On November 23, 2015, we will celebrate the 1,400th anniversary of the death of St Columban which occurred in the year 615 in the town of Bobbio, in northern Italy. For all who take St Columban as their patron, such as Columban Priests, Sisters, Lay Missionaries, Benefactors, Supporters, Friends and Lay Co-workers, this will be a significant occasion.
We would also like to make this anniversary special for all the readers and supporters of The Far East magazine. In order to do this, we will be publishing in coming months a series of articles on the life of St Columban as a way to help us prepare for this anniversary.
As a part of the anniversary celebration, a pilgrimage is being organized for August/September 2015 that will follow the footsteps of St Columban across Europe. This pilgrimage will begin in Ireland, and then proceed to France, Austria, Switzerland and finish in Rome. We invite all those able and interested in following the footsteps of St Columban across Europe to give serious thought to joining this pilgrimage.
St Columban - A European Saint
In a General Audience on June 11, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI described St Columban as a European saint. Printed below are some of the biographical details of St Columban given by Pope Benedict XVI on this occasion.
Columban was born around 543 in the province of Leinster, in southeast Ireland. Educated in his own home by outstanding teachers, who led him to the study of the liberal arts, he was later entrusted to the guidance of Abbot Sinell of the community of Cluain-Inis, in Northern Ireland, where he was able to further his study of sacred Scriptures.
At the age of about 20 he entered the monastery of Bangor on the north-eastern part of the island, where Comgall was abbot, a monk well-known for his virtue and ascetic rigor. In full agreement with his abbot, Columban zealously practiced the severe discipline of the monastery, leading a life of prayer, ascesis and study. There he was also ordained a priest. Life at Bangor and the abbot's example influenced the concept of monasticism that with time matured in Columban, which he later spread in the course of his life.
At almost 50 years of age, following the typically Irish ascetic ideal of the "peregrinatio pro Christo," namely, of making himself a pilgrim for Christ, Columban left the island with 12 companions to engage in missionary work on the European continent.
We must, in fact, keep present that the migration of people of the North and East had made entire Christianized regions fall back into paganism. Around the year 590, this small band of missionaries landed on the Breton coast. Received with benevolence by the king of the Franks of Austrasia - present-day France - they asked only for a piece of uncultivated land.
They obtained the ancient Roman fortress of Annegray, all demolished and abandoned, and now covered by forest. Used to a life of extreme renunciation, the monks succeeded in a few months in building the first hermitage on the ruins. Thus, their re-evangelization began to be carried out above all through the testimony of life.
With the new cultivation of the land they also began a new cultivation of souls. The fame of those foreign religious, who, living on prayer and in great austerity, built houses and cultivated the earth, spread rapidly and attracted pilgrims and penitents. Above all, many young men asked to be received in the monastic community to live, like them, that exemplary life that renewed the cultivation of the earth and of souls.
Very soon, the foundation of a second monastery was rendered necessary. It was built a few kilometres away, on the ruins of an ancient thermal city, Luxeuil. The monastery then became the centre of monastic and missionary radiation of Irish tradition on the European continent. A third monastery was erected at Fontaine, a one-hour walk further north.
Columban lived at Luxeuil for almost 20 years.
Intransigent as he was on every moral question, Columban later entered into conflict with the Royal House, because he had severely reprimanded King Theodoric for his adulterous relations. A network of intrigues and manoeuvres was born at the personal, religious and political level that, in the year 610, was translated into a decree of expulsion from Luxeuil of Columban and all the monks of Irish origin. They were condemned to a definitive exile. They were escorted to the sea and embarked, at the expense of the court, toward Ireland.
However, the ship ran aground a short distance from the beach and the captain, seeing in this a sign from heaven, gave up the enterprise and, out of fear of being cursed by God, took the monks back to dry land. The monks, instead of returning to Luxeuil, wanted to start a new work of evangelization. They embarked on the Rhine and sailed up the river. After a first stop at Tuggen near Lake Zurich, they went around the region of Bregenz near Lake Costanza to evangelize the Germans.
Shortly after, however, Columban - because of political affairs not favourable to his work - decided to cross the Alps with the majority of his disciples. Only a monk by the name of Gallus stayed behind and from his hermitage developed later the famous Abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland. Arriving in Italy, Columban met with a benevolent reception at the Lombard royal court, but he soon was faced with noteworthy difficulties.
When, in 612 or 613, the king of the Lombards assigned him some land in Bobbio, in the valley of Trebbia, Columban founded a new monastery which later became a centre of culture comparable to the famous one of Montecassino. Here he reached the end of his days, dying on November 23, 615, and on this date he is commemorated in the Roman Rite until today.
Read more from The Far East, June 2014