St. Columban, Abbot and Confessor...

Columban (c. 540–615) was an obstinate Irishman. His passionate devotion to Christ made him so. He was heroic in living the faith he believed in, and he had tremendous love for the customs of his country.

 

Columban was born in Ireland about 540, and as a young man entered the monastery of Bangor under the direction of Saint Conigall, an austere man who strongly believed in mortification and who exerted great influence on Columban. But along with the austere ideals, Saint Conigall inculcated principles of spirituality and missionary work, and from Bangor came in time a whole army of “exiles for God” to preach the gospel among the barbarian nations on the continent. Saint Columban became the initiator of these monastic and apostolic migrations.

 

With twelve companions he set out, about 590, across the Irish Sea to Great Britain, then across the Channel to Gaul. Following Saint Patrick’s policy, Columban appealed to the king of Burgundy for his good will and protection. Having gained this he could more successfully evangelize the people. He established monasteries in Burgundy modeled after those in Ireland. The first of these were the monasteries of Annegray, Fontaines-en-Vosges, and Luxeuil. Others were built later at Coutances, Faremoutiers, Jouarre, Saint-Gall, and elsewhere. The strict rule he imposed on these monasteries was observed in Gaul until the rule of Saint Benedict replaced it.

 

From the monastery at Luxeuil came bishops and many missionaries. Columban himself was abbot there for years. In his stubborn, determined way, he attempted to impose virtuous living on the decadent Frankish courts and did not hesitate to reproach the bishops for not celebrating Easter on the same date as the Irish did. He also wrote the pope vehement letters when he felt it was necessary, describing himself in these as “the most timid of men” and signing himself “Columban the sinner.”

 

Columban was loved by many, although his extraordinary zeal and superhuman energy shocked a few. The vindictive and domineering Queen Brunhild hated him and forced him to leave Burgundy about 610. Columban remained for some time in other parts of Gaul, then traveled eastward to Switzerland with a few companions always preaching as he went. The king of the Lombards gave Columban the territory of Bobbio in Italy, where the monk built his last monastery in 614. There he lived as a hermit, but without forgetting his friends; he wrote his farewells to them in elegant verses. This exile for God, a great man both by nature and by grace, left this last solitude within a year to go home to God and his heavenly fatherland.