Having practiced for several years in the Druid tradition, Brigid was always a goddess to me – a personification of the creative and healing powers of fire and water. This year I have been exploring what we can learn from Brigid the Saint. In 2023, the Monday closest to Saint Brigid's Day was designated a Bank Holiday in the Republic of Ireland. There is no firm evidence that Saint Brigid ever actually existed, but according to her life stories written by monks about 300 years later, Brigid was born around 451, founded her monastery at Kildare in 480, and died on 1 February 525.
Saint Brigid shares her feast day with the Celtic goddess Brigid, who was celebrated at Imbolc – a pre-Christian festival heralding the coming of spring, meaning “in the belly”, referring to the ewes who are about to give birth. Both goddess and saint are associated with healing, poetry, smith-craft, protection and domestic animals. It seems as if the goddess morphed into the saint as Christianity replaced the old pagan ways in Ireland. Today, goddess and saint are indistinguishable in the figure of Brigid, who embodies female empowerment, healing, protection, and the spirit of the land coming alive as winter gives way to spring.
St. Brigid's Day is a celebration of women, of the land, and of the returning light. Some of the traditions, mainly in Ireland and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, include the weaving of Brigid's crosses from reeds, which are placed on doors and windows to ward off bad luck. On the eve of St. Brigid's Day families leave out an offering of bread or cake on a windowsill for Brigid, as she is said to visit houses to give her blessings. A Bride doll is made from corn or oats is decorated and placed in a specially made bed to welcome Brigid into the house. A piece of cloth, known as the Brat Bride (Brigid's cloak), is left outside overnight, on a bush or windowsill, to be blessed by Brigid and imbued with healing powers. Of course, there is a feast on St. Brigid's Day, featuring bread, cheese and beer.
There are many sacred wells dedicated to St. Brigid in Ireland, where she is said to perform miracles of healing through the water. Perhaps these wells were originally sacred to the goddess. The legendary stories of the life of Saint Brigid reflect both her previous incarnation as a goddess and her new life as a Saint, modelling the life and teachings of Christ.
Brigid is a goddess of both fire and water, and the miraculous events of Saint Brigid's life frequently feature fire and water. She is said to have hung her cloak on the sunbeams to dry after it had become wet in the rain.
Soon after she had founded her convent in Kildare, Brigid was praying in the church there, when a pillar of fire appeared above her head and rose higher and higher until it reached the roof. Mel, the local bishop, saw it and took it as a sign that Brigid was chosen by God. Her ordained her an abbess, but was so overcome by the Holy Spirit, that he conferred on her the orders for a bishop. So Saint Brigid became the first female bishop of Ireland. Some of Mel's priests objected, but Mel insisted that it was God who had ordained it.
Like the Christ she followed, Brigid performed many similar miracles, healing the sick and feeding the hungry. She is said to have restored sight to the blind, healed lepers, and even brought the dead back to life. One story records that she turned her bath-water into beer to quench the thirst of her guests – an Irish version of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. She is also said to have blessed a woman who came to her with an unwanted pregnancy, and her blessing caused “the child to disappear, without coming to birth, and without pain.”
Brigid is said to have had boundless compassion and generosity, turning no-one in need away from her door. Many stories tell of how she gave away all her food, only for her stores to be miraculously replenished. She is said to have had a cow whose milk never ran dry, symbolising fertility and abundance. Her stories illustrate the law of reciprocity. As the bible tells us many times, what we give will be returned to us.
In common with other Celtic saints, there are several stories of Brigid's kinship with animals. Sometimes Brigid saves the animals, such as the wolves, foxes, and boars she protects from being killed. Sometimes the animals save Brigid, such as the oystercatchers who covered her in seaweed to hide her when she was being chased along a beach by a group of men who were trying to kill her.
Another strong feature of Brigid's life as recorded by the monks was her relationship with her anam cara, her soul-friend, Darlughdach. The monks recorded that the women were so close that they shared a bed. Brigid and Darlughdach have become iconic figures for the LGBT community in Ireland. One of Brigid's sayings was, “A person without a soul friend is like a body without a head.” Mary Earle, in her book Celtic Christian Spirituality, comments, “In other words, without a soul friend, you cannot rightly see, hear, perceive, discover, or know. Without a soul friend you cannot tell whether a context “smells” wrong. You cannot “taste” goodness. You will stumble along, creating habits of thinking and behaving that could become destructive. You cannot walk a spiritual path alone.”
Amen to that. The spiritual life is a shared life, the road we walk together, supporting one another through all the ups and downs, triumphs and trials, of life.
Brigid has become an icon of female empowerment in modern Ireland, in particular, a figurehead for “Repeal the Eighth”, the successful campaign to repeal the amendment which effectively banned abortion in the Republic of Ireland.
Irish actor Siobhán McSweeney said in a recent interview, “without sounding woo woo, I do think a feminine spirit has finally come back to Ireland. We’ve thrown out the dour masculine authority of the church and patriarchal amendments to our constitution. A wave of feminine energy is wiping away all these manmade things to reveal the country I recognise: partly pagan, matriarchal, intelligent and powerful.”
Melanie Lynch, founder of Herstory, a multi-disciplinary storytelling platform that illuminates and celebrates female role-models, sees Brigid as Ireland’s first environmentalist and first feminist. Her platform led the successful campaign for St. Brigid's Day to become an Irish national holiday. She said, “It’s not the saint or the Goddess, it’s both/and. It’s celebrating the saint because she is true Christianity and we don’t want to lose the magic of that. It’s Celtic Christianity and it’s beautiful. And then the goddess Brigid because we are talking about a time in Ireland (pre-Christian) when there was great reverence for the land, for nature. I think we need the wisdom of both.”
The wisdom of both/and resonates strongly with me – my spiritual path values the beauty and depth of Celtic Christianity and pagan reverence for the land, for nature. The wisdom of both/and can be invoked whenever we are tempted to make divisions, to see things in black and white, to separate groups of people from each other. Saint Brigid teaches us about the values of generosity, compassion, integrity, spiritual companionship, and above all, simple kindness.
Prayer from an Inclusive Liturgy for LBGT History Month by Sam McBratney,
“Merciful God, source of all loving kindness, you called Saint Brigid and Saint Darlughdach to teach the new commandment of love through their life together of hospitality and care; may their example inspire in us a spirit of generosity and a passion for justice that, in our hearts and lives, all may witness your fearless love.. May God, who in Brigid and Darlughdach, has provided us the example of generosity, companionship and care: keep your ears ever open to the cry of the poor and excluded.” Amen.
