SAINTS IN THE CELTIC TRADITION

CELTIC TRADITION

ST COLMAN OF INISBOFIN AUGUST 8

A visit to Inisbofin off the Mayo coast was on my bucket list for more than six decades. While noted for hosting several early Irish saints for temporary sojourns, the island’s chief attraction for me was the presence of St Colman there in the late 7th century. Colman was an abbot and missionary bishop in North Britain until he found himself to be out of sync with an evolving British church. Having given the matter serious consideration he returned to Ireland, to mind his own business and say his prayers. Not that he had ever neglected prayer, for he had recruited and trained young men in the Christian way of living the Gospel message as he himself had learned in the days of his youth.

When Colman became bishop of Lindisfarne in 660, the controversy over the dating of Easter was at fever pitch. It had already gone on for well over a century and had torn the heart and soul out of the Irish and British churches. In the hope of securing a resolution to this intractable problem, St Hilda, abbess of Whitby, made her convent available for a synod in 664. The interested parties assembled there in the fall of the year and Oswy, king of Northumbria, presided. Bishop Colman argued for the old Roman tradition inherited from Patrick and Colmcille, while Wilfrid, bishop of Rippon, spoke for Rome’s revised and updated system for calculating Easter day.

In a mild, gentle tone, Colman explained that the tradition for which he spoke had been handed down by his fathers in the faith. He went on to explain that the tradition was based on St John’s Gospel and holy people such as St Patrick and St Colmcille.

With that Wilfrid, who had been educated by the Irish monks at Lindisfarne and ordained there only the previous year, rose to his feet. He boasted a colourful CV relating to his studies in Rome and his experience of church life in France, Italy and elsewhere on the Continent. He then rounded on Bishop Colman, insulting him, disparaging him and his tradition, referring to Colmcille and other saints and learned people of Ireland as “a few men in a corner of a remote island”. He spoke of them as “stupid” and “stubborn” before grudgingly acknowledging that while they may have been holy and well-meaning, they were an ignorant lot. St Colman was told that if he rejected what was on offer, he should resign his episcopal see of Lindisfarne in favour of another and better candidate.

Well, the decision at Whitby went in favour of the new dating system put forward by Wilfrid. Colman resigned. He and those who agreed with him returned to Lindisfarne, picked up their few belongings and left, but not before collecting the bones of St Aidan in fulfilment of an ancient promise. They relocated to Inisbofin off the Mayo coast where, until his death in or about 674, Bishop Colman quietly resumed his humble monastic routine of work and prayer.

John J. Ó Ríordáin CSsR

REALITY

Volume 88. No. 6 July/August 2022 A Redemptorist Publication ISSN 0034-0960

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