ST. MALACHY AND THE PROPHECIES ATTRIBUTED TO HIM

New Zealand Tablet, 21 January 1915, Page 11

ST. MALACHY AND THE PROPHECIES ATTRIBUTED TO HIM

(By the Rev. J. Kelly, Ph.D.)

On the threshold of the twelfth century stand forth two noble figures, born in countries far apart, destined to play a large part in moulding the future generations, and to be drawn together at the end in a beautiful friendship which was stronger than death, which separated them when the one died in the other’s arms. They were the great Irish saint, Malachy O’Morgair, and the still greater saint, Bernard of Clairvaux. They had in common great piety, tireless zeal, and steadfast devotion to the Holy See. Bernard. was by his friend’s bedside when he died; and the biography of the Irish Bishop, written by the last Father* of the Church, has made the name of Malachy known and revered for all ages.

Malachy was bora in the year 1095. His father was a teacher of theology at Armagh, and probably had received minor orders. In his Life of St. Malacliy, Bernard testifies that the parents of the future saint were people of family and influence —gentre et potentia ?nagni. Hard by Armagh at this time lived a hermit, Imar O’Hagan, a man of great learning and holiness, who devoted his life to the work of having the Roman ritual observed to the letter in Ireland. To Imar Malachy was sent to be educated, and then, no doubt, were laid the foundations of the great devotion to Rome which was the key-note of his whole life. He must have been ordained while very young, for he was only twenty-five when Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, selected him as his vicar. How zealously he fulfilled his duties in this office may be gathered from one sentence of St. Bernard’s biography of our saint: He introduced into all the churches the customs of the Holy Roman Church, he renewed the salutary use of Confession, of Confirmation, and of the contract of Matrimony— which if known at all were neglected. That such a state of things should have been in Armagh was due no less to the intrusion of laymen avaricious of the revenues of the See, than to the confusion resulting from the Danish invasions. A few years before this the Lateran Council of 1215 made yearly Confession obligatory on all the faithful, a decree which Malachy set himself to enforce vigorously. Ho also insisted on the observance of the degrees of kindred and on the presence of the priest and witnesses for the sacrament of Matrimony. In 1123 Malachy put himself under the direction of the aged Bishop, Malchus of Lismore, with whom he seems to have spent four years, during which he formed a fast friendship with Cormac MacCarthy, prince of Desmond, whom Turlogh O’Connor, King of Connacht, had robbed of his throne. Later, when Cormac recovered his throne, he did all in his power to help his friend in his labors for the salvation of the Irish people. The years Malachy spent with Malchus were like a providential preparation for the next great event in his life, his election to the See of Connor in the north of Ireland. This bishopric was no sinecure. St. Bernard himself tells us what sort of flock His friend had to shepherd : 4 Not to men—to beasts was he sent. Arrogant in their actions, .coarse in their morals, cold in faith, barbarous in their laws Christians in name, heathens in reality. — But Malachy, who was all a shepherd and nothing of a hireling, stood fast at his post. An undaunted shepherd amongst wolves, he labored to change the wolves into sheep.’ In 1129, Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, died after a brief illness. In his last will he named Malachy as his successor, and appointed Cormac MacCarthy and Conor O’Brian, princes of Desmond and Munster respectively, as his executors. Whether this was a formal nomination or merely a recommendation we know not. In any case it aroused great opposition in the north, and one Murtogh established himself by force of arms in, the See of Armagh, which he held till his death five years later.

Malachy fled-'.to the south, and spent three* years in the ; monastery of Ibrach in Kerry. To him there came a deputation consisting! of Bishop Malchus : of Lismore, Gilbert of Limerick, the Papal | Legate, and the princes of Desmond and Munster.' Upon .their representations and by their aid he returned to Armagh, and at length established himself in that See. .No sooner had he set aside the usurpers than he deemed it advisable for the sake of peace and the good of religion to resign. In 1137 he consecrated his'successor, Gelasius, and took for himself the Bee of Down In Down, St. Bernard bells us, the Saint realised the ideal of a model bishop. He was a true soldier of Uni ist ; his arms were poverty and chastity and meditation. , Rich and poor alike thronged to him for advice and edification. The time came when he -judged he might at length yield to his burning desire to make a pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles. On his wav he went to Clairvaux and there met St. Bernard, ‘the oracle of his age.’ What he saw of the great monastery, its saintly founder and his monks, and the spirit that made the strict rule a sweet and easy burthen awoke in Malachy a desire to introduce the Order into Ireland. And in 1142 he had the happiness of seeing his wish realised, when the monks of Citeaux settled at

From Clairvaux the Saint went on to Rome, where I ope Innocent 11. received him with open arms, welc™Jn o 1 ! m as a zea^ ous pastor and a strenuous upholder of Roman authority. One month Malachy lingered in the Eternal City, a month filled with joy and peace for the Irish bishop, who had long yearned to visit the altars and shrines of immortal Rome. At the feet of the Holy Father, at the tomb of the Apostles amid the storied remains of Paganism, so often sprinkled by the blood of martyrs, his heart expanded and his soul quickened with renewed zeal and devotion to the Apostolic See. The Papal Legate, Gilbert, being seriously ill at the time, Innocent appointed Malachy to that dignity. On the Irish pilgrim-bishop’s head lie placed his own mitre, and on his shoulders his own stole, blessing and embracing him when, at the end of the month, our Saint turned his face again towards Ultima Hibernia.

Clairvaux called him again, and he rested on his homeward journey amid its peaceful cloisters, in company with his friend Bernard and his holy brethren, making then, no doubt, final arrangements for the coming of the monks to the Abbey of Mellifont, which happened two years later. Through Scotland, where he cured Prince Henry, son of King David, Malachy travelled on his way to Ireland, where he arrived in 1140.

. Back again in his diocese, he resumed his episcopal duties with apostolic ardor. His own inclinations would have led him to join the monks in their prayerful seclusion at Clairvaux; and of this he spoke to Innocent, who pointed out bo him that a man of his talents and gifts was more useful in promoting God’s glory and the welfare of the Church in the sphere in which he found himself placed by Providence. From 1140 to 1148 his life is briefly summed up in a few words of his biographer : As a bishop he was a model of apostolic zeal and humility; as Papal Legate he was no less zealous in calling together Councils, in enforcing discipline, and in securing the observance of the Roman ritual.

Innocent 11. was succeeded by Eugene 111. in 1145. Malachy left Ireland in 1148, hoping to meet the Pope in France. He was unexpectedly delayed in England, and when he went into France Eugene had returned to Italy. Malachy then went to Clairvaux to visit again his friend St. Bernard. The great Abbot of Clairvaux was delighted to see the Irish bishop: * He came amongst us like a shining sun,’ says St, Bernard, ‘and how festive was the day of his arrival!’ But the joy was brief. In five days the holy visitor sickened and died. On November 2, 1148, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, he received the last (Sacraments, and went to his eternal reward amidst the prayers and psalms of the monastic brotherhood of

Clairvaux. ‘ The happy look on his countenance was the- expression of his joyful home-going/ wrote St. Bernard, who paid tribute to the memory of his dead friend in two magnificent orations in which grief seems lost in gratitude and. thanksgiving for the great things achieved for the honor of God and His Church by the Irish v prelate. Forty-two years after ' his death, on July 6, 1190, Clement 111. paid the highest of all tributes to Malachy’s life and labors by placing his name .on the glorious bead-roll of honor of the saints of Holy Church. To St. Malachy have been attributed a number of prophecies concerning the Popes. These prophecies are in the form of mottoes or devices, and they have long aroused considerable interest. They were first published at Venice in 1595 by a Benedictine monk, Arnold Wion. The first motto refers to the middle of the twelfth century, and they go on up to a certain Petrus Romanus who will be the last successor of St. Peter, and the first to take his name. In times of political and of religious disturbance the ‘ prophecies ’ have aroused much attention and a certain amount of

pious belief. But no authority of weight defends their authenticity or their supernatural origin. Many of them are so vague as to be applicable to almost any Pope; many are quite inexplicable to the Popes to whom they refer; but many have, beyond a doubt, a startling appositeness, and this is especially true of the later Popes in the list. The devices bear on them the stamp of the Renaissance so vividly that critics would at once place their origin in that epoch and not four centuries earlier. St. Bernard, in his biography, has nothing to say of them. Some of them, moreover, evidently refer to the anti-Popes without distinguishing them from the lawful successors of St. Peter.

In the case of Pius IX. the motto was Crux de cruce: it is known to all that tho great cross of his career, the loss of Papal independence, came through the Savoyards, whose arms bear a red cross. In the arms of Leo XIII. a single star shines out of the heavens: in that, and more so in the glory of his pontificate, the device Lumen de Coelo is justified. He was in every sense a ‘ light from Heaven ’; a Saint, a scholar, a great Pope. For Pius X. the ‘ prophecy’ was ‘ Ignis ardens,’ a burning fire. I remember how before the event we all applied it to Cardinal Svampa, to whom it fitted so obviously. And though nobody then dreamed of Cardinal Sarto, we all see now that he was a holy Pope, in whose heart there burned the fire of divine love. Benedict XV. comes under the device lleligio depopulate, ascending the throne of St. Peter at a time when half-a-dozen great Christian nations are at war.

According to the prophecies eight Popes are still ■to come before the end of the world. The last in the list is thus described: In / the Sfinal persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End,/

Besides the foregoing, to St. Malachy are also attributed a number of prophecies concerning Ireland, according to which the saint foretold that his beloved native isle would undergo, at the hands of the English, oppression and persecution and calamities of all sorts during seven centuries, and that in spite of all she would preserve her faith ; that at the end of a week of centuries she would be delivered form her oppressors, who in their turn would suffer dreadful chastisements.

and that Catholic Ireland would be instrumental in bringing back England to the faith. The seven centuries of persecution have now been abundantly verified. Cardinal Manning testified to the part Ireland played in restoring the faith to England. Does the. present crisis mean the dawn of a brighter day for Ireland? '