The month of September that we have just begun invites us to revisit our Christian and monastic identity lived here in Ireland. On the 3rd day of this month we shall contemplate the figure of Saint Gregory the Great, monk and pope, who had an indisputable impact both upon the development the Benedictine life throughout centuries, and the shaping of Christianity in the Early Middle Ages in Ireland.
Gregory left a secular career and became a monk, and for the purpose of his spiritual life transformed his family property on Rome’s Caelian Hill into a monastery during the 6th century. Although he was later summoned to more active roles in the Church, his love for the monastic spirituality remained. It is to Gregory that the famous Life of St Benedict is traditionally ascribed.
His teaching, especially the Moralia on Job and the Pastoral Rule, quickly spread through the Continent. He soon became a leading authority for the Christians in Britain and Ireland.
The finest example of his influence in Ireland of that time is arguably the so-called Cambrai Homily. Written around 700, it is the oldest preserved homily in Early Christian Ireland and draws heavily upon Gregory’s Homilies on the Gospels. It surprises its reader with its bilingual form, as it uses both Latin and Old-Irish. Above all, it calls readers to revisit their own spiritual attitude towards the fundamental Christian calling.
May the excerpt from the English translation of it serve as a source for our reflection in these early days of September, so that we may celebrate the upcoming Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in a new, and personally more meaningful, way.
Jarek Kurek OSB
““If anyone wishes to come after me, let them renounce themselves, pick up their cross and follow me.”
This is the word that our Lord Jesus Christ says to every member of our race, that we should banish from ourselves our vices and sins, and that we should develop virtues and receive stigmata and signs of the Cross for Christ’s sake, for as long as we are in harmony of body and soul, and that we should follow our Lord in good thoughts.
There he says: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let them renounce themselves, pick up their cross and follow me.”
To deny ourselves means not giving in to our desires and turning our back on our sins.
To take our cross upon ourselves means to accept loss and martyrdom and to suffer for Christ’s sake, as has been said: The name of the cross comes from the word for torture, and we bear the Cross of the Lord in two ways, either when we afflict abstinence upon the body or when we believe through compassion that the need of our neighbour is our own need.
Whoever suffers through the suffering of others carries the cross in their minds, as St Paul says: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the role of Christ.” And as the Apostle says: “Weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice.” And “If one member suffers, all suffer together.”
For this is its use, if there should be any sickness in someone’s body, an inflammation somewhere, on the foot, hand, or fingers, then the sickness inflames the whole body. Thus it is appropriate for us ourselves that every sickness or disease that afflicts our neighbours should inflame every part, for we are all members of God, as the Apostle says: “Who is offended and I do not blush? Who sickens and I do not grow sick?”
The holy Apostle has said this from his great love; everyone’s sickness was his own, everyone’s offence was his own, everyone’s weakness was his own. In the same way it is right for each one of us to share in the suffering of all, in hardship, poverty, or weakness.
In these wise words of the wise man we see that the fellow-suffering is a kind of cross.”
- “The Cambrai Homily” in Oliver Davies, trans., and Thomas O’Loughlin, ed. Celtic Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1999), 369-370.