Brigid prevailed powerfully with the heathen because she was as human as the heathen. That is to say, she never ignored those roots of our being that are common to all humanity.

One of the secrets of Patrick’s outstanding success as a missionary was his masterly solution of that evangelizing difficulty called the “adaptation” problem. Like St. Paul, he became “all things to all men for the sake of Christ.” Everything in the native culture that could lawfully be preserved, he preserved. And imperceptibly, without friction, he grafted it onto the Christian culture, without loss to his converts, without any painful or violent breach in their traditions. Towards everything in native art and institutions that did not conflict with Christianity, he showed himself most sympathetic.

In this attitude and method, Brigid devotedly followed his example. A great light is thrown on her ways in that dialogue with Ailill, son of Dunlaing and King of Leinster. The story goes that she had gone to Ailill at her father’s request, to obtain from the king permission for Dubthach to keep a certain sword which he held on loan.

This being the sole occasion when Dubthach reappears in Brigid’s religious life, a brief digression may be pardoned here. The father’s reappearance has a very special interest. It indicates first that friendly relations were maintained to the end between father and daughter, for Brigid here obeyed him, and in fact secured what he wanted. The incident enhances the probability of Dubthach’s conversion. But it opens up yet another and more important avenue of likelihood. Brigid’s influence on her contemporaries and on her century was enormous. A large part of this was due to her unique strength of character and organizing genius. But how much of it was due also to her father’s support? A great deal, we surmise. He was one of the petty princes of Leinster, with wealth and arms at his command. It is quite evident from Brigid’s authority and security that she was given full recognition by her kinsfolk, and this is difficult to understand, remembering that she was the daughter of a slave. It cannot be explained even on Christian grounds. But Dubthach’s support, if accorded freely, perseveringly, and even aggressively, would explain it perfectly. The point I am trying to make is this: socially Brigid acted as though she had the status of a Leinster princess. Now, with the best will in the world, the Church could not have conferred this status on her, such was the force of custom in these matters among the Celtic Irish. It is even dubious whether Brigid could have acquired such a position through her own worth. But Dubthach could have secured it for her, and he probably did.

To return to Ailill. The persons in his household likely to be most interested in Brigid’s presence at the dun were the bond-slaves, for the Abbess’s compassion on their lot was common knowledge. While she waited for the master, one of the slaves—a man—saw an opportunity to approach her. He implored her to procure his manumission, probably revealing to her all his pitiful experience. Brigid promised. She had then two requests to make of Ailill: her father’s and the slave’s. When at last the warrior saw her, he was disposed to bargain. He asked her, “Why should I give you all that?”

Although we know that Dunlaing was a Christian, it does not appear likely that his son, Ailill, had been at this period baptized. Anyhow Brigid readily promised him that her friendship would secure for him: excellent children, kingship for his sons, and ultimately the Kingdom of Heaven for himself.

But Ailill seemed little attracted by these promises. I like the candour of the old heathen’s reply:

The Kingdom of Heaven, as I see it not, and as no one knows what thing it is, I ask it not. Kingship for my sons, moreover, I ask not, for I myself am still alive and let each one serve his time. But give me rather length of life in my realm and victory over the Ui Neill in battle.

Here one would imagine this should be the signal for Brigid to begin a sermon on the truths of eternal life; or a rebuttal of all the pagan philosophy implied in the ruler’s cynical answer. But prudence forbade antagonizing him at that juncture. Another soul was in jeopardy, the slave’s, who had vowed to enter Brigid’s service if she procured his release. How Brigid’s gifts of brevity and wisdom shine in her answer: “It shall be given.”

Another story emphasizes Brigid’s adaptability and practical common sense. One day in Lent, because of the previous harvest having failed, her community found themselves on the brink of starvation. Being forced to make some provision, Brigid set out with two of the sisters to visit a neighbouring monastery, then in charge of Ibar, and beg from him the loan of a supply of corn. The distance between the two churches was great and the nuns arrived exhausted and famished at the monastery. Famine was prevalent in the district. A meal—all that was available, bread and bacon—was set before the guests, and Brigid thankfully began on it. Presently she noticed that her two nun-companions were pointedly refraining from the bacon. There was a sniff in their attitude, implying, “Well, we’re going to keep Lent, anyhow, whatever you do.”

Not to avail of dispensation accorded under circumstances of such stress was really more than Brigid could stand. Rebuking the nuns sharply and with vehemence, she even turned them out of the room! In all the mass of legendary stories and traditions concerning Brigid, this is the sole instance recorded where she displayed anger. What provoked it is worth remembering: pharisaical formalism masquerading as piety.

One of the most distinctive traits of Brigid’s character was her large and genial sympathy with average human nature. She not only felt for the ordinary ruck of men; she felt with them. She identified herself with them. Only an awkward word describes this characteristic, humanness. It was as far removed from frigid philanthropy as her burning charity was remote from the watery benevolence that is its modern official substitute.

There are innumerable stories in the “Lives” illustrating her human sympathy. The difficulties of labouring men touched her particularly and she never failed to respond to their appeal. On one occasion some workmen were cutting down a huge tree in the woods near Kildare. The timber was needed for some extension of the convent building. The men toiled for several hours to fell the tree, but when at last the giant toppled over, it came to rest in an awkward position from which their best efforts could not dislodge it. They brought oxen and ropes to the spot, as well as more men, but all their united efforts could not budge the tree. Finally they appealed to Brigid, and immediately the tree became movable.

Brigid’s human sympathy is seen even in the very employments of her choice in that period of her life when she was free to choose. She knew the labour of milking cows in the early morning and at evening. She was familiar with the backache caused by the churn and with the perspiring heat of much breadmaking. She drove sheep along the road. She helped in the fields with the harvest. Her particular brand of home-brewed ale appears to have been famous. This means that she did not disdain to stoop for hours over malt-vats and tubs of mash. One of the feats recorded of her is that she supplied the seventeen churches in Meath with sufficient ale to last their little communities from Holy Thursday to Low Sunday.

It is worth remarking how all the saints appear to have applied themselves to menial work of the lowliest and most monotonous description. And the more exalted their natures became, the more they were favoured with inner light, then the more assiduously did they abase themselves in such toil. It was as though they were bent on establishing some secret and delicate equipoise, intuitively understood but not demonstrable. Mysticism appears to be fostered rather than disturbed by lowly offices. As well as teaching the dignity of manual labour, Brigid knew its use as a strong defence against accidia (of which the modern translation is “the dumps”).

If a large part of Brigid’s work was of the ordinary description, the alleviations she sought were ordinary too. Most interesting, because so unexpectedly illuminative of the period, is the frequent mention in the “Lives” of baths and bathing. She did not always cure leprosy through her miraculous gifts. She did this only under great compulsion, or out of compassion. She appears to have preferred assuaging the disease through human means, available to everyone, and in this curative treatment ordinary washing figured largely. Many lepers, on going to Brigid, were disappointed when, expecting a miracle, they were faced with a bath.

Brigid favoured all the rigorous ascetic practices of the Celtic saints, among them cold-water immersion in the winter. There is a story told how on one particularly bitter night of winter, she and a young companion immersed themselves in a pond. She thought this form of penance very beneficial and enthusiastically decided to practise it every night. The following night, when the two nuns went to the pond, they found it dried up. The water welled up again the next morning, but the following night the pond was dry again. When the same phenomenon happened several nights in succession, Brigid understood that God did not wish her to practise this penance. She resigned herself to continue her spiritual formation without its help.

Unlike the majority of later saints, Brigid’s mode of life presents little requiring explanation, or even distasteful to ordinary men. It is not the hagiographer’s function to institute between the saints odious comparisons. Therefore I draw no conclusions from the difference. I merely state it by way of emphasizing Brigid’s humanness. What is not found in her life is in its way nearly as remarkable as what is found there. One reads no instance of levitation, no ecstatic seizures, nothing far-fetched or startling in the way of revelation or prophecy, no marked eccentricities. We know solely from Brigid’s achievements that she is to be isolated from her people and century; that she stands a solitary, arresting figure, unrelated to any cause, inexplicable. But she never expressed any self-consciousness of her singularity. Apart from her foundations, her miracles and organizing triumphs, she behaved like any nun of the fifth and sixth centuries, and even laboured away like any woman of her epoch.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I say Brigid prevailed powerfully with the heathen because she was as human as the heathen. That is to say, she never ignored those roots of our being that are common to all humanity. Before her splendour dawned in the morning of Celtic Christianity, the name Brigid was familiar to her people as that of a Druidical divinity, or mythical fire-goddess. A small section of the Brigidine literature is devoted to examining the affinity between the pagan and the Christian Brigid. A few fearfully dull books have even essayed to prove that there never was a real St. Brigid; that she was in fact merely a “survival” of the pagan deity. No one would waste time refuting this assertion, because it is not taken seriously. But the very character of so many of the Brigidine miracles, trivial sometimes to the point of puerility, should have warned the higher critics of their reality.

It is easy to point to the affinity between certain of the heathen legends and episodes in the life of Brigid, but that affinity does not alone suffice to destroy Brigid’s historical truth. As a matter of fact the vitality of the Christian saint annihilates the dim concept of the pagan divinity. The abstraction fades before the brightness of the concrete. The warm humanity of Brigid that shines through the gossiping legends, that flaming humanity, alternately vehement, angry, tolerant, benign, completes before the eye of the mind a living personality that is the direct antithesis of the druids’ cold and unconsoling myth.

This essay is taken from from Saint Brigid of Ireland.

Republished with gracious permission from Cluny Media.

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The featured image is “Saint Brigid” (before 1930) by Patrick Joseph Tuohy, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.