The statue of St Columban outside the Mission office in Lower Hutt
As we move closer to the feast day of St. Columban on November 23, I set out to expand what I know about the saint chosen as the patron of our missionary society. A key resource in my search was a BBC documentary made in 2015 featuring former President of Ireland Mary McAleese. She travelled Europe exploring the life and legacy of Columban. The program was titled ’The Man who Saved Europe”. I also looked at various articles that were written about his life and influence.
5 things I noted
- One writer described Columban as “a saint capable of straddling unlikely boundaries”. Columban was perhaps the first to identify himself as both Irish and European. The blurb about the documentary by Mary McAleese from Clean Slate TV states that “Columban believed that if people could respect the diversity in their midst, they could create a unity that would benefit all”. One of his best-known statements is that “a life unlike your own can be your teacher”. Yet it was the openness of the people he encountered in Europe to the radical ideas of this stranger from a marginal land that was to create a beacon of light and learning in a dark age. Columban is known and revered in several European countries but is little known in the country of his birth. In his communications with Rome Columban argues for tolerating diverse practices in the church. In his letters to bishops, he asks them to tolerate different views. He calls on them to focus on what they had in common rather than on what divided them.
- He established his monasteries away from the main centres in the rural periphery. They were often located at points where various roads come together, or where there was a healing spring, or which previously was a pagan holy place. Again, there is a glimpse here of Columban situating his monasteries to straddle unlikely boundaries. One article suggested that while his parents may have been Christian it is possible that his grandparent were not. Columban would have had some experience of their religious practices and learned from them.
- The Clean Slate blurb described Columban as “a difficult and controversial figure”. He himself crossed many boundaries both literally and figuratively. Others he straddles holding differences in a creative tension. But he believed that certain boundaries were not to be crossed. He was unwilling to compromise on serious matters of morality, yet he was the one who promoted frequent confession at a time when most people would confess just once in their lifetime. He was not afraid to take on kings, bishops and even popes. He was banished from France for his rebuke of the morals of the royal family. He was critical of the lack of real leadership in the church and the wealth of some of the bishops and said so in a very forthright manner.
- His love of nature is said to have inspired St. Francis of Assisi. One report suggested that Francis lived for a while in the monastery at Bobbio, but I am not sure if that is true. Certainly, both shared a deep regard and respect for the natural world. Statues of Columban, like the one here in Lower Hutt, depict him with a dove on his shoulder. He believed that nature was a second revelation to be read alongside scripture and he would make retreats into nature on a regular basis, including to a cave in Bobbio. Given that we face an ecological crisis because of climate change we could embrace Columban’s notion that we are perpetual pilgrims who are “guests of the world”.
- A meeting in 1950 at Luxeuil, where Columban established his second monastery, explored French Foreign Minister, Robert Schumen’s vision of European cooperation after the devastation caused by WWII. He imagined nations working together but in a way that would safeguard the diversity and aspirations of each. Included among those present were John A Costello (Taoiseach) and Sean McBride from the Irish government as well as Monsignor Roncalli, the Papal Nuncio to France who would later become Pope John XXIII. The seeds of what was to become the European Union were planted at this gathering. In this project Schuman appealed to the unlikely figure of Columbanus whom he believed “willed and achieved a fresh unity between the main European countries of his day”.
On the 1400th anniversary of his death there was another gathering at Luxeuil in 2015 to celebrate Columban. While this was a primarily a religious pilgrimage it also had political implications. As it was after WWII, European unity was again under pressure especially from the migration crisis. An appeal was again being made to the legacy of Columban who had saved Europe once before. Now his message of unity, diversity and respect needed to be embraced once more.
Note: Mary McAleese had a relative, Fr. John Joe McGreevy, who was a Columban. I remember her coming to his funeral in Dalgan in 1999. She also met the delegates to the Columban General Assembly held in Ireland in 2006.
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