The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-09-23

rick's Day of this year. "To the Irish
monks is due the keeping alight the
torch of learning; to them is due the
continuity of the Catholic faith. They
famed to flame the dying embers Of
Christian education in Europe; they
heralded east and west the old good
news of the Gospel. For on the one
hand Europe came to Ireland to bor-
row the fire of faith and letters from
her glowing hearth. Thus we find
among the strangers focking into
Irish schools Alfred of England, and
Dagobert of France, Oswald of Oswin,
Alcuin and Cuthbert, Willibrord, Bish.
op of Utrecht, and Agilbert, Bishop Of
Paris. On the other hand when the
wanderlust of the children of the Gael
and the burning zeal of the Celtic
monk sent him abroad. his influence
became worldwide. Close to home st.
Columbkille founded Iona, that peer.
less mother of missions and monas-
teries; founded also among it's many
offshoots old Melrose, Abercorn. and
Dunkeld in Scotland. The Irish St.
Aidan built Lindisfarne in the north,
and the Irish MailduIf preceded Aid
helm in the foundation of Malmesbury
in the south of Britain. A little later
st. Colman returned from Lindisfarne
to found Mayo of the Saxons, where
under st. Gerald over two thousand
monks dwelt in prayer and study.
Further afield went the prince of
migrating patriarchs, st. Columbanus,
who left Bangor with thirty other
monks and Jared across the sea to
Gaul, where he founded Annegray.
Luxeuil, that other great mother of
monasteries, Fontaines in Gaul, and
Bobbio, which held high the lamp of
letters and holiness for all northern
Italy for centuries.
These but blazed the way for in
Vulnerable monasteries of Irish foun-
dation in what is now known as
France, Belgium, Holland, AIsace,
Switzerland, Austria, and Germany.
St Gall left his name on the monas-
terry he built on the shore of Lake
Constance; st. Sigisbert his memory
in his foundation at Dissentis, hard by
the source of the Rhine; even as had
St Fridolin at Sackingen in Baden,
as did ST. Fiacre at Meaux. So, too.
did st. Kilian at Wurzburg, st. Liyinus
in Brabant, st. Fursey on the Marine,
st. Donatus and st. Cataldo nearer to
us here in Calabria. Later Marianus
Scotus founded a monastic school at
Ratisbon, as other Irish scholar-monks
did at Mainz, at Nuremberg, at Co.
logne, at Karlsruhe, and Vienna.
There were ninety-eight monas-
teries now known to have been
founded outside of Ireland solely by
Irish monks. These were the for.
tresses that saved learning to Europe
by their scholars and the faith of
their missionaries. Of the latter we
find revered on the affairs by grateful
peoples two hundred and forty-six
Irish saints in Germany, Gaul, Bel
GUM, Italy, Norway, and Iceland, of
whom fifty shed their blood in martyr.
dom. Nor would our summary be
complete in this place today unless
we named the great schoolmen set in
the memory of the schools by the side
of st. Thomas Aquinas, the Irish Fran.
ciscan, John Duns Scotus, and his
learned editor, one of the greatest
scholars of his own time, Father Luke
Wadding, who founded there the mon
astery of st. Isidore, and initiated the
function which we are celebrating
here today in honor of st. Patrick"