Many of you will know the American theologist Edward C. Sellner through his books on Celtic saints ( eg Wisdom of the Celtic Saints) and on the anam cara (Celtic Soul Friend). Here is a paper by him that you may find of interest: “Brigit of Kildare, Golden Sparkling Flame: A Study in the Liminality of Women's Spiritual Power”.
Posted on Ohio State University's Monastic Matrix (a scholarly resource for the study of women's religious communities from 400 to 1600 CE), it was first published in Vox Benedictina: A Journal of Translations from Monastic Sources 8/2 (1991): 265-296.
An excerpt:
"Sometime in the 1180’s, the mediæval
churchman, pilgrim, and story–teller Gerald of Wales visited
Kildare in Ireland, made famous, he says, by the “glorious Brigid.”
There, as he tells us in the controversial book he wrote after his
tours of Ireland, he found Brigit’s fire, said to be
inextinguishable:
"It is not that it is strictly speaking
inextinguishable, but that the nuns and holy women have so carefully
and diligently kept and fed it with enough material, that through all
the years from the time of the virgin saint it has never been
extinguished.
"Gerald of Wales, of course, was not the
first pilgrim to visit Kildare, but he has provided us with one of
the most vivid accounts of that monastic site and the legends
associated with it centuries after the death of its foundress.
Judging from his books on Ireland and Wales, he evidently discovered,
as many of us do when we travel to foreign shores, that the holy
places and the tombs of the saints often provide “a location for
the healing, forgiving, and guiding powers of God.”
"Pilgrimage is one of the oldest
spiritual traditions, shared by all the great religions of the world.
The practice of pilgrimage has been a part of Christian spirituality
since the first apostles, after the death of Jesus, returned to those
places in Galilee associated with his memory and learned, as they
fished and ate meals together on the seashore, that he was still very
much alive. While pilgrimages may result in encounters with the Holy
One, they can also be painful journeys into the unknown, far from
family and friends and all those things that give us a sense of
self–worth and identity. This experience of being in the
wilderness, of being betwixt and between, is described by Joseph
Campbell as characteristic of “liminality,” a state in which the
person striving for maturity and wisdom crosses a threshold into the
unknown, meets many obstacles as well as helping spirits along the
way, and returns home as “master of two worlds” with a “treasure”
or “blessing” that is shared with the community. According to
Campbell, all the great myths of humankind have these elements
describing how a person becomes a hero, which is to say, more fully
human (and, from the Christian perspective, more god–like). Victor
and Edith Turner, authors of Image and Pilgrimage in Christian
Culture, describe pilgrimage in those terms: as a “liminoid
phenomenon,” a boundary experience that applies not only to foreign
travel and rites of passage, but “to all phases of decisive
cultural change.” “It has become clear to us,” they say, “that
liminality is not only transition but also potentiality, not only
‘going to be’ but also ‘what may be.’
"With that understanding in mind, let us
take a pilgrimage to Celtic lands and to the home of Brigit, who was
considered the patron saint of travelers and pilgrims during the
Middle Ages. As a soul friend with whom that ancient tradition of
spiritual guidance is very much identified, she has something to
teach us about women’s leadership as it emerged in the early Celtic
Church. Her legends and stories also reveal much about the actuality
and potentiality of women’s spiritual power in our own churches
today. Brigit, the powerful Christian saint associated with a Celtic
goddess, is a study in liminality, for she lives on the boundary
between pagan mythology and Christian spirituality, between what was
and what will be. Described in one of the most ancient Christian
Celtic hymns as “ever excellent woman, golden sparkling flame,” and by the Irish poet Padraic Colum as “she who had the flaming
heart,” Brigit will show us that not only is her monastery
associated with flames of fire, but her life and ministry as well—a
flame of holiness that continues to blaze and give us light even
though the fires at Kildare of which Gerald of Wales wrote have now
been extinguished."
For those who have the original version of Wisdom of the Saints and would like the updated introduction, this is available through Northumbria Community for four pounds. For an online article by Sellner on soul friendship (anam cara) visit the site of Aisling magazine.
