seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Jesus


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St. Columba Encounters Monster in Loch Ness

columba-and-loch-ness-monster

St. Columba is said to have encountered the Loch Ness Monster on August 22, 565.

Columba is trained by Irish monks. However, his youthful Christianity is skin-deep while his passions are strong. He is partly responsible for the battle of Cul-drebene in which many men lose their lives. Repentant, he sails to Britain as “a pilgrim for Christ” and founds the monastery of Iona, from which Christianity spreads across North Britain. He himself travels and preaches, establishing several churches and monasteries.

Revered as a saint, his life is written by Adomnán. In reporting Columba’s life, Adomnán gives what appears to be the first written account of the Loch Ness Monster.

Traveling in Scotland, Columba has to cross the Loch Ness. On its banks, he sees some of the Picts burying a man who had been bitten by a water monster while swimming. The body had been pulled from the loch with the aid of a hook by rescuers who had come to his assistance in a boat.

Despite the danger, Columba orders one of his followers to swim across the loch and bring back a boat that is moored on the other side. This man’s name was Lugne Mocumin. Without hesitation, Lugne strips for the swim and plunges in.

The monster, robbed of its earlier feast, surfaces and darts at Lugne with a roar, its jaws open. Everyone on the bank is stupefied with terror, everyone except Columba, that is. A firm believer in the authority of the crucified Christ, he raises his hand, making the sign of the cross. Invoking the name of God, he commands the beast, saying, “You will go no further, and won’t touch the man; go back at once.”

At the voice of the saint, the monster flees as if terrified, “more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes,” says Adomnán. The heathens are amazed. Everyone who witnesses the sight gives glory to the God of the Christians.

The authenticity of this event remains in doubt. To begin with, Adomnán’s account is written over a hundred years after the alleged events. Furthermore, different versions of the story disagree with one another. One has Columba raising the monster’s first victim from the dead by laying his staff across his chest.

This is only one of many extraordinary events in Adomnán’s account. According to him, Columba drips with prophecies and predictions that come true. He makes water into wine like Jesus, draws water from a rock like Moses, calms a storm at sea, provides a miraculous draught of fishes, multiplies a herd of cattle, drives a demon out of a milk pail, and cures the sick. A book owned by Columba could not be destroyed by water. Through his prayers he kills a wild boar, stops serpents from harming the inhabitants of a certain island. Angels and manifestations of divine light attend him throughout his life. Adomnán’s account has so many incredible tales that it is unbelievable.

(From “Columba Encountered Loch Ness Monster” by Dan Graves, MSL published on Christianity.com)


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Death of Honora “Nano” Nagle, Sister John of God

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Honora “Nano” Nagle, Sister John of God and founder of the Sisters of the Presentation the Blessed Virgin Mary, dies of tuberculosis on April 26, 1784. Her recognition as one of the greatest women of Ireland derives from dedication to the poor and oppressed. Her mission between the cutting edge of the gospel and the miseries of her day inspires the Presentation Sisters to minister in joyful service, responding to current needs throughout the world in faithfulness to the gospel.

Born to a wealthy family in Ballygriffin, just north of Killavullen, County Cork in 1718, Nagle’s parents send her to France to be educated since strict penal laws bar Catholic children from attending school in Ireland. She returns to Ireland after her father’s death in 1746. Her mother dies soon afterwards. Prayer and reflection lead Nagle back to France to become a sister.

Even as she begins her new life as a sister, Nagle’s thoughts often return to the children of the poor families back in Ireland.

At age 32, Nagle leaves the convent in France and returns to Ireland, where she secretly gathers the children of the poor and teaches them catechism, reading, writing and mathematics. As she spends her days with the children, they tell her of their sick friends or family members. She begins to visit the sick and the elderly after school, bringing them food, medicine and comfort.

Nagle often makes visits late into the night, carrying her lamp among the alleyways. Before long, she becomes known as the Lady of the Lantern.

Nagle decides to open a convent where women can share the mission of Jesus through prayer, teaching and care for the sick and needy. She and three companions open the first Presentation Convent on Cove Lane (now Douglas Street) in Cork, County Cork on Christmas Day in 1775. There she receives the habit on June 29, 1776, taking the name of Mother Mary of St. John of God. The sisters make their first annual vows on June 24, 1777.

Honora “Nano” Nagle dies from tuberculosis at the age of 65 on April 26, 1784. She leaves her compelling vision of service to a growing community of Presentation Sisters. Her final words are emblematic of her timeless legacy, and they remain a guiding principle for the Sisters: “Love one another as you have hitherto done.”

Nagle is recognized as a woman of faith, hope and heroic virtue by the Roman Catholic Church and is declared Venerable on October 31, 2013, by Pope Francis. Once evidence of an authentic miracle is attributed to her intercession with God, she acquires the title Blessed. Another miracle initiates canonization and public recognition of Nagle as a Saint.


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The Ordination of Sinéad O’Connor

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Sinéad O’Connor, Irish singer-songwriter also known as Magda Davitt, is ordained as a priest in Lourdes on April 22, 1999, by Bishop Michael Cox of the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, an Independent Catholic group not in communion with the Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Church considers ordination of women to be invalid and asserts that a person attempting the sacrament of ordination upon a woman incurs excommunication. The bishop had contacted her to offer ordination following her appearance on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show, during which she tells the presenter, Gay Byrne, that had she not been a singer, she would have wished to have been a Catholic priest. After her ordination, she indicates that she wishes to be called Mother Bernadette Mary.

In a July 2007 interview with Christianity Today, O’Connor states that she considers herself a Christian and that she believes in core Christian concepts about the Trinity and Jesus Christ. She says, “I think God saves everybody whether they want to be saved or not. So, when we die, we’re all going home… I don’t think God judges anybody. He loves everybody equally.” In an October 2002 interview, she credits her Christian faith in giving her the strength to live through, and then overcome the effects of, her child abuse.

On March 26, 2010, O’Connor appears on CNN‘s Anderson Cooper 360° to speak out about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. Two days later she has an opinion piece published in the Sunday edition of The Washington Post in which she writes about the scandal and her time in a Magdalene asylum as a teenager. Writing for the Sunday Independent she labels the Vatican as “a nest of devils” and calls for the establishment of an “alternative church,” opining that “Christ is being murdered by liars” in the Vatican. Shortly after the election of Pope Francis she describes the office of the Pope as an “anti-Christian office.”

Asked whether from her point of view, it is therefore irrelevant who is elected to be Pope, O’Connor replies, “Genuinely I don’t mean disrespect to Catholic people because I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Holy Spirit, all of those, but I also believe in all of them, I don’t think it cares if you call it Fred or Daisy, you know? Religion is a smokescreen; it has everybody talking to the wall. There is a Holy Spirit who can’t intervene on our behalf unless we ask it. Religion has us talking to the wall. The Christ character tells us himself: you must only talk directly to the Father; you don’t need intermediaries. We all thought we did, and that’s OK, we’re not bad people, but let’s wake up… God was there before religion; it’s there [today] despite religion; it’ll be there when religion is gone.”


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Apparition at Church of Saint John the Baptist at Knock

knock-shrineOn the evening of Thursday, August 21, 1879, at about 8 o’clock, fifteen people, whose ages range from five to seventy-five and include men, women, teenagers, and children, witness what they state is an apparition of Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and Saint John the Evangelist at the south gable end of the local small parish church, the Church of Saint John the Baptist. Behind them and a little to the left of Saint John is a plain altar. On the altar is a cross and a lamb, a traditional image of Jesus as reflected in the religious phrase The Lamb of God, with adoring angels.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is described as being beautiful, standing a few feet above the ground. She wears a white cloak, hanging in full folds and fastened at the neck. Her crown appears of a golden brightness, of a deeper hue, than the striking whiteness of the robe she wears. The upper parts of the crown appear to be a series of sparkles, or glittering crosses. She is described as “deep in prayer,” with her eyes raised to heaven, her hands raised to the shoulders or a little higher, the palms inclined slightly to the shoulders.

Saint Joseph, also wearing white robes, stands on the Virgin’s right hand. His head is bent forward from the shoulders towards the Blessed Virgin. Saint John the Evangelist stands to the left of the Blessed Virgin. He is dressed in a long robe and wears a mitre. He is partly turned away from the other figures. He appears to be preaching and he holds open a large book in his left hand. To the left of St. John is an altar with a lamb on it. There is a cross standing on the altar behind the lamb.

Those who witness the apparition stand in the pouring rain for up to two hours reciting the Rosary, a series of traditional Catholic prayers. When the apparition begins there is good light, but although it then becomes very dark, witnesses can still see the figures very clearly – they appear to be the colour of a bright whitish light. The apparition does not flicker or move in any way. The witnesses report that the ground around the figures remains completely dry during the apparition although the wind is blowing from the south. Afterwards, however the ground at the gable becomes wet and the gable dark.

A number of cures and favours are associated with visitors to Our Lady of Knock’s Shrine and those who claim to have been cured here still leave crutches and sticks at the spot where the apparition is believed to have occurred.

Each Irish diocese makes an annual pilgrimage to the Marian Shrine and the nine-day Knock novena attracts ten thousand pilgrims every August.

While the original church still stands, a new Apparition chapel with statues of Our Lady, St. Joseph, the lamb, and St, John the Evangelist, has been built next to it. Knock Basilica is a separate building showing a tapestry of the apparition.