Brigid of Kildare

by Heather Terrell

  Brigid quiets and lets the words settle in their ears and minds and hearts. She knows that by describing Him in this way, she makes Him seem not so different from their familiar gods. He sounds like the Dagda, the head chief of the Gaels’ pantheon of gods.

  Village by village, chieftancy by chieftancy, and province by province, Brigid converts them. But she does not merely gather their pledges like plunder; she instructs them in His ways of living. She tutors them in basic writing and reading so they can share His Word with others. She teaches them how to build structures in which to worship Him and to carve stones to proclaim His majesty to all who pass. And then she chooses one of their women to join her in her ministry.

  This selection, at first resisted, becomes highly desired. The female villagers vie for the chance to join Brigid’s growing band. Taking the veil—with its heady mixture of freedom from tradition and devotion to God—becomes an emblem of Gaelic womanhood.

  Though her followers grow large in number, Brigid keeps her approach simple and uniform. She takes the lead with her group as it nears the villages, although she always remains humble with the people and in her prayers. Her followers assist her with the initial offers for healing, and together they undertake their grueling work. When the people are ready, the women help her instruct the villagers in ways of His artistry and in His Words. Their numbers, however, allow Brigid to reach increasingly large populations. From the start, Brigid is careful never to tread on Patrick’s northern territory. She has no reason to believe that he would condemn her efforts, but she is cautious nonetheless.

  Yet from his seat in Armagh, Bishop Patrick takes notice as her company of women enlarges and the rumors of Brigid’s accomplishments reach him.

  Finally, Bishop Patrick summons her. Recollecting his quick temper, Brigid fears his displeasure at her self-appointed ministry. She certainly has no wish to alienate the Roman Church in these early days of her work, so she contemplates the best way to placate him. She determines to leave her women to their work and ride to Patrick’s headquarters in Armagh alone.

  The journey is arduous and long, but she has grown accustomed to the little hardships. She perceives the time away from her work as a blessing, a rare solitude in which to consider her calling and her approach with Patrick. Although she had remained at a distance from Patrick, she has learned much about him in the days since her baptism and has warmed to the man from afar. She and Patrick are both royal-born, but drawn to the Christian path. Each has been willing to sacrifice much to convert the Gaelic people, even if that conversion requires unseemly acts, such as bribery for safe conduct. Most of all, Brigid believes that Patrick advocates for a new kind of church—one that breaks from the rigid Roman model and theology yet retains its core truths. She feels a kinship with him, both personal and religious.

  When she dismounts at the gates to Patrick’s Armagh rath, she feels ready to defend her work and even sway Patrick to her vocation, if he should resist. Though a guard welcomes her and takes her horse to the stalls, Brigid finds Patrick’s rath curiously empty. She had expected the bustle of a bishopric—a place of worship and work—even though she knows that Bishop Patrick spends as much time among the people as does she. Instead, an eerie stillness greets her. Seeking to announce her presence, Brigid encounters a monk she recognizes from her baptismal day.

  “Brother, I do not know if you remember me, but I am Brigid from the house of Dubtach. You assisted Bishop Patrick some years ago, during my rite of baptism.”

  “I recall you well indeed—from that blessed day and from news of your Christian works ever since. The bishop has been waiting for your arrival for some days now.”

  “My apologies. The vagaries of the road are unpredictable.”

  “I am pleased to see that our Lord watched over you during your journey. I am called Brother Lergus. Please let me take you to Bishop Patrick.”

  Brigid nods in gratitude, but she finds the monk’s haste curious. The Lord charges those who run His houses to offer food and hospitality first to their visitors. The rush to Patrick is unusual.

  Still, she says nothing and matches his brisk pace. They approach a building larger than most of the others, and pass into the dark interior. The reek of sickness assaults her. Not the smell of wounds and birthing to which she has grown accustomed, but the rancid odor of decay. Brigid does not need to be told that Patrick is gravely ill.

  She gathers her bearings and kneels before a hay-stuffed bed lodged in a shadowy corner. Although Brigid nods her head in silent prayer, her mind whirs with her prepared words of persuasion. The blankets covering the motionless mound at the bed’s center begin to stir.

  Brother Lergus rushes to the bedside and assists Patrick in sitting upright. With obvious effort, Patrick rasps, “My child, you have been busy since your baptism.”

  “Indeed, Bishop Patrick. Our Lord spoke to me on that fateful—”

  He interrupts her rehearsed speech. “I have received reports of your numerous conversions in the south. I am well pleased with your inspired works, my child. You have followed well the Lord’s exhortation to ‘go now, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.’”

  Patrick’s acceptance of her mission shocks her into uncharacteristic silence. She had anticipated, at the least, a scolding for her unsanctioned efforts, or, at the worst, banishment from the church and her vocation. His approval moves her.

  The bishop fills the quietude. “Brigid, the state of my health is undoubtedly apparent. Our Lord demands I leave this mortal body behind and join my soul to His in heaven, though Gael still requires much work. His timing is not ours, however.”

  “I am so sorry, my bishop. You will be heartily missed, and I do not know how Gael will become fully Christian without your guidance.”

  A sound like a chuckle escapes from Patrick’s dry throat. “Our Lord does not need me to work His wonders. Still, I would like to pass my worldly mantle to one who has proven dedication to His goals.”

  “Of course, Bishop Patrick,” Brigid says, though she cannot imagine a worthy—or successful—candidate among his small, soft-spoken band of monks and priests. His Roman religious do not know how to speak to the Gaels, literally or figuratively.

  “I choose you, Brigid.”

  “Me?” In the periphery of her vision, she sees that Brother Lergus is as astonished as she.

  “Yes, I choose you to fulfill my calling to minister to and convert the Gaels. Based on your triumph in bringing countless souls to our Lord in a few short years, I believe your achievements in converting Gaels will have no parallel. You, a Gael, will succeed where Roman priests and monks would perhaps fail.”

  “I am deeply honored, Bishop Patrick. Thank you.”

  “This selection is the Lord’s doing, Brigid. Reserve your prayers of gratitude for Him.” Patrick reaches a skeletal hand from beneath the heavy covers. “Come a bit closer to a dying man, my child. I wish to bless your mission.”

  Brigid draws as close to Patrick’s bed as decorum permits. She resists the urge to gag as she nears his sickly smell. She kneels, and he places his wasted hand upon her head.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I consecrate you Brigid, daughter of Dubtach and Broicsech, as bishop—”

  “Please stop, Bishop Patrick,” Brother Lergus cries out. “Your illness robs you of your senses. You are uttering the rite of consecration of a bishop, not the blessing for a nun.”

  With great unsteadiness, Patrick rises to his feet. For the first time since Brigid’s arrival, the anger and fire for which he is known blaze to the surface.

  “Brother Lergus, do not dare to challenge my words and actions. For in so doing, you contest the very Words and actions of our Lord. He means to make Brigid a bishop through my hands.”

  xviii

  GAEL

  A.D. 462

  BRIGID: A LIFE

  S
he stands on the plains of Cill Dara. One hand on her hip and one hand to her brow, to shield her eyes from the unseasonable brightness, Brigid surveys the vast, uninhabited expanse of lush grass and foliage. Her gaze settles on a craggy, ancient oak tree near a bluff.

  Its branches stretch like arms reaching for the sky. The oak seems to yearn, and reminds Brigid of the oak presiding over the cherished knoll near her family cashel. She smiles. Of all the lands she has appraised in recent days, this feels most like home. And the oak tree, forever sacred to the Gaels and the Druids, bodes well for the people’s adoption of the spot as hallowed.

  She calls for Cathan, her first follower and her most loyal. “Rejoice, Cathan. Our Lord has directed us to the lands that the late Bishop Patrick ordered us to settle.”

  “Truly, Brigid?” Cathan asks. Brigid insists that all her adherents address her informally and certainly not with her formal title of “Bishop.” She wants none of the hierarchy and differentiation of treatment rife in Roman institutions—including the Church—for her establishment.

  “Truly.” The women beam at each other in relief. They have spent many long months searching for the most suitable land on which to build the abbey commanded by Patrick. Converts of many southern and central provinces have offered Brigid pieces of their territories, but none called to her until now.

  “Race you to the others?” Brigid challenges Cathan, with a mischievous grin. She feels light and youthful again for the first time in many years. She longs to sprint across the fields—her fields.

  “It will be my great pleasure to beat the new abbess of Cill Dara on her own land,” Cathan retorts, her playful mood matching Brigid’s. The women hitch up the hems of their long robes, tucking them into their belts, and dash across the plains.

  Brigid delights in the design and construction of her abbey. During the years tramping across the Gaelic countryside, seeking souls to save, she had often dreamed of building a sanctuary where strangers would receive a Christian welcome, monks and priests and nuns could pray in solicitude, and scholars and artisans might celebrate the Words and beauty of His Kingdom. Her abbey will be that haven.

  Brigid garners stores of timber and stone from wealthy new Christians eager to pay their way to their new God’s heaven. She sets about assembling teams of laborers and craftsmen to assist her and her followers, who plan on working alongside them at every stage. She accumulates provisions to feed her crews through the easy months of spring and summer as well as the barren months of fall and winter. All this she accomplishes with surprising ease, as if the Lord Himself provides.

  Though she believes in the protective power of Jesus Christ, she is practical and understands the warlike nature of her countrymen and their thirst for plunder, and so she oversees the creation of a stone cashel around her planned abbey. Once her teams complete the fortifications to her satisfaction, she guides them through the building of her ideal structures. Around the cashel’s inner perimeter she places huts for the religious folk, so they may pray and rest in solitude. She arranges the communal buildings—the refectory, the storehouse, the abbess’s quarters, the guesthouses—closer to the busy center. And at the abbey’s heart, she positions her church—a soaring, light-infused edifice with room enough for religious and commoner—and her most treasured space, her scriptorium, where His Words will be studied, copied, and celebrated.

  Yet she forgets not her mother’s cautionary words to honor the people’s gods as she worships the Lord. She selects one of the people’s traditional means of venerating the goddess Brigid: the eternal fire. Constructing a stone firehouse near her church and scriptorium, but not close enough to endanger them, she vows that a fire will blaze in Brigid’s honor in perpetuity.

  Brigid allows herself and her women one week of rest and prayer upon the abbey’s completion. She spends this week alone in the scriptorium. Brigid crafted this space with the utmost care, drawing upon memories of pictures of the great ancient libraries she had studied from her mother’s tomes. Working closely with her master builder, she designed numerous, unusually sloped apertures to allow for maximum daylight while still safeguarding the interior from the elements. She ordered the construction of ingenious wooden cabinets and hanging leather shelves, in which she will store and protect the many sacred texts she hopes to collect. And, of course, she provided ample working tables, chairs, and bookstands for the scholars and scribes, along with braziers to warm their hands during the cold winter months. Sitting alone in the scriptorium’s waiting splendor, Brigid believes that, of all the work she has undertaken for His glory, this handiwork may be her finest. She thanks the Lord and prays that the scholars and scribes come.

  At the close of Sunday’s services, her time of reflection ends, and her real labors commence in earnest. Brigid begins by forging alliances with the neighboring chieftains. The strength of her father’s name and reputation carries her only so far—into their raths unharmed—and she knows she must convince the warriors of her merits and her peaceful motives. She enters their raths in her ethereal guise, much as she had throughout Gael’s countryside. Once within the guarded walls, she does not preach but speaks to the leaders of their shared heritage and training, of her disdain for Roman and barbarian rule, of her plan to leave the Gaelic gods alone if the people reject her Jesus Christ, and, above all, of their like desires to fashion a Gael that no outsider would dare try to conquer. Her plain speech expels from their minds any suspicions that she is Gael without but Roman within.

  Once Brigid secures the abbey’s safety—insofar as safety is possible in Gael’s shifting warrior culture—she turns her attentions to practical matters. She ensures adequate farmlands to supply the abbey’s daily needs. She trains small groups of nuns to take over her work of combing the countryside for poor to feed, bodies to heal, and souls to save, though always cautioning them to rein in any behavior that might anger the chieftains. She starts holding High Masses every day in her newly wrought church, and encourages all to attend, often with generous feasts at holiday time. And on every wall, every gate, indeed, every surface, she guides her artisans to sculpt swirling shapes, exotic creatures, intricate foliage, and the Words of the Lord; she wants her abbey to shimmer and dazzle in its dedication to Him.

  By day, Brigid is the essence of the fire and the cross, a living embodiment of the Gaelic goddess and the Christian God. She knows that she cannot waver in her conviction of these dual roles. Yet in the darkest hour of the night, she is only human, the Brigid of her birth. Alone, she kneels before her private altar, abject and afraid, praying that her work satisfies Him and her promise to her parents.

  xix

  DUBLIN, IRELAND

  PRESENT DAY

  Alex waited for her expert to arrive at the Shelbourne hotel. Like most appraisers, she had a go-to list of consultants when a piece strayed outside her area of expertise. Keepers from the National Museum of Ireland and professors from Trinity College Dublin appeared on that list, but she could never confer with them on her “borrowed” manuscript. Her situation required that she seek out an expert with his own shop who wouldn’t ask too many questions.

  Tourists and locals alike packed the deservedly famous Lord Mayor’s Lounge at midday. The sumptuous, confectioner’s-sugar setting—with its crystal chandeliers and rococo wall moldings mounted on damask—lured them as much as the lavish afternoon tea. Alex listened to the relaxed chatter of older ladies mixed with the clipped discourse of businesspeople, a mélange that spoke of attempts to maintain the economic luster of the fading Celtic Tiger more than anything, as she stared out the window at the daffodil-carpeted Saint Stephen’s Green for signs of her appointment.

  Her expert was notoriously late, so Alex had armed herself with reading materials to pass the time productively. She’d stopped at the nearby Trinity College Library Shop just before her meeting and picked up the key texts on seventh-and eighth-century illustrated manuscripts. Part of her had been tempted to peek at the famous Book of Kells or its lesser-known c
ounterparts, the Book of Armagh and the Book of Durrow, for a quick comparison with her manuscript. But she couldn’t risk running into one of the researchers or conservators she knew who worked in the Old Library, where the books were housed. She’d used them for expert advice in the past, and they’d want to know all about her latest assignment.

  She’d given up her watch and delved into the first scholarly text in the pile when she heard her name: “Alexandra Patterson, you’ve become a tourist at long last.”

  Alex stared up into the eyes of Declan Lamb, who was staring down at her tower of Trinity College books. “Good to see you too, Dec.”

  “Is this seat taken?”

  “By you. Although it’s been empty for”—she looked down at her watch in mock irritation, though, in truth, she’d expected a longer wait—“half an hour.”

  “Ah, Alex, you’ll never become accustomed to Irish time, will you?” he said with a winning smile that bore no hint of apology. Not that Alex expected one from the devil-may-care Declan, who proudly wore this distinctive Irish characteristic like a flag.

  “I do try,” she said with an equally wide smile.

  Declan settled into the deep upholstered chair next to hers. He sized her up without any pretense or subtlety. She’d purposely chosen an outfit that was professional rather than appealing, but it didn’t deter him. “You’re looking well, as always, Alex.”

  She returned the stare. “As are you, Dec.” Although she mirrored the slightly taunting tone that Declan nearly always used, she meant it. His black hair and blue eyes might have overpowered his natural fairness, but for the fact that his cheeks were eternally ruddy from countless afternoons on the rugby pitch. He wore a battered brown tweed blazer, decrepit jeans, and a rumpled blue-checked shirt, yet somehow he managed to do it as though with the help of Ralph Lauren stylists. He frustrated and charmed simultaneously—only his brilliance saved him.