Fr. Luke MacNamara. Today we commemorate St Brigid, one of Ireland’s three principal patrons. Here in Munster, our St Ita, is often called the Brigid of Munster, which is an invitation to compare these two women.
Brigid came from Faughan in Louth and founded a monastery, at Kildare. Ita came from Waterford and founded her monastery at Killeedy. When the King of Leinster refused to give Brigid land for her monastery, she asked for as much as her cloak would cover, and the king agreed. When Brigid lay down the cloak 4 sisters each took a corner and ran, with the cloak extending in every direction to cover all of Leinster. The king then agreed to give her the best land in Kildare. Somewhat differently, the King of Munster offered Ita all the best land in Limerick but she would only accept four acres by a small river at Kileedy.
The prayer of both Brigid and Ita was profoundly Trinitarian. They repeatedly invoked the Trinity in their daily prayers and especially when difficult situations arose. The prayer of St Paul in the letter to the Ephesians, they would have made their own:
“This is what I pray, kneeling before the Father: May the Father give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, until, knowing the love of Christ, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.”
The life of both women is drawn into the mutual love of the Trinity. The knowledge and daily experience of God’s love is the bedrock of their vocation. Strengthened by that love they become like Christ, and devote their whole lives in prayer to the Father and service to many. Their biographies contain tales of mysterious fires which attest to the presence of the Spirit in their monastic life and service.
Both exhibited the generous and selfless love of which Jesus speaks in the sermon on the plain. They showed greatest generosity to those unable to repay them, the destitute, the poor and those on the margins of Gaelic society. Brigid gave away her mother’s butter, her family’s property, her father’s sword and Ita’s monastery fed the neighbouring people in times of famine.
Both embodied the compassion of the heavenly Father. Both had sisters who failed in their vows of chastity and yet they pardoned and readmitted them even at the risk of scandal. They both embodied the command of Jesus, “Be merciful as the Father is merciful”.
Much is made today of the prominence of Brigid, her authority as Abbess, the reach of her influence. What is most remembered in the lives of both Brigid and Ita is how, at personal risk and cost, they fearlessly exercised the Lord’s commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you”. Power and influence decline and fall. True selfless love endures forever. These two women, one who we commemorate today and Ita who we commemorated only 2 weeks ago, are models of this selfless and fearless love that knows no cost and that is nourished through a life of Trinitarian prayer. This is their truest and enduring legacy to us. May these brave mothers of the Gael inspire us to love and to pray, and may they also intercede and watch over us and all the new Irish who come to live among us.