St. Patrick and the Reek
BY kind permission of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, a 20-page booklet, written by Fr. Angelus, O.F.M., Cap, was published to mark 1,500 years (441 to 1941) since St. Patrick set foot on Croagh Patrick.
Over the coming weeks, in the run-up to the annual pilgrimage to the Reek on Sunday, July 30, Tom Gillespie is publishing extracts from the publication, The Croagh Patrick Pilgrimage, in his weekly column in The Connaught Telegraph.
Here's Part Two:
Fr. Angelus wrote: Few historical events of our distant past are based on proofs as strong and convincing as this which establish St. Patrick's connection with the Reek. After the lapse of 15 centuries we are able to establish not only that he ascended the mountain, but we can also fix the year and even the very day on which he climbed it, and the length of time he spent upon the summit.
The learned Professor Bury has stated: “The confined space at its summit is one spot where we feel some assurance that we can stand literally in Patrick's footsteps, and realise as we look southward over the desolate moors and tarns of Murrisk, northward across the bay to the hills of Burrishoole and Erris, and then westward beyond the islets to the spaces of the ocean, we are viewing a scene on which Patrick for many days looked forth with his bodily eye.â€
Our ancient records such as the Tripartite Life, Tirechan's notes, the Book of Armagh, and the Annals of Ulster furnish us with the particulars of St. Patrick's sojourn on the Reek, and from these sources we learn that he ascended the mountain on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday in the year AD 441, and remained on the summit until the following Easter Sunday.
When St. Patrick had been in Ireland about eight years his missionary journeys brought him to a district in Co. Mayo known as Achad-Fobair - the field of the spring - since corrupted into Aughagower. This place, now a parish of the Archdiocese of Tuam, deserves special mention in connection with St. Patrick and the Reek.
It is situated a few miles from Westport, and, although the ivy-clad ruins of a round tower and the crumbling walls of an ancient church still to be seen in the centre of the village do not go back to the time of St. Patrick, there are in the locality holy wells believed to have been used by the apostle baptising his converts.
The present parish priest (1950), Rev. Anthony O'Toole, guards with zealous care these memories of the past, and has gleaned from his oldest parishioners an amount of interesting tradition regarding St. Patrick's connection with the parish.
The people feel they have a spacial claim on St. Patrick as it was from this village he ascended the Reek, and they glory in holding that if the mountain has given St. Patrick to Ireland, Aughagower gave him the mountain.
I had thought I had seen Croagh Patrick from every point of view until during one day on my visits to Aughagower I saw it in a new and lovely setting that brought out all its beauty. Later on a summer evening, or perhaps I should say early in the night, I was walking along a hilly road outside the village.
The Reek stood out clearly; the pilgrim's path could be easily traced as it led to the first ‘station', and on to the summit. The cone and the oratory were quite visible and seemed as if they were framed in a wreath of snow-white, fleecy clouds, encircling them in a halo, whilst the full moon illuminated the whole mountain in a glow of golden brightness.
Natural scenery does not change with the ages, and I thought thus must St. Patrick have sometimes seen the Reek in all its glory. No wonder it appealed to him, inviting him to ascend its lofty soaring summit.
As Dr. Healy expressed it: “The beautiful cone on this hill since called Croagh Patrick rises just above the low hills surrounding Aughagower on the west; and it appears so near, so attractive, that the heaven-aspiring soul of Patrick must have longed with an ardent longing to reach its summit.
“Such a man could hardly see Croagh Patrick so near without longing to ascent it, for the lone grandeur of its soaring peak has a strange fascination for the beholder, and attracts the eye from every point of view.â€
Pilgrims today (1941), as they climb Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday, can be absolutely certain that St. Patrick made the same difficult journey on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday in the year 441, and remained there in prayer and fasting until the Saturday before Easter Sunday.
This it is that has made Croagh Patrick a holy mountain and a place of pilgrimage. After 1,500 years, St. Patrick calls to us from that mountain top, and as pilgrims we answer his summons, scale its giddy heights, to follow in his footsteps, to walk where Patrick walked, to kneel where Patrick knelt, to pray where Patrick prayed.
To quote, once more, Professor Bury: “Ever since, that western mountain has been associated with the foreign teacher, not only bearing his name, but drawing multitudes who, every year as the anniversary of his death comes around, toil up the steep ascent of the Reek, imbued with the same feelings which moved the minds of Christians - clerics and laymen - in the days of Patrick.â€
As the learned professor here states, pilgrims were accustomed to ascend the Reek on the feast of St. Patrick, as is mentioned in the Annals of Lough Ce, and at the present time, a number go up the mountain on the last Friday of July, known as Garland Friday, but, as will be seen later, the traditional day of the pilgrimage is the last Sunday of July.
Park 3 - The pilgrimage – will be printed in next Tuesday's print edition