NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 25 August 1921, Page 26

NOTES

"The Mary of Gael"

There is an Irish custom according to which housekeepers repeat a rhyme on the first of February, telling them to bring out a firkin of butter and to divide it between poor working boys. For Brigid was good always, and it was her desire to feed the poor, to do away with every hardship, to be gentle to every misery. And it is on her day the first of the birds begin to make their nests, and the blessed crosses are made with straw and put in the thatch; for the death of the year is done with and the birthday of the year is come. And it is what the Gaels of Scotland say in a verse:

"Brigid put her finger in the river on the feast day of Brigid, and away went the hatching-mother of the cold.

"She washed the palms of her hands in the river on the day of the feast of Patrick, and away went the birth-mother of the cold."

The Hymn Brocan Made for Brigid

Here is the hymn that Brocan made for Brigid:

"Victorious Brigid did not love the world; the spending of the world was not dear to her; a wonderful ladder for the people to climb to the kingdom of the Son of Mary. . , "A wild boar came among her swine; he hunted the wild pigs to the north; Brigid blessed him with her staff and he made his dwelling with her own herd. "She was open in all her doings; she was only Mother of the great King's Son; she blessed the frightened bird till she played with it in her hand. ' "Before going with the angels to the battle let us go running to the church to remember the Lord is better than any poem. Victorious Brigid did not love the world."

A Tradition

And when the people are covering up a red sod under the ashes in the night time to spare the seed of the fire for the morning, they think upon Brigid the Fiery Arrow, and it is what they do be saying: "I

save this fire as Christ saved everyone; Brigid beneath" it, the Son of Mary within it; let the three angels haying most power in the holy courts of grace be keeping this house and the people of this house and sheltering them until the dawn of day." For it is what Brigid had a mind for: goodness that was not hidden; minding sheep and rising early; hospitality towards all good men. It is she keeps everyone that is in straits and dangers; it is she puts down sickness; it is she quiets the voice of the waves and the anger of the great sea, She is the queen of the south she is the mother of the flocks; she is the Mary of the Gael. ' t

(The foregoing legends and traditions are contained in Lady Gregory's Book of Saints and Wonder*.)

The League of St. Brigid

Legends of St. Brigid are all very well. But we want to do something more than repeat them in order to honor her. We have at hand the means in the League of St. Brigid. For some years past the press of the world has told us with what grave concern thoughtful people regard the absolute impropriety of female dress. Italian bishops have refused Holy Communion to girls and women who approached the Holy Table dressed in a manner at variance with the sanctity of the occasion. American clergymen of ail denominations have spoken and written at length on the magnitude of the evil. Even in Ireland the bishops have been compelled to protest against the lack of Christian modesty of feminine fashions. - The League of St. Brigid invites women over seventeen years of age, appealing especially to mothers of families, to join in a crusade against the inroads of immorality through foreign and immodest fashions. Cardinal Logue has recommended the League and Irish women have taken it up eagerly. Here where it is wanted so much more we trust the mothers and daughters of New Zealand who care for their good name and for good morals will take it up too. The rules are few and simple:

1. A Visit to the Most Holy Sacrament. 2. An Act of Reparation to God for the many insults offered to His Divine Majesty in this material and socialistic age. 3. The making of the following promise in a church or oratory : "For the glory of God and the honor of my country, I. promise to avoid in my own person all impropriety in the matter of dress' and to maintain and hand down the traditional and proverbial modesty of Christian womanhood."

The following prayer is recommended: "O glorious St. Brigid, Mother of the Churches of Erin, patroness of our missionary race, wherever their lot may be cast, be thou our guide on the paths of virtue, protect us amid temptation, shield us from danger. Preserve to us the heritage of chastity and temperance; keep ever brightly burning on the altar of our hearts the sacred Fire of Faith, Charity, and Hope, that we may thus imitate the ancient piety of Erin's children, and the Church may shine with peerless glory as of old. Thou wert styled the Mary of Erin. Secure for us by thy prayers the all-powerful protection of the Blessed Virgin, that we may be numbered here among her . favored , clients, and may hereafter merit a place with Thee and the countless Saints of Ireland in the ranks of her triumphant children in Paradise.—Amen.

(Cardinal Moran.)

To the Sacred Heart. ■ “The Love of my heart is Thy Heart, 0 Saviour dear, My treasure untold is to hold Thy Heart in my heart here. For ah! it is, known that Thine Own Heart overflows/ with true love for me : . Then within the love-locked door Of my own heart’s inmost core i > Let Thy Heart ever guarded be!” . - (Eighteenth century poem by Tadhg ; O’Suileabhan.)