Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
The abbot of this monastery on the Great Skellig, Abbot Mactyre, and I are meeting together at long last. I have so many questions and I am sure he’s heard enough of the rumors and stories, along with my own declaration that I am Jesus’s friend on earth from another time, so surely, he must have questions for me.
“Brother Lugh feels called to return to the mainland; he has assumed I want to leave also.”
He asks, “Don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything of these Celtic lands except what I’d heard centuries ago from Father Columbanus who was from Éire traveling to Gaul where he established monasteries.”
“I know of St. Columbanus. And you say you not only knew our Lord Christ Jesus personally, but now you tell me you knew a saint, centuries ago, as well?”
“Indeed, I knew Jesus as a friend when he was teaching. As the Christ, I only know the sign of the spiritual life we all know. I am an earthly metaphor for the heavenly truth. And don’t we also all know many saints among us?”
“How could we? Saints aren’t named until they are long dead.”
“They may not have been named by the earthly polity of the Church, but living among us we know who they are.”
“You mean you can recognize a saint even before he is dead and way before the miracles have been attributed?”
He sits straighter, and adjusts his chasuble touching his cross to assure himself it is dangling appropriately over his heart.
“I simply meant we all know people who exhibit the qualities of saintliness. I’m not saying I have any authority to know who will be chosen by the Church and honored with the sanctification.”
“Of course.”
I say, “There are so many things I don’t know about this time and place — things that have changed since last I was aware, and traveling with a merchant to Iona. The world is so much bigger.”
“How is that possible, if you also claim to know all things.”
“I hardly make that claim. I only remember glimpses of times and places past. I find myself waking to life as a stranger always in the future world. Maybe at our births we all are strangers to time and place.”
My metaphor that every birth, in a way, is a time travel, draws a blank nod from Abbot Mactyre.
(Continues, Tuesday, October 6)
