By Father Casey
This weekend I depart on pilgrimage to Scotland with eight high school students, along with Director of Youth Ministries Delynda Moravec. The Scotland pilgrimage is a beloved tradition at our church, dating back some 20 or more years. Past youth pilgrims speak effusively about the ways this experience formed their faith and deepened their souls.
While we’ll visit several places, the true “destination” of our pilgrimage is the holy island of Iona. Iona is a seemingly unassuming patch of rock in the midst of the sea, but for nearly 1500 years, Christians have journeyed there to experience its serenity and holiness. The Spirit feels somehow nearer there, like the veil that so often shields our spiritual sight gets tugged back just a bit there, so we can see the Almighty who is actually always with us.
The island is associated with Saint Columba, a man of such charisma and sanctity that his tiny community of monks grew to become one of the greatest centers of Christian faith and knowledge in the western world. So great was Columba’s renown, and so influential the community he founded on Iona, that 48 kings of Scotland, four Irish kings, and eight kings of Norway are buried in the abbey graveyard. Like most ancient saints, especially those from the “Dark Ages,” his story is shrouded in myth, but it’s well worth knowing, whether or not you get to visit Iona on pilgrimage like these youth will.
Columba is revered in Scotland, but he was actually born in Ireland, around the year 521. He was fortunate to grow up in a family wealthy enough to have him educated, something that in that age happened almost exclusively in monasteries. So he was steeped in knowledge and surrounded by prayer from an early age. But he was also a restless soul, so even when he took the vows of a monk and priest, instead of embracing a strictly cloistered life, he traveled Ireland preaching and founding monasteries, foremost among them being Derry and Kells.
He was a passionate lover of books, but a book was nearly the cause of his ruin. Around 560, his monastery obtained from Rome a copy of Jerome’s Latin translation of the Psalter, something that in that age would have been a nearly priceless treasure. Columba “borrowed” the book, and surreptitiously made a copy for himself. When the abbot discovered it, he demanded the copy be turned over to him (think of it like an ancient copyright dispute). Columba refused, but eventually the matter was brought to the king, who forced him to relinquish it.
Columba bitterly resented the decision, so when an insurrection erupted against the king a few months later, Columba raised an army and joined the battle. In the ensuing violence, 3,000 people were killed, including many of Columba’s fellow monks. In the aftermath, Columba was racked by guilt and recognized that he needed a dramatic change in the trajectory of his life. He accepted the punishment of permanent exile from Ireland, but assumed an additional penance of saving as many souls as had died in the battle he caused.
So in 563, at the age of 42, he pushed a rudderless coracle into the Irish Sea, with no idea of where it would take him. Ancient Celtic Christians often embraced this sort of journey, believing the Holy Spirit would carry them to where they were supposed to go. So when Columba and a few companions landed on one of Iona’s stony beaches, he was ready to call the island home.
On Iona, Columba built the monastery that has become famous throughout the western world as the center of Celtic Christianity. But he also ventured all over the coasts, highlands, and lowlands of Scotland, trying to make good on that pledge to atone for his former sins. He traveled the region, preaching and ministering and baptizing, and converts included the King of the Picts and the King of the Scots. Over three decades of ministry, Columba established monasteries and churches all over the region, and the descendants of those efforts include Lindisfarne and Northumbria.
He never did quite overcome his quick temper, and one of his biographers has written, “Of all the qualities, gentleness was the one in which Columba failed the most.” But grace did work on him over the years, like the waves slowly smoothing the stones on Iona’s beaches, and his rougher edges softened. This inner transformation is how he grew from respected to revered.
Thanks to Columba, Iona became a great center of faith and knowledge in the dark ages. His love of books led the monks to become renowned scribes and bookmakers, and their copies of all sorts of texts helped carry knowledge through an era of ignorance. The Book of Kells, one of the most beautiful and important books in the world, was created at Iona a few centuries after Columba, and later transferred to the monastery at Kells that he founded. Columba himself, in spite of his fame and responsibilities, never let go of his love of books, and his last act was to put down the manuscript he had been copying, after he wrote out verse 8 of Psalm 34, “They that love the Lord shall lack no good thing.” And so, he died—a book lover to the end.
I could tell you more stories about him, for there are many. And if you choose to seek them out, know that they feature quite a lot of extravagant miracles credited to him. Like the time he is said to have driven off the Loch Ness monster, which is one of the earliest mentions of that mythical beast. They are fun to read, but they are more legend than history. We do that, don’t we? Turn saints into myths and superheroes, perhaps so we’ll feel like they are impossible to emulate.
But the greatest works of Columba were not supernatural; they were tremendously ordinary. Over a lifetime, with courage and patience, he worked to repair his sins, spread the gospel of love, and create a legacy of peace. He embraced each day as a gift, each person as worthy of care, each place as a possible toehold of the kingdom of God. That is sainthood – not being a superhero, but a sanctified sinner – trying every day to live more and more like Jesus.
Pray with me that his example will inspire eight high schoolers, and perhaps invigorate you for your own journey toward sainthood.