In Strasbourg (France)
The remains of Saint Brigit have been a tangible treasure of Catholic Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux for hundreds of years.
Many of the faithful are still very attached to them today.
Dublin, Lisbon, Belgium... and Alsace
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Preserved in a reliquary, the object of this veneration is a piece of skull that has been handed down from generation to generation.
Its origins lie in Ireland, in Kildare, where Abbess Brigit is said to have worked miracles for the poorest of the poor in the 5th and 6th centuries, to the point where today, alongside St. Patrick, she is the patron saint of the country.
And her relics, as was often the case with those of saints, travelled far and wide after her death.
History records that they were moved to Downpatrick in the 9th century to escape Viking invasions.
Other elements, such as clothing accessories or pieces of the remains, are preserved in Dublin, Belgium and Lisbon. And then there's Alsace...
Alsace is 1,500 kilometers from Kildare.
A long way, in a time when travel was not easy. Yet that's exactly what Irish monks did, when they came to occupy the islet of Honau, north of Strasbourg, in the early 8th century, to found an abbey.
In their luggage (according to tradition) was this relic of the saint, which remained there for almost 600 years...
Until an unfortunate flood on the Rhine necessitated its removal.
So it was that Saint Brigit arrived in Strasbourg on a fine day in 1398, settling with the canons in the grounds of the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux.
She was celebrated there as a holy thaumaturgist "who multiplied the harvest and protected it from rain", wrote Joseph Brauner in Archiv für elsassische Kirchengeschichte, in 1936.
Seven centuries later, the relic has not moved, forming part of the identity of the church in the heart of Strasbourg.
Better still, it inspired the idea of making the saint the patron saint of the Remparts parish community, when it was created in 2011.
"We asked ourselves the question for a long time, but we had this obvious idea right under our noses from the start, and it just stuck," recalls Étienne Uberall, touched by Brigit's story, which resonates with modernity.
"She was very concerned about the poorest of the poor, which makes sense in terms of our mission, and her monastery in Kildare welcomed both men and women, as far as we know. We were sensitive to this message of openness."
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Bread and salt
The celebration of Saint Brigid has its own folklore, perhaps derived from ancient Celtic customs.
"During the mass celebrated each year, parishioners are given blessed bread and salt, as a reminder of the sharing of bread and the salt of the earth," explains Étienne Uberall.
In any case, it's a sign of the vitality of the cult devoted to the saint: on Sunday, no fewer than 200 sachets of blessed salt will be distributed, with the idea, somewhere, that there's undoubtedly some good fortune in taking home a little something that holds the sacred.
In the world of relics, faith and belief are often intertwined...
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Mgr Hugh Connoly, chaplain to the Irish at the Collège des Irlandais in Paris, during his visit to Strasbourg in 2019. In his hand, the cross of Saint Brigid, very popular in Ireland.
Relics of Ireland's only matron saint returned January 28, 2024 to her hometown after almost 1,000 years. Revered relics of St Brigid are coming back to Co Kildare after nearly a millennium.
St Brigid, the mother saint of Ireland, is one of the country's three national saints along with St Patrick and St Columba. It is believed that St Brigid died in 524 AD and was buried beside the main altar in her monastic church in Co Kildare.
Her grave became an attraction for pilgrims throughout Ireland and Europe and a shrine, adorned with gold, silver, and precious stones, was built for her in the eighth century.
When the Vikings came to Ireland around the year 800 AD, they attacked churches. In anticipation of a Viking attack on the town, the body of St Brigid was moved to Downpatrick in Northern Ireland where she was buried in an unmarked grave beside St Patrick and St Columba.
The grave was unmarked to protect it and to keep the location secret. However, over the passage of time, the location of the saint’s bodies was lost and forgotten and for some 300 years the location of the patron saints of Ireland was unknown.
In 1185, the Bishop of Down prayed to God to show him the location of the sacred relics and bodies of the three saints. A beam of light shone on a section of the floor in the dark church. The floor was taken up and the bodies of the three saints were found with St Patrick in the middle and St Brigid and St Columba on either side.
The bodies were properly enshrined in 1186 where they remained for the next 400 years until the shrine was destroyed by Lord Leonard Grey the appointee of King Henry VIII. Although the shrine was gone, St Brigid’s remains were saved and secretly transported to the continent.
It's believed three Irish knights took a bone fragment from her head to Lumiar, a small town outside Lisbon in Portugal, in the 13th century. The relic is still venerated in the church of St John the Baptist in Lumiar where the knights continued to spend their lives.
Portions of the skull were gifted to St Brigid’s Church in Kilcurry, Faughart, Co Louth, in 1905 and to St Brigid’s Church in Killester, Co Dublin, in 1929.
The third portion of the skull was gifted in the 1930s to the Order of Brigidine Sisters in Tullow, Co Carlow, for private veneration. It is that portion that has been gifted to Kildare.
It is the first time that the county has had a relic of St Brigid for more than 1,000 years.
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St Brigid's relics returned to Co Kildare January 28, 2024. A procession accompnied the relics from Solas Bhride Centre in Tully outside Kildare Town to St Brigid’s Parish Church in Kildare Town.
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The relics were taken into the church by the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Bishop Denis Nulty, who celebrated a special mass.
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David Mongey, Chairman of Into Kildare, said: “The relics of St. Brigid have not been in Co Kildare for nearly 1,000 years. This year is the 1500th year of the passing of the saint and what could be more special than to bring St Brigid’s relics home, where she belongs?
"She built her church in Kildare and her legacy as a peace maker and a protector of nature is still as relevant today as ever. It has been a long process to finally bring her relics back to the county and together with my colleagues at Into Kildare we would like to thank Kildare County Council and the Brigidine sisters for their great work in bringing Brigid home.”