east, and it afterwards drew nigh him to the oratory, where the bishop then was, and entering therein, filled the same and all around. He listened attentively to what he heard, and after about half an hour noticed the same strain of joy ascend from the roof of the oratory, and return to heaven the same way it came, with inexpressible sweetness. When he had stood some time wondering, the bishop opened the window of the oratory, and, making a noise with his hand, ordered him to come in to him.
"Then the holy Chad told him that the day of his death was at hand, and that the angelic spirits had told him that in seven days they would return and take him with them. And so it was: seven days after, S. Chad entered into his rest." Nothing more is known of Owen. A stone cross put up by Owen remains at Ely, and is preserved in that cathedral.
S. BASINUS, B. OF TREVES
(ABOUT A.D. 672.)
[Treves and Cologne Martyrologies; Molanus and Greven. Authority: – His Life by Nizo, Abbot of Metloch (Mediolanum) on the Saar, 11th cent., which is very untrustworthy.]
Basinus, of the illustrious family of the Dukes of Austrasia, was received as monk into the monastery of S. Maximin, at Treves. He was afterwards made abbot, and later, when S. Numerian, bishop of Treves, was dead, he was constrained to assume the mitre in his room. He held the see in the reign of Childebert II., king of Austrasia. He was a friend of S. Willibrord. After his death, his body was laid in the basilica of S. Maximin, under the high altar. It was taken up in 1621, and placed in a more conspicuous position.
He was succeeded by his nephew, S. Lutwin.
S. ADRIAN, M. B. OF S. ANDREWS
(ABOUT A.D. 870.)
[Aberdeen Breviary. Authority: – The Lections from the same.]
S. Adrian, bishop of S. Andrews, in Scotland, was a native of Pannonia. He laboured to spread the faith among the Picts, together with his companions, Clodian, Caius, Monan, and Stobrand. As they were in the island of May, the Danish pirates landed in it, and put Adrian and Clodian to death.
S. CASIMIR, PRINCE OF POLAND
(A.D. 1484.)
[Roman Martyrology. Authorities: – Zacharias Ferrier, Papal Legate in Poland, A.D. 1525.]
S. Casimir was the second son of Casimir III., king of Poland, and of Elizabeth of Austria, daughter to the emperor Albert II., a most virtuous woman, who died in 1505. He was born in 1458, on the 5th of October. From his childhood he was remarkably pious and devout. His preceptor was John Dugloss, called Longinus, canon of Cracow, a man of extraordinary learning and piety, who constantly refused all bishoprics, and other dignities of the Church and state which were pressed upon him. Vladislas, the eldest son, was elected king of Bohemia in 1471, and became king of Hungary in 1490. Casimir was the second son; John Albert, the third son, succeeded his father in the kingdom of Poland in 1492; and Alexander, the fourth son, was called to the same in 1501. Casimir and the other princes were warmly attached to the holy man who was their preceptor; but Casimir profited most by his pious maxims and example. He consecrated the flower of his age to the exercises of devotion and penance; his clothes were plain, and under them he wore a hair shirt. He often slept upon the ground, and spent a considerable part of the night in prayer and meditation, chiefly on the passion of our Saviour. He was wont at times to go out in the night to pray before the church-doors, and in the morning waited before them till they were opened for matins. He was especially devout to the passion of our blessed Saviour, the very thought of which excited him to tears. He was no less piously affected towards the Sacrifice of the altar, at which he always assisted with such reverence and attention that he seemed in raptures. And as a mark of his singular devotion to the Blessed Virgin, he composed, or, at least, frequently recited, the long hymn that bears his name, a copy of which was, by his desire, buried with him. His love for Jesus Christ showed itself in his regard for the poor, who are His members, to whose relief he applied whatever he had, and employed his credit with his father, and his brother, Vladislas, king of Bohemia, to procure them succour.
The nobles of Hungary, dissatisfied with Matthias Corvinus, their king, son of the great Huniades, begged the king of Poland to allow them to place his son Casimir on the throne. The saint, then not quite fifteen years of age, was very unwilling to consent; but in compliance with his father's will, he went at the head of an army of twenty thousand men to the frontiers in 1471. There hearing that Matthias had formed an army of sixteen thousand men to oppose him, and that pope Sixtus IV. had sent an embassy to divert his father from the expedition, and finding that his soldiers were deserting him in great numbers, he joyfully returned. However, his conduct gave such offence to his father, whose ambition had been roused, that he was forbidden by him to enter Cracow, and ordered to take up his residence in the castle of Dobzki. After this, nothing would again induce him to resume the attempt, though again pressed by the Hungarians, and urged by his father. As the old Russian churches were falling out of repair, Casimir, with more zeal than discretion, persuaded his father to pass an edict forbidding the restoration and reconstruction of churches which did not belong to the Latin rite.
Falling into a decline, the physicians recommended that he should relax his rigid chastity, but the young prince indignantly refused to defile his virgin body on the chance of thus prolonging his life a few months; and he died at the age of twenty-three, on March 4th, 1484, and was buried at Wilna, where his body is still preserved.
March 5
S. Theophilus, B. of Cæsarea, in Palestine, circ. A.D. 200.
S. Adrian, M. at Cæsarea, in Palestine, A.D. 308 (see S. Eubulus,March 7th).
S. Phocas, M. at Antioch, in Syria, circ. A.D. 320.
S. Gerasimus, Ab. in Palestine, A.D. 475.
S. Kieran or Piran, of Saigir, B. of Ossory, circ. A.D. 552.
S. Virgilius, Abp. of Arles, 7th cent.
S Drausinus, B. of Soissons, after A.D. 675.
S. Peter de Castelnau, Mk. M. at S. Gilles, in the Narbonnaise,
A.D. 1209.
S. John-Joseph of the Cross, C. at Naples, A.D. 1734.
S. PHOCAS, M
(ABOUT A.D. 320.)
[All the Latin Martyrologies, from the mention in which all that is known of him is derived.]
At Antioch, after many sufferings endured for the name of Christ, Phocas triumphed over the Old Serpent, a victory which is testified, to this day, by a miracle. For whoever is bitten by a serpent, having touched, full of faith, the door of the basilica of the martyr, is immediately cured, the poison at once losing its power; so says the Roman Martyrology.
S. GERASIMUS, AB. IN PALESTINE
(A.D. 475.)
[Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on March 4th and 20th. Authorities: – Mention in the lives of S. Euthymius and S. Quiriacus, by Cyril the Monk, fl. 548]
S. Gerasimus embraced the monastic life in Lycia; he afterwards passed into Palestine, at a time when Eutychianism prevailed, and he had the misfortune to embrace the errors of that heresy; but S. Euthymius (Jan. 20th) visited him, and restored him to the unity of the faith. He expiated his error by the most rigorous fasting. He became very intimate with S. Euthymius, S. John the Silentiary, S. Sabas, and S. Theoctistus.
A great number of disciples placed themselves under his conduct, and he built a laura near Jordan, consisting of seventy cells, amidst which was a monastery for the lodging of those who were to live in community, and disciplined those who afterwards occupied the hermitages of the laura. The anchorites assembled in the church on the Sabbath and the Sunday to participate in the sacred mysteries, and on these two days they ate common food that had been cooked, and drank a little wine; on other days they ate only bread and dates, and drank water. Fires were never lighted in the cells, and the hermits slept on rush mats.
S. Gerasimus carried his abstinence further than his brethren. Throughout Lent he took no other nourishment than the Divine Eucharist.
One day as the old abbot was walking on the banks of the Jordan, he saw a lion limping, and roaring with pain. The lion, instead of attempting to escape, held up its paw, which was much swollen, and Gerasimus taking it on his lap, examined it, and saw that a sharp splinter had entered the flesh. He withdrew the piece of reed, and bathed the paw. The lion afterwards gratefully followed him to his cell, and never after left him, but was fed by the abbot. There was an ass belonging to the monastery which brought water from the Jordan, for the necessities of the brethren; and Gerasimus sent the ass out to pasture under the guardianship of the lion. One day the lion had gone away from his charge, and an Arabian camel driver passing by, stole the ass. In the evening the lion returned depressed in spirits to the monastery, without the ass. Gerasimus naturally concluded that the lion had eaten the animal, and he cried out, "Sirrah, where is the ass?" The lion stood still, and looked back over his shoulder. "You have eaten him!" said the abbot; "Let us praise God. Well, what the ass did, you shall do now." And thenceforth the lion carried the water for the brethren.
Now one day a certain soldier came to the monastery, and seeing the lion toiling under the water bottles, he pitied the lordly beast, and gave some money to the abbot to buy an ass on the next opportunity, and release the lion from its office of water-carrier. Some days after this, as the lion was near Jordan, there came by the driver who had stolen the ass, with three camels, and the stolen beast itself. The lion set up its mane and roared, and made towards the man, whereupon the driver took to his heels. Then the lion caught the end of the ass's halter, and drew it along with the camels to the door of the monastery. And thus the abbot learned that he was wrong in accusing his dumb friend of having devoured his charge.
For five years the lion was the constant companion of the old abbot, going in and out among the monks; and at the expiration of that time Gerasimus died. Now the lion was out when he departed to his rest; but when the lion returned home, he went about searching for the old man. Then the abbot Sabbatius, a disciple of the dead saint, seeing the uneasiness of the lion, said to him "Jordan, (for by that name the lion was called), our old friend has gone away and left us orphans, and has migrated to the Lord; but here is food, take and eat." But the lion would not and paced to and fro seeking the dead man, and every now and then throwing up his head, and roaring. Then Sabbatius and some of the other brethren came and rubbed his neck, and said, "The old man is departed to the Lord, and has left us." But this did not appease the lion; and the more they caressed him, and spake to him, the more agitated he became, and the louder he roared, "showing with mouth and eyes how great was his distress, because he saw not the old man."
Then the abbot Sabbatius said to him, "Come along with me, as you will not believe me, and I will show you where our old friend is laid." And he led the lion to the place where Gerasimus was buried; and the abbot Sabbatius, standing at the tomb, said, "See here is where he is buried." And then he knelt and wept upon the grave. So when the lion saw this, he went, and stretched himself on the grave, with his head on the sand, and moaned, and remained there, and would not leave the place, but was found there dead, a few days after.
It is almost needless to say that this beautiful incident has given to the abbot Gerasimus his symbol of a lion, in art.
S. KIERAN OR PIRAN, AB. OF SAIGIR
(ABOUT A.D. 552.)
[Irish Hagiologies, and an addition of Usuardus published in 1490. A saint of this name was venerated on this day in the Dumblane Breviary, but it is uncertain if it was the same. The Life of S. Kieran, published by Colgan, and that given by the Bollandists, are of later date, and like so many of the Acts of Celtic Saints, abound in fables.]
According to the Irish legendary lives, Kieran of Saigir was bishop in Ireland before the arrival of S. Patrick. After honouring him with the title of the "first-born of the saints of Ireland," these lives proceed to inform us that his father was Lugneus, a noble of Ossory, and his mother Liadain, of Corcalaighde, (Carberry), in South Munster. S. Kieran was born in Cape Clear Island. Having spent thirty years in Ireland still unbaptized, he heard of the Christian religion as flourishing at Rome, and went thither for the purpose of being instructed. There he was baptized, and remained twenty years, studying the Scriptures and canons, after which he was ordained bishop, and sent to preach in his own country. On his way to Ireland he met S. Patrick in Italy, who was not as yet a bishop, and who told Kieran that he would follow him to Ireland in thirty years from the date of their meeting. This must have happened in 402, and accordingly Kieran, being then fifty years old, was born in 352. When arrived in Ireland he was miraculously directed, as S. Patrick had told him he would, to the place since called Saigir, (Seir-Kieran, in King's County), where he erected a monastery. Having ordained an innumerable multitude of bishops and priests, he died at the age of 300!
Other accounts state that Kieran's meeting with S. Patrick somewhere out of Ireland occurred several years after the latter had commenced his apostolical labours in this country. Jocelin places it at a time when S. Patrick was returning from Britain, whither he had gone to obtain a supply of additional helpers for his mission, and tells us that Kieran was then one of the six Irish priests who were proceeding to foreign countries for religious improvement, and all of whom afterwards became bishops in their own country. In the Tripartite history of S. Patrick the precise place of meeting is not given; but, what is more to the purpose, it is represented as having occurred at least twelve years after S. Patrick had begun his mission in Ireland, and Kieran is stated to have then received directions from the saint concerning the district in which he should erect his monastery.
It appears, however, that he was no disciple of S. Patrick at all, and did not live in his times. His name does not occur in Tirechan's list, nor in any of the Lives of S. Patrick, except in those two just quoted, and his appearance in them is evidently due to the legends in circulation concerning the meeting. Had S. Kieran been a disciple of the apostle, how could he have become a scholar of S. Finnian of Clonard, in the 6th century? For such he is stated to have been, not only in the Life of S. Finnian, and in that of his illustrious namesake of Clonmacnois, but also in the tract which is called his first life, and which enters into more particulars than the other. S. Finnian's school could not have become celebrated before 534. In both Kieran's lives his namesake of Clonmacnois, who died in 549, and the two Brendans, one of whom died in 577, and the other a few years earlier, are spoken of as having had transactions with him.
We may then safely conclude that he belonged to the sixth century, became distinguished towards the middle of it, and died during its latter half. As this was known to be the case, his blundering biographers strove to reconcile their nonsense concerning the antiquity and privileges of Saigir, with the true date of his death, by making him die at the age of about 300 years, although, had they calculated better, about 220 years might have sufficed.
Kieran, we may safely conclude, was made a bishop about the year 538. Having retired to a lonesome spot, since called Saigir, he led at first the life of a hermit, and after some time erected a monastery, around which a city gradually grew up. Next he established a nunnery in the neighbourhood for his mother Liadania, and some pious virgins, her companions, whence the church Killiadhuin got its name. Besides the care of his monastery, Kieran was assiduously employed in preaching the Gospel in Ossory, and he converted a great number of heathen. He is usually considered to have been the first bishop of Ossory, and founder of that see. It is singular that, notwithstanding all that is said in the lives, in praise of Kieran, he is not much spoken of in the accounts of contemporary saints, and that none of the Irish annals or hagiologies give the date of his death. Hence Colgan was inclined to think that he died in Cornwall, and is to be identified with S. Piran, of Peranzabulo. But the first life hints that he died at Saigir. Although the year of his death is unknown, there can be little doubt of his having been alive after the year 550.
If S. Piran of Peranzabulo be the same as S. Kieran of Saigir, his bones have been discovered of late years, when the ancient oratory of Peranzabulo, near Padstowe, in Cornwall, was dug out of the sand. In favour of this identification, Colgan points out that S. Piran was commemorated at Padstow on the 5th March, the same day as S. Kieran in Ireland; and John of Tynemouth asserts that S. Kieran did retire from Ireland into Cornwall where he spent the latter part of his life, and died. The Cornish, moreover, change the K. of Irish names into P.
Some of the legends related of S. Kieran deserve to be recorded. He is said when a little boy to have been bitterly distressed at seeing a hawk carry off a little bird in its talons. Then he cried to God, and the hawk dropped its prey.
One day a king or chief in the neighbourhood carried off one of the nuns of the convent governed by his mother. Kieran pursued him full of wrath, and coming to the castle, bade the chief restore the poor maiden to her cell. "Not unless the cuckoo should rouse me to-morrow morning," answered the chief. Now it was mid-winter. But that night no snow fell round the house where lodged the abbot, and at early dawn a bird perched on the roof under the window of the chief, and began to call "Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!" Then the ravisher, in alarm, started from his bed, and restored the nun to her convent.
On an autumn day, Kieran noticed a magnificent bank of blackberries, so large and ripe, that he thought it a sad pity the winter should come and destroy them. Therefore he cast a cloak over the bramble. Now it fell out that the next ensuing April, Ethnea Vacha the wife of king Ængus was ill, and felt a craving for blackberries. She was then, with her husband, the guest of Concraidh, king of Ossory. Concraidh told S. Kieran of the strange wish of the lady, and instantly the saint remembered the hedge of blackberries covered by his cloak, and he went and plucked as many as he could carry, and brought them to the sick queen, and she ate them and revived.
One day S. Kieran of Clonmacnois and the two Brendans visited the monastery. The steward came to the abbot in dismay, and said, "There is nothing to offer these distinguished guests except some scraps of bacon, and water."
"Then serve up the bacon and the water," said the saint. And when they were brought on the table, the bacon tasted to every man better than anything he had ever tasted before, and as for the water, the benediction of the man of God had converted it into wine. But there was at the table a lay-brother, and when he had some bacon put before him, he thrust his platter away angrily, for he was tired of bacon, and had expected something better, when distinguished visitors were present. "Hah!" said the abbot, – 'not by way of condemnation, but of prophecy,' – "The time will come when you, son of Comgall, shall eat ass's flesh in Lent, and soon after you will lose your head."
It is also related that there was a boy came to Saigir called Crichidh of Clonmacnois, and remained for a while under the abbot Kieran. Now it was the custom and rule of S. Kieran, that the blessed Paschal fire should burn all the year. But out of mischief, as we moderns should say, "instigante diabolo," as the mediæval chronicler expresses it, the boy put the fire out. Then S. Kieran said to the brethren, "Look! our fire is extinguished by that confounded boy (a maledicto puero), Crichidh, purposely, for he is always up to mischief (sicut solet semper nocere). And now we shall be without fire till next Easter, unless the Lord sends us some. As for that boy, he will come to a bad end shortly." And so it was, for on the morrow a wolf killed the boy.
Now S. Kieran of Clonmacnois, to whom the boy belonged, hearing of this, came to Saigir, and was courteously received by S. Kieran the Elder. But there was no fire, and the snow fell in large flakes; and it was bitterly cold, so that S. Kieran of Clonmacnois and his companions sat blue with frost, and their teeth chattering. Then S. Kieran of Saigir raised his hands to heaven, and prayed, and there fell a globe of fire into his hands, and he spread the lap of his chasuble (casula), and went with the fireball in it before his guests, and they warmed themselves thereat. And after that, dinner was served. Then said S. Kieran of Clonmacnois, "I will not eat till my boy is restored to me." "Brother," answered S. Kieran of Saigir, "I knew wherefore thou didst come; the boy is now on his way hither." And presently the door opened, and the boy that the wolf had eaten, walked in alive and well.
King Ængus of Munster had seven bards "who were wont to sing before him, harping, the deeds of heroes," but these seven men were murdered and drowned in a bog, and their harps were hung upon a tree by the side of the morass. S. Kieran, at the king's request, restored the seven harpers to life, after their having been steeped in bog-water for a whole month.
Now when he was dying, Kieran besought the Lord to bless all such as should keep his festival. "And," says his historian, "on March 5th, God introduced him into the lot of his inheritance in the vineyard, and planted him in the mountain of his possession, even in the celestial Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all. Wherefore, then, my brothers, let us hold a most solemn feast to the most holy Kieran, and let the voice of praise resound in the tabernacles of the righteous; for the right hand of the Lord made virtue to spring up in this man, which may Jesus Christ for the merits of his servant Kieran cause to grow in us present likewise, that we may be meet, He being our leader, to enter into the courts of our eternal inheritance. Amen."
