Art notes The [Irish text] text as edited by Stokes 1888, is here shown alongside the literal translation [English] due to Todd. (Footnote)
Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
Sister Brigid offers the human conversation I’ve been craving.
I ask, “How is it possible that a Brother in a community of faith, such as a monastery on a remote rock, could be excluded from the monastery as you suggest.”
“Timothy and I are not excluded.”
“You aren’t?”
“No, we belong to God the same as they do, but we don’t belong with them. It happens here that bands of monks come and go. They show up for a season as though they are here forever, but then they’re gone. They come here to belong to God alone. But they always keep a boat for the return or they arrange for a boat to show up from time to time. Timothy and I don’t have a boat.” [footnote]
“How did you get here?”
“We were delivered here as children by the ‘holy person’ God sent to rescue us when we were discovered to be homeless orphans living by the sea.”
“You mean, you were just abandoned all alone on this bleak rock?
“We are never alone, of course. God is with us.”
“Of course, I know that. I too feel God’s presence here in the silence and the sounds of this place.”
“The holy person taught us the breastplate of St. Patrick, “Christ before me, Christ beside me, …”
Interrupting, “I know it well.”
She continues speaking it with her hands. Then she folds her hands in a silence at the end and tells me more of their deliverance here.
“We could have survived on the land over there, fine enough, but people misunderstood Timothy and cruelty is the human nature of misunderstanding. We were in danger so it was a blessing that we were delivered to a place.
“It has always been known that this Skellig is a holy rock where only the most God-fearing come for solitude. It is the dessert place, for the sacrificial commitment to God alone by the living martyrs. Here, we found the birds and sea creatures and the life we had known living by the sea. But we also found the little gifts left behind by the past people, the stone stackers: hounds and goats and gardens, their little cells and a cell for worship. Some have even left their graves up there in the cemetery. When my brother knows of a death, he chips a marking stone for them. The stone-stackers left their tools for Timothy — the mallet, chisel, sledge and rod.”
Art Footnote — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Breastplate
retrieved 1-17-26
Footnote The Great Skellig has long been known for the ruins of an ancient monastery. It was the launching pad for Star Wars. and the speculative source for many other fictional tales, like Sun Dancing by Geoffery Moorhouse, and recently Haven by Emma Donohogh.
(Continues Tuesday, July 21)
Lazarus Ink 