Writing Brigit


Writing Brigit

Many years ago I wrote my first Brigit prayer. Poem. Blessing... I have been writing them ever since, but seldom publish them. Some are carefully researched and crafted, some are simple and straight from the heart. (Belated update: I did eventually publish a book called A Brigit of Ireland Devotional - Sun Among Stars. It contains many of my Brigit poems and prayers, essays, and resources.)

The prayers and blessings of my sisters in the Daughters of the Flame and other Brigit-loving women and men, living and long-dead, fill me with surprise and delight, as well.

I would like to share some of these writings with you.

Following is the one that signs off each of my emails, a reminder to guide my words and intentions with care when I write to anyone. It's as good a place to start as any.


Flame Offering

In the name of the three Brigits

I light the candle of my heart

May I offer it to everyone

gentle and steady

warm and bright



08 May 2021

“St. Brigid” by Theresa Brayton

 



St. Brigid

Oh, she was fair as a lily,
And holy as she was fair,
The Virgin Mary of Erin,
Brigid of green Kildare;
She came to earth when the snowdrops
Were starring the rain-drenched sod,
The sweetest blossom among them
From the far-off gardens of God.

And over the haunted mountains
Where Druids still watch and pray
A dawn-wind wakened and whispered:
“Give praise to the Lord today,
For to you a child is given
Whose name in the days to be,
Will flame like a torch eternal
From uttermost sea to sea,
And her life, like a surge of incense
From the alter of your green sod,
Will fashion a stair forever
From Ireland up to God.”

O Brigid, so high and holy!
So strong in womanly grace,
Look down from the sills of Heaven
Today on your olden race.
‘Tis over the world we’re scattered,
And your land is a land of woe,
But we’re holding you as a lodestar
Whatever the roads we know.

For you are our pledge in Heaven,
With Phadrig and Columcille,
For the faith of our foes unbroken
And the hopes that they could not still;
For the surge of our prayers unceasing,
For the depth of our love unpriced.
For our agony in earth’s garden
And our crucifixion with Christ.

And we cry to you, holy Brigid,
‘Tis you have the right to pray
For us and the land of Erin
In the hour of our need today.
We breathe your name as a symbol,
Like the lamp on your alter set,
That God is an unforgetting God
And will stand for our righting yet;
Yea, He, who so long has tried us
In the flame of His purging fire,
Will give to the race of Brigid yet
The crown of their soul’s desire.




Theresa Brayton (1868 - 1943) was a poet and an Irish Republican who participated in the 1916 rebellion. (Kevin Kennedy sings her song, ‘The Old Bog Road.’) Moving to the U.S.A. and marrying a French Canadian, she was well known in Irish American circles.

Poem published in Leinster Leader 2 February 1941, republished on Co. Kildare Online Electronic History Journal, 2 January 2009. 

 

 Image: Photograph of Teresa Brayton in Songs of the Dawn and Irish Ditties, 1913. Public domain..