Tag Archives: St. Brigid

Saint Brigid and the King's Wolf

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I have commissioned Daniel Mitsui to create a drawing based on this wonderful story from the life of St. Brigid, one of the Three Patrons of Ireland, and also my patroness.  Daniel also has a delightful blog, The Lion and the Cardinal.

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Once a rustic, seeing a wolf run about in proximity to the palace, killed it; not knowing that it was the tame creature of the king; and he brought the dead beast to the king, expecting a reward. Then the prince in anger ordered the man to be cast into prison and executed. Now when Bridget heard this, her spirit was stirred within her, and mounting her chariot, she drove to the court, to intercede for the life of the poor countryman. And on the way, there came a wolf over the bog racing towards her, and it leaped into the chariot, and allowed her to caress it.

Then, when she reached the palace, she went before the king, with the wolf at her side, and said, "Sire! I have brought thee a better wolf than that thou hast lost, spare therefore the life of the poor man who unwittingly slew thy beast." Then the king accepted her present with great joy, and ordered the prisoner to be released.

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Lá Fhéile Pádraig

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Today is the Feast of St. Patrick, along with SS. Brigid and Columba, patron of Ireland.

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Saint Patrick window 662x1024 Lá Fhéile Pádraig

Could I have come to Ireland without thought of God, merely in my own interest?  Who was it made me come?  For here "I am a prisoner of the Spirit" so that I may not see any of my family.  Can it be out of the kindness of my heart that I carry out such a labor of mercy on a people who once captured me when they wrecked my father's house and carried off his servants?  For by descent I was a freeman, born of a decurion father; yet I have sold this nobility of mine, I am not ashamed, nor do I regret that it might have meant some advantage to others.  In short, I am a slave in Christ to this faraway people for the indescribable glory of "everlasting life which is in Jesus Christ our Lord."

And if my own do not want to know me, well and good, "a prophet is not honored in his own country."  Indeed, perhaps we are not "from the same sheepfold," or possibly we do not have "one and the same Father for our God." As he says, "He who is not with me, is against me" and he who "does not gather with me, scatters."  We are at cross purposes: "One destroys; another builds."  "I do not seek things that are mine."  Not by my grace, but it is God "who has given such care in my heart," so that I should be among "the hunters or fishers" whom God foretold "in those final days."

– Letter of St. Patrick to the Soldiers of Coroticus

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