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THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD.
OCTOBER, 1864.
[THE SEE OF ARDAGH IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.]
[THE SACRED CONGREGATION OF RITES ON THE SIGNS OF MARTYRDOM IN THE CATACOMBS.]
[UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN IRELAND.]
"Christian is my name, Catholic my surname", said one of the early Fathers, when he wished to give an adequate description of his religious belief. In the same way, the name and surname of this publication sufficiently indicate its character and scope. First of all, it is Ecclesiastical, by reason of its subject matter, of the class which it addresses, and of the sanction under which it appears. Next, it is Irish, because, to the best of its humble ability, it is intended to serve the Catholic Church of our native country. Father Segneri tells us in one of his sermons, that in his day men used to flock to the religious houses in Italy, eagerly asking: "What news from Ireland?" Those were the stormy days of the latter half of the seventeenth century. How often, on such occasions, in the cool cloisters of Roman colleges, where he had spent so much of his blameless life, was the name of Archbishop Plunket pronounced by the old friends to whom his worth was so well known! How many a listener went straight out from such conferences to pray for his stricken brethren of the suffering Irish Church! At that time the trials, the wounds, the sorrows, the triumphs, the hopes of Irish Catholics were the subject of many a discourse, the anxious care of many a heart. To-day all this is changed in great part. No foreign preacher now-a-days would allude to his hearers' widespread interest about the Irish Church, as one of the signs of the times. And why? Not because—due allowance made for changes—our country has become less interesting; for surely our Catholicity, in the bloom of its second spring, is not less remarkable than it was when torn and beaten to the ground by persecution. And if fraternal love made our distant brethren look sorrowfully over the sea upon our Church when in ruins, surely the same love would teach them not to turn away their eyes from us now that we are once more setting in fair order the stones that had been displaced. Brothers share each other's joys as well as each other's sorrows. The reason of the change is, that Irish Catholic intelligence does not find its way abroad. There is much to be said about the Church in Ireland, there are many anxious to hear it, but there is no messenger to bear the news. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that there is less known abroad about the state of the Irish Church in these days of telegraph and railway, than there was when Dr. Plunket had to borrow a name under cover of which to write to the internuncio, and when Irish news was not thought out of place among the Epistolae Indicæ et Japonicæ of the Jesuit Fathers. The Irish Ecclesiastical Record will endeavour to meet this want. It will give some account of the necessities, the progress, the efforts of the Irish Church. Facts of Ecclesiastical administration, Episcopal letters of general interest, various documents that go to make up the history of a Church, shall find their place in its pages. By these means we shall have at hand a ready answer, when we are asked what are we doing in Ireland. Otherwise, our silence is likely to be taken as an admission that we have nothing to show worthy of the Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum.
Besides, as the world goes on, history is ever repeating itself, but with a difference. In Father Segneri's time the Catholics of Italy asked after the news from Ireland; now it is our turn to ask: "What news from Rome?" Then the Head was tenderly solicitous about the suffering members; now the members are troubled for the perils of the Head. This being the case, it is intolerable that modern journalism, with its lies, clumsy or clever, should be teachers of Pontifical history to the Irish Clergy. The sheep should hear the very voice of the Chief Shepherd, and not the distorted echo of that voice. We want no unfriendly medium between us and our Holy Father's words as they run in his Allocutions, Briefs, Decisions, or in the responses of the Sacred Congregations. It will be the privilege of the RECORD to publish from genuine copies those documents, which, if left to hostile or indifferent channels, might otherwise either be cast away as useless or mutilated in the carrying. In addition, we shall give from time to time Roman Intelligence of general interest to the Clergy.
A distinguished German scholar has lately said that the candlestick of theological science has been moved in our days from its primitive seats, and that upon the German mind has devolved the charge of becoming the principal support and guardian of theological knowledge. We do not share this view. The science of Theology being supernational in its nature, although at a given date it may flourish more in one country than another, can never become the special property of any. In Rome, above all, and in Italy generally, in Belgium, in France, in Spain, in America, as well as in Germany, much is being done for Theology. The literary and scientific labours of Catholics in all these countries ought to be better known amongst us. Surrounded by a literature which, non-Catholic at its best, is fast losing all colour of Christianity, we have need to profit by all that modern research has anywhere contributed to the Catholic solution of the great questions of which the age has been so fertile. Nor is Catholic Ireland without her own proper treasures to give in exchange for what she receives from abroad. Not to speak of the actual labours of Irish Divines in Theology and History, it may be said that few Churches are so rich as ours in remains of ecclesiastical antiquity of the highest importance. A catena could be formed from the unpublished writings of Irish Fathers so complete and so full, that scarcely a single dogma of faith or practice of religious life would be left outside the circle. Fresh researches will every day bring new treasures to light, and the application of sound critical principles will teach us to estimate at their true value those already in our possession. These remains have been scattered over many countries, but pious bands are even now bringing them together once more. The Record will tell how the work of restoration progresses, and give from time to time some of the more valuable documents to the light.
The Record would thus be, in some degree, a link between the clergy of Ireland and their foreign brethren. It would likewise serve as an organ for direct communication between the Priests of Ireland themselves. We have, no doubt, many excellent Catholic newspapers and periodicals which are of material service to our holy religion. But it is quite true, nevertheless, that ecclesiastical subjects cannot well be treated of in publications devoted to general literature. Liturgical decisions, rubrical questions, remarkable cases, points of theology, notices of books treating of clerical or pastoral duties, Christian archæology, if they can gain admission to their pages at all, look strangely out of place in the midst of an indiscriminate gathering of the changing topics of the day. Besides, the general reader might complain, were too much space given in such works to the discussion of new phases of Protestantism or infidelity, to accounts from the Foreign Missions, to the claims of Catholic Education; whilst the clergyman would regret to find his letter or paper on some ecclesiastical matter cut down to a size altogether out of keeping with its importance. In one word, the Catholic Clerical body requires a special organ for itself. This want has been felt in Italy, in France, in Belgium, in Bavaria; and in all these countries the clergy now have a publication exclusively devoted to what concerns their sacred calling. We have abundant assurance from many quarters that these periodicals are esteemed as of great advantage to the clergy. To-day the Irish Ecclesiastical Record takes an humble place among them, content to do even a little in so great a work. We are confident that it will receive the sympathy and support of our brother Priests of this country; for the feeling that has called it into existence is a feeling that lies close to the heart of every one amongst us, namely, a true love for the Catholic Church of Ireland.
[PRAYER OF ST. COLGA.]
The learned Professor O'Curry devotes the sixteenth and following lectures of his work on the Manuscript Materials of Irish History to the early ecclesiastical MSS. In the eighteenth lecture (page 378, and foll.) he says:—
"The fifth class of these religious remains consists of the prayers, invocations, and litanies which have come down to us: these I shall set down in chronological order, as far as my authorities will allow me, and, when authority fails, guided by my own judgment and experience in the investigation of these ancient writings".
Of the first piece of this class mentioned by O'Curry, the Prayer of Saint Aireran, or Aileran the Wise, we hope to treat in a future number of this RECORD.
"The second piece of this class", he continues, "is the Prayer or Invocation of Colgu Na Duinechda, a classical professor of Clonmacnoise, who died in the year 789".
In the Martyrology of Donegal, just published by the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society, we find the following notice of the Author of this prayer on the 20th of February, the 10th of the Kalends of March:
"Colga, Mac Ua Duinechda,[1] i.e. Lector of Cluan-mac-nois. It was he that composed the kind of prayer, called the Suꞃαb Cꞃαḃαιḋ.[2] It was to him Paul the Apostle came to converse with him, and to help him on his road, and he took his satchel of books at Moin-tire-an-áis, and it was he that pleaded for him to the school of Cluain-mac-Nois, and the prologue or preface which is before that prayer states that this Colga was a saint, was a priest, and was a scribe of the saints of Erin, etc. And there is a Saint Colga, with his pedigree, among the race of Dathi, son of Fiachra, son of Eochaidh Muidhmhedhoin, and he may perhaps be this Colga".
[1] Dr. Todd, one of the learned editors, here adds a note: "Duinechda. The later hand inserts here: Marian. vocat. Cαolcu, Marianus O'Gorman calls him Cαolchu". But in the Brussels MS. of M. O'Gorman, as copied by Mr. O'Curry, the name is written Colchu.
[2] That is the Besom or Broom of Devotion. See Colgan, Acta SS. p. 378.
Through the gracious permission of their Lordships the Board of the Catholic University, who have placed at our disposal the manuscripts belonging to the late lamented Mr. O'Curry, now in possession of the University, we are enabled to give our readers this interesting and valuable document. In doing so we do not pretend to enter on a critical or philological examination of it. We shall confine ourselves to some remarks on those points which seem most interesting to ecclesiastics.
Speaking of this document, the learned Professor says: "This prayer is divided into two parts. The first consists of twenty-eight petitions or paragraphs, each paragraph beseeching the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus through the intercession of some class of the holy men of the Old and New Testament, who are referred to in the paragraph, or represented by the names of one or more of the most distinguished of them. The first part begins thus:—'I beseech the intercession with Thee, O Holy Jesus! of thy four Evangelists who wrote thy Gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John'. The second part consists of seventeen petitions to the Lord Jesus, apparently offered at Mass time, beseeching Him to accept the sacrifice then made for all Christian Churches, for the sake of the Merciful Father, from whom He descended upon the Earth, for the sake of His Divinity, which the Father had overshadowed, in order that it might unite with His humanity, for the sake of the Immaculate body from which He was formed in the womb of the Virgin. The second prayer begins thus: 'O Holy Jesus! O Beautiful Friend!' etc., etc."
The prayer is found in the Leabhar Buidhe Lecain (or Yellow Book of Lecain), in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, (MS. H. 2. 16, T.C.D., col. 336).
The Yellow Book of Lecain is a volume consisting at present (notwithstanding many losses) of 500 pages of large quarto vellum; and with the exception of a few small tracts in somewhat later hands, is all finely written by Donnoch and Gilla Isa Mac Firbis, in the year 1390. It would appear to have been, in its original form, a collection of ancient historical pieces, civil and ecclesiastical, in prose and verse. O'Curry enumerates these pieces at page 191 of his work on the MS. Materials of Irish history.
Oratio Colgani sancti[3] (Ua Duinechda, ob. A.D. 789). Sapientis et Prespiteri et Scripæ omnium Sanctorum incipit qui cunque hanc orationem cantaverit veram penitentiam et indulgentiam peccatorum habebit et alias multa gratias, id est, Ateoch fuit a Isa naemh do cheithre suiscela, etc.
[3] This title is from Michael O'Cleary's copy, made in 1627.—The Prayer is from a vellum MS. written in 1390.