(ABOUT A.D. 540.)
[Irish Martyrologies. Authority:--A fragment of the Life by Augustine
MacCrodin, published by Colgan, written about 1390. The following
account of the home of S. Enda, and sketch of his life, is taken from
the Bishop of Ardagh's charming "Visit to Aran-more," Brown and Nolan,
Dublin, 1870.]
S. Enda, whose name in Irish is written Einne and Ende, and in
Latin, Endeus and Anna, was born in Louth about the middle of the
fifth century, and was the only son of Conall, king of Oriel, whose
territories included the modern counties of Louth, Monaghan, Armagh,
and Fermanagh. Three of his sisters, Fanchea, Lochinia, and Carecha,
were nuns, and Darenia, the fourth sister, was wife of Engus, king of
Cashel, whose death is placed by the Four Masters in the year 489.
On the death of his father, the youthful Enda was chosen to succeed
him as head of the men of Oriel. The warlike spirit of the times took
strong hold of the young prince's heart, and we find him at an early
period of his life captivated by the love of glory, and eager to show
by his military prowess that he was worthy of the royal race from which
he had sprung, and of the throne which he filled. His holy sister,
Fanchea, was incessant in her exertions to win for God her brother's
heart, which, with all its defects, she knew to be chivalrous and pure.
For a time her words of warning and entreaty remained without result;
but the season of grace came soon. Enda had asked from his sister in
marriage one of the royal maidens who were receiving their education in
the convent which she ruled. Fanchea communicated his request to the
maiden: "Make thou thy choice, whether wilt thou love Him whom I love,
or this earthly bridegroom?" "Whom thou lovest," was the girl's sweet
reply, "Him also will I love." She died soon after, and gave her soul
to God, the Spouse whom she had chosen.
"The holy virgin," says the ancient life, covered the face of the dead
girl with a veil, and going again to Enda, said to him: "Young man,
come and see the maiden whom thou lovest." Then Enda with the virgin
entered the chamber where was the dead girl, and the holy virgin
uncovering the face of the lifeless maiden, said to him: "Now look upon
the face of her whom thou didst love." And Enda cried out: "Alas! she
is fair no longer, but ghastly white." "So also shalt thy face be,"
replied the holy virgin. And then S. Fanchea discoursed to him of the
pains of hell, and of the joys of heaven, until the young man's tears
began to flow. O! the wondrous mercy of God in the conversion of this
man to the true faith! for even as He changed the haughty Saul into the
humble Paul, so out of this worldly prince did he make a spiritual and
a holy teacher and pastor of His people. For having heard the words
of the holy virgin, despising the vanities of the world, he took the
monk's habit and tonsure, and what the tonsure signified, he fulfilled
by his actions.
After having founded a monastery in his native place, S. Enda is said
to have proceeded to Rosnat or Abba, in Britain, where he remained for
some time under the spiritual direction of S. Mansenus or Manchan.
Thence, according to the above-mentioned life, he went to Rome, where
"attentively studying the examples of the saints, and preparing
himself in everything for the order of priesthood, having at length
been ordained priest, he was pleasing to the most high God." He built
a monastery called _Lætinum_ or _the Place of Joy_; and rightly so
called, adds the life, "because therein the command of loving God and
our neighbour was most faithfully carried out."
Returning to Ireland, he landed at Drogheda, and built several churches
on either side of the river Boyne. He then proceeded southwards to
visit his brother-in-law, Engus, king of Munster, from whom he asked
the island of Aran, that he might dwell thereon. The king was first
unwilling to comply with his request; not because he was ungenerous,
but because he had learned from S. Patrick "not to offer to the Lord
his God any lands save such as were good and fertile, and easy of
access." But S. Enda declared that Aran was to be the place of his
resurrection; and at length the king made an offering of the island
"to God and to S. Enda," asking in return the blessing of the saint.
Having thus obtained possession of what he rightly deemed a place of
singular retirement, and well suited for the rigours of a penitential
life, S. Enda returned to his brethren, and conducted them in safety to
the island, which was then inhabited by Pagans from the adjacent coast
of Clare. He divided the island into ten parts, and built thereon ten
monasteries, each under the rule of its proper superior. He chose a
place for his own residence on the eastern coast, and there erected a
monastery, the name and site of which is preserved to this day in the
little village of Kil-eany (Kill-Enda), about a mile from Kilronan. One
half of the island was assigned to this monastery.
Then began the blessed days, when the sweet odour of penance ascended
to heaven from the angelic band of monks, who, under the severe rule of
S. Enda, made Aran a burning light of sanctity for centuries in Western
Europe. "The virginal saint from Aran Island," as Marianus O'Gorman
styles S. Enda, was to them a model of all the virtues of the religious
life, but, above all, he excelled in the exercise of penitential
mortifications. S. Cuimin of Connor tells us that:--
Enda loved glorious mortification
In Aran--triumphant virtue!
A narrow dungeon of flinty stone,
To bring the people to heaven.
"Aran," says Froude,[76] "is no better than a wild rock. It is strewed
over with the ruins, which may still be seen, of the old hermitages;
and at their best they could have been but such places as sheep would
huddle under in a storm, and shiver in the cold and wet which would
pierce through the chinks of the walls.... Yes; there on that wet
soil, with that dripping roof above them, was the chosen home of these
poor men. Through winter frost, through rain and storm, through summer
sunshine, generation after generation of them, there they lived and
prayed, and at last lay down and died."
[76] Short Studies, vol. 2, page 216.
These miracles of penance were the first and immediate results of S.
Enda's work in Aran.
It was in his life that these holy men had daily before them the
personal realization of all they were striving after; he taught them to
cherish the flinty dungeon and the dripping cave for love of the hard
manger and the harder cross; he bade them dwell amid the discomforts
and dreariness of their island home, because in the tabernacles of
sinners the blessed majesty of God was daily outraged by the crimes
of men. We cannot, indeed, describe the details of his life, for they
have been hidden from human view, as it is becoming that such secrets
of the Heavenly King should be hidden. But there yet survives the voice
of one of those who lived with him in Aran, and in the ideal of an
abbot which S. Carthage sets before us, we undoubtedly find re-produced
the traits which distinguished the abbot of Aran-more, from whom S.
Carthage first learned to serve God in the religious life. S. Enda was
his first model of the "patience, humility, prayer, fast, and cheerful
abstinence; of the steadiness, modesty, calmness that are due from a
leader of religious men, whose office it is to teach in all truth,
unity, forgiveness, purity, rectitude in all that is moral; whose chief
works are the constant preaching of the Gospel for the instruction of
all persons, and the sacrifice of the Body of the great Lord upon the
holy altar."[77]
[77] "Rule of S. Carthage," _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. 1, p.
117.
The fame of S. Enda's austere holiness, and of the angelical life
which so many were leading in Aran under his guidance, soon spread
far and wide throughout the land. Soon, the Galway fishermen, whom
S. Enda had blessed, found day after day their _corachs_ crowded with
strangers--religious men, of meek eye and gentle face--seeking to
cross over to the island. And thus Aran gradually came to be, as the
writer of the life of S. Kieran of Clonmacnoise describes it, the home
of a multitude of holy men, and the sanctuary where repose the relics
of countless saints, whose names are known only to the Almighty God.
"Great indeed is that island," exclaims another ancient writer, "and it
is the land of the saints, for no one, save God alone, knows how many
holy men lie buried therein."[78]
[78] "Magna est illa insula, et est terra sanctorum; quia nemo scit
numerum sanctorum qui sepulti sunt ibi, nisi solus Deus." Vita S.
Albei. Colgan, Acta SS.
But, although it is not possible to learn the names of all the saints
who were formed to holiness by S. Enda in Aran, the ancient records
have preserved the names of a few at least out of that blessed
multitude. The history of these men is the history of S. Enda's work
on Aran. First among S. Enda's disciples must be ranked S. Kieran, the
founder of Clonmacnoise, who came to Aran in his youth, and for seven
years lived faithfully in the service of God, under the direction of S.
Enda. "During these seven years," says the ancient life of our saint,
"Kieran so diligently discharged the duties of grinding the corn, that
grain in quantity sufficient to make a heap never was found in the
granary of the island." Upon these humble labours the light of the
future greatness of the founder of Clonmacnoise was allowed to shine
in visions calling him elsewhere, but he could not bring himself to
sever the happy ties that bound him to his abbot. He still longed to be
under his guidance, and when recommending himself to the prayers of his
brethren, he said to S. Enda, in the presence of all, "O father, take
me and my charge under thy protection, that all my disciples may be
thine likewise." "Not so," answered Enda, "for it is not the will of
God that you should all live under my care in this scanty island." And
when they had thus spoken, a cross was set up in the place, in sign of
the brotherhood they had contracted between themselves, and those who
were to come after them; and they said: "whosoever in after times shall
break the loving bond of this our brotherhood, shall not have share in
our love on earth, nor in our company in heaven."
The love which S. Enda bore towards his holy pupil, for his many and
wonderful virtues, made their parting singularly painful to them both.
For a time the holy abbot felt as if the angels of God were leaving
Aran with Kieran, and he could find no relief for his anguish but in
prayer. The sternness of religious discipline had not crushed but
chastened the tenderness of an affectionate disposition in S. Enda. The
entire community of the island shared the sorrow that had come on their
venerable abbot. When the moment of departure was at hand, and the boat
that was to bear him from Aran was spreading its sails to the breeze,
Kieran came slowly down to the shore, walking between S. Enda and S.
Finnian, and followed by the entire brotherhood. His tears flowed fast
as he moved along, and those who accompanied him mingled their tears
with his. Peter de Blois, when leaving the abbey of Croyland to return
to his own country, stayed his steps seven times to look back and
contemplate once again the place where he had been so happy; so, too,
did Kieran's gaze linger with tenderness upon the dark hills of Aran
and on the oratories where he had learned to love God, and to feel how
good and joyous a thing it is to dwell with brethren whose hearts are
at one with each other in God. And when the shore was reached, again he
knelt to ask his father's blessing, and, entering the boat, was carried
away from the Aran that he was never to see again. The monastic group
stayed for a while on the rocks to follow with longing eyes the bark
that was bearing from them him they loved; and when at length, bending
their steps homewards, they had gone some distance from the shore, S.
Enda's tears once more began to flow. "O my brethren," cried he, "good
reason have I to weep, for this day has our island lost the flower and
strength of religious observance." What was loss to Aran, however, was
gain to Clonmacnoise, and through Clonmacnoise to the entire Irish
Church.
Next among the saints of Aran comes S. Brendan. S. Finnian of Moville
(March 18th) is also mentioned in the ancient life of our saint as one
of S. Enda's disciples at Aran. The Irish life of S. Columbkille makes
mention of the sojourn of that great saint on Aran. The deep love of S.
Columba for Aran, the sorrow with which he quitted its shores for Iona,
are expressed in a poem, written by him on his departure.
Aran, the Rome of the pilgrims.
Aran thou sun--O! Aran thou sun!
My affection lies with thee westward;
Alike to be under her pure earth interred,
As under the earth of Peter and Paul.
The ancient life of S. Enda also reckons among the inhabitants of Aran
S. Finnian the elder, the founder of the great school of Clonard; S.
Jarlath, the founder of the see of Tuam; S. Mac Creiche, of the race of
the men of Corcomroe, who were in possession of Aran when S. Enda first
went thither. The Martyrology of Donegal makes mention of S. Guigneus;
the Martyrology of Ængus adds S. Papeus, S. Kevin of Glendaloch, S.
Carthage of Lismore, S. Lonan Kerr, S. Nechanus, and S. Libeus, brother
of S. Enda. In the midst of this holy brotherhood S. Enda died in 540
or 542.
The sight of Aran peopled by this host of saints forcibly recalls to
mind that other island, where, in an age of wild and fierce passions,
the arts of peace, religious learning, and the highest Christian
virtues, found a sanctuary. At the beginning of the sixth century, Aran
may, with truth, be styled the Lerins of the Northern seas. True, its
bare flags and cold grey landscape contrast sadly with "the gushing
streams, the green meadows, the luxuriant wealth of vines, the fair
valleys, and the fragrant scents which," according to S. Eucherius,
"made Lerins the paradise of those who dwelt thereon."[79] However,
its very wildness did but make it richer in those attractions so well
described by S. Ambrose, which made the outlying islands so dear to
the religious men of that time.[80] They loved those islands, "which,
as a necklace of perils, God has set upon the bosom of the sea, and in
which those who would fly from the irregular pleasures of the world,
may find a refuge wherein to practise austerity and save themselves
from the snares of this life. In it these faithful and pious men find
incentives to devotion. The mysterious sound of the billows calls for
the answering sound of sacred psalmody; and the peaceful voices of holy
men, mingled with the gentle murmur of the waves breaking softly on the
shore rise in unison to the heavens."
[79] S. Eucherius De laude Eremi, 442.
[80] _Hexaemeron_, lib. 3, c. 5.
On a summer's day in the year 1870, says the Bishop of Ardagh, we
set sail to visit the remote Aran, which the virtues of S. Enda had
changed from a Pagan isle into Aran of the Saints. And as the faint
breeze bore us slowly over the waters that lay almost motionless in
the summer calm, we gazed with admiration upon a scene which was but
little changed since S. Enda and his pilgrim band had first looked
upon it. Before us there lay stretched out the same expanse of sea,
fringed on one side by the dark plains of Iar-Connaught, along which
the eye travelled from the white cliffs of Barna to where the Connemara
mountains, in soft blue masses, stood out in fantastic clusters against
the sky. On the other side ran the Clare coastline, now retreating
before the deep sea-inlets, and now breasting the Atlantic with bold
promontories like that of gloomy Black-Head, or with gigantic cliffs
like those of Mohir. And as the day closed, and we watched the evening
breeze steal out from land, crisping the water into wavelets that
rippled against the vessel's side; and as we saw the golden glory of
the sunset flush with indescribable loveliness, earth, and sea, and
sky, we thought how often in bygone days, the view of Aran rising, as
we then saw it, out of the sunlit waves, had brought joy to the pilgrim
who was journeying to find rest upon its rocky shore.
The Aran isles are three in number, named respectively, Inishmore (the
large island), Inishmain (the middle island), and Inisheen (the eastern
island). The eastern island is the smallest of the three, and is about
two-and-a-half miles long; the middle island is three miles long; the
largest is about nine miles in length, and twenty-four in circumference.
Our chief interest was naturally centred in the group of buildings
which exist at Killeany, and consist of the church of S. Benignus, the
church of S. Enda, the round tower of S. Enda, and the stone houses
in its immediate vicinity. Our readers will have remarked that the
first six churches named in Dr. Keely's list, all stood near each
other, and to the north of the present village of Killeany. Out of six
churches which existed here as late as 1645, four have almost entirely
disappeared. They were demolished by unholy hands for the sake of
materials to build the castle of Arkin.
The church known as Teglach Enda, wherein S. Enda was laid, still
exists on the shore; it is in good preservation, and is a fine specimen
of the single church without chancel. It is twenty-four feet in length
and fourteen in breadth. All the walls now standing are by no means of
an equal antiquity. The eastern gable and part of the northern side
wall are the only parts belonging to S. Enda's time, the remainder
of the building being the work of a later period. Around the church
spreads the cemetery, now almost completely covered up by the sands,
in which the body of S. Enda, and those of one hundred and fifty other
saints, are interred.
On the hill side, are S. Enda's well, and altar; the latter surmounted
by a rude cross. S. Enda's well, and indeed all the other wells we saw
in the island, are carefully protected by the Araners; the scarcity of
water rendering the possession of a well almost as precious to them
as it was to the Eastern shepherds in the days of Rebecca. At a short
distance to the left of the well, stands the remnant of the round tower
of S. Enda. Once its height was worthy of the cluster of sacred temples
which stood within the circle traversed by the shadow it projected in
the changing hours; but now it is little more than thirteen feet high.
An aged man who joined our group, told us that in S. Enda's time the
mass was not commenced in any of the churches of the island, until the
bell from S. Enda's tower announced that S. Enda himself had taken his
place at the altar in his own church.
With the permission of the excellent priest who has charge of the
island, we resolved, on the last morning of our stay on Aran, to
celebrate mass in the ruined church of Teglach-Enda, where in the year
540 or 542, S. Enda was interred. The morning was bright and clear, and
the rigid outlines of the rocks were softened by the touch of the early
sunshine. The inhabitants of Killeany, exulting in the tidings that
the Holy Sacrifice was once again to be offered to God near the shrine
of their sainted patron, accompanied or followed us to the venerable
ruins. The men, young and old, were clothed in decent black, or in
white garments of home-made stuff, with sandals of undressed leather,
like those of the peasants of the Abruzzi, laced round their feet; the
women were attired in gay scarlet gowns and blue bodices, and all wore
a look of remarkable neatness and comfort. The small roofless church
was soon filled to overflowing with a decorous and devout congregation.
We can never forget the scene of that morning: the pure bright sand,
covering the graves of unknown and unnumbered saints as with a robe of
silver tissue; the delicate green foliage of the wild plants; on one
side, the swelling hill crowned with the church of S. Benignus, and
on the other the blue sea, that almost bathed the foundations of the
venerable sanctuary itself; the soft balmy air that hardly stirred the
ferns on the old walls; and the fresh, happy, solemn calm that reigned
over all.
The temporary altar was set up under the east window, on the site
where of old the altar stood; and there, in the midst of the loving
and simple faithful, within the walls which had been consecrated some
twelve hundred years before, over the very spot of earth where so many
of the saints of Ireland lay awaiting their resurrection to glory, the
solemn rite of the Christian Sacrifice was performed, and once more, as
in the days of which S. Columba wrote, the angels of God came down to
worship the Divine Victim in the Churches of Aran.