Bridget: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Brigid was born around the middle of the fifth century at Faughart, near Dundalk in Ireland. Her father Dubthach was a pagan chieftain of Leinster and her mother Brocessa was one of his slaves. Even as a child Brigid gave away food, clothing and her father’s goods to anyone in need, until Dubthach took her to the king to sell her. While the two men talked, she gave a poor man the sword the king had given her father, and the king refused to buy a girl who held such gifts so lightly. She refused offers of marriage and received monastic tonsure from St Mael of Ardagh. On land given by the King of Leinster she founded a monastery at Cill Dara, the church of the oak, now Kildare, the beginning of monastic life for women in Ireland; it grew into a great house of prayer and learning. Her lives tell of many miracles, among them the blind nun Dara, whose sight Brigid restored with the sign of the Cross, and who then asked to be blind again so that she might see God more clearly in her soul. Brigid reposed early in the sixth century, after receiving Holy Communion from St Ninnidh, and was later laid in one grave with St Patrick and St Columba at Downpatrick. Honoured as a patroness of Ireland, she is remembered on 1 February (14 February on the Old Calendar), when many still hang her rush crosses in their homes.

What the faithful pray for

• a generous and merciful heart toward the poor
• nuns and all who live the monastic life
• students and those who study
• the people of Ireland
• the home and all who live in it