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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: he blessed her womb, and the baby disappeared
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
St. Áed mac Bricc was an Irish saint, a contemporary of Patrick and Brigid. His life contains some fabulous stories (condensed version here; translation of complete life here if you scroll down past the commentary).
Most of the stories are similar to what you read in other saints stories of that place and time. There's one, though, that is unlike any I've ever read:
quote:
One day, Áed, in the course of his travels, came to another community of holy virgins which is called Druimm Ard, where they received him into the lodging with great joy. As Áed was being served he watched the girl serving him and took note of her belly, which was beginning to swell with the child she was carrying. He got up quickly without eating anything, so that he could flee from the place. Then, in the presence of everyone, she confessed that she had sinned secretly and she did penance. St Áed blessed her womb and immediately the child disappeared as if it had never been there.
What you expect to come after the blessing is to be told that the child would become a great saint or some such. Instead, you get the saint performing a miraculous abortion for a woman who is clearly pretty far along in her pregnancy. What do you make of that? Do you know of anything parallel in the lives of any other saints?
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Hmm. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
My first thought was about his urge to flee. The two elements, of the fleeing a place where he thought the women were breaking their vows (presumably, I suppose he may have thought that they would attempt to seduce him, like the castles of women Galahad refused to help in his grail quest) and the releasing the woman from her pregnancy seem in opposition. Let alone what the abortion meant to the writer.
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
I wonder if the point of the miracle was to turn her back into a virgin, as if she had never had sex or had been pregnant at all. Still, it is pretty strange even by hagiographic standards.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
I think it reveals an attitude that pregnancy is her punishment for breaking her vows. When she repents and confesses her punishment is repealed.
It's an attitude still seen in some so-called "pro-life" circles.
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Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
Why'd he bless her womb, and not her?
(And, erm, where were his fingers when he was blessing it?)
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Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
The whole thing makes me cranky. First of all, if there's a sinner present, why should a holy man flee? Stay and do your duty, man. Bring the sinners to repentance, if you can, and they will.
Second, for freaking goodness sakes. Bless the repentant sinner, not some body part. Periodically I have to read stuff like this that makes me feel like the author/saint/whoever sees a woman as nothing but a womb on legs, and it makes me grrrrrrrrrr.
Third, the baby disappears--what? Is it not a living soul of concern to God? So did it go to heaven, or what? I've never known God to simply undo the results of sin, usually it's ahead and forward THROUGH the consequences, redeeming them as God goes. I agree with Josephine that it would have been much more the expected thing to have the child end up a great saint or something. Redeem the situation, don't undo it.
Eh, enough crabbiness. I'll take myself away now.
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Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Nice one, SPif.
OK, here's my convoluted speculation, and I am basing it on a similar speculation I had when I first read the verse in Deuteronomy that dealt with a woman drinking what strongly resembles and abortificant serum of some sort-- I wonder, if under all the convoluted prescriptions the real message is, "If your pregnancy is unwanted, go talk to a priest."
Similarly, I wonder if the saint, or whatever cleric the saint was based on, provided a place for women to go when they had caught pregnant under inhospitable conditions. Maybe this folk story was a way to pass the message, 'If you are in trouble, find the religious community run by this man."
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Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
I have nothing new to offer but wanted to say that find this topic and the comments very interesting.
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Similarly, I wonder if the saint, or whatever cleric the saint was based on, provided a place for women to go when they had caught pregnant under inhospitable conditions. Maybe this folk story was a way to pass the message, 'If you are in trouble, find the religious community run by this man."
It would certainly beat being forced to go to the Communities that ran the Magdalen laundries as happened in more recent history.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
This is fairly complicated, but he's a fairly well-known saint here, usually under the name of Aodh. Interestingly the place where he made his foetal imprint before birth can still be visited today! Cures headaches apparently.
Early Irish saints 'Life's' are chocked full to the brim with this type of thing and they make very difficult reading today if you aren't familiar with the style of literature - and that is precisely what they are. There aren't historical records in the way that we would understand that today. Very often they can be referencing what we might today consider to be obscure passages of scripture. At other times it's easy to see what they are alluding to - the Exodus, the Crucifixion, the disciples running away; whatever it may be, all wrapped up in a lovely new 'modern' tale. Essentially their concern was to tie their lives to scripture and they quite literally used scripture as the lens. This may be happening here, or to make things more complicated, it may be a reference to a local custom or folk tale that has simply been lost.
The other possibility is that it is humour. Humour in Irish saint's 'Life's' is very odd to be honest. There are tales of extreme piety, like standing neck deep in freezing waters for a 48 hour Vigil while standing on one leg and having a fish nibble your bits. These tales are often humorous warning tales of misplaced piety that were most certainly not taken seriously by their first readers. In this instance, it could be a joke or a reference to some humorous incident that we simply cannot decipher anymore. Some of the humour in these texts is really what can only be described as bawdy pub talk and if read in church would make you blush. Inuendo was commonly used; as an example, in Moinnina's text (about an abbess and a group of nuns) a local king waxes lyrical for some pages about why these totally gorgeous nuns don't seem to have a taste for meat.
The last possibility is the one considered to be the most likely by many, not least by Pádraig Ó Riain, one of the foempost authorities on early Irish Saints and saint's 'Life's'. This particular tale comes in a section thought to date later than the original text (sometime between 700-850) and is thought to date to the period of Augustinian expansion in Ireland between 1100 and 1200. If this is the case, this tale might be a warning tale used to enforce the strictness of common practice throughout the Irish church. Before this period, abbots and abbesses, monks and nuns, Bishop's and saint's very often married and had children. The Augustinians wanted to bring a common practice of celibacy in line with Rome and to finally secure the diocesan system. It may be that they have this tale written in as an example of the lack of celibacy as a sin.....or something. It can be seen elsewhere at work in a process of homogenisation; in the Annals of the Four Masters for instance, O'Cleary writes out certain things he finds a little troublesome, so Abbot's successors become monks or brothers rather than 'sons' and he's rather careful to make sure that the word 'episcopus' does not appear next to any entry that has a feminine whiff about it.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Early Irish saints 'Life's' are chocked full to the brim with this type of thing and they make very difficult reading today if you aren't familiar with the style of literature - and that is precisely what they are. There aren't historical records in the way that we would understand that today.
I'm familiar with hagiography, and I understand that they're not history or biography. However, that doesn't mean that, when you read hagiography, you can just wave your hands and say, "That never happened, so just ignore it." Whether the exact event happened or not, the fact that the story is told and retold means that the story meant something to the people telling it.
It's quite possible that the meaning has been lost and can't be found again. But I would think that a story like this is so odd that it would have been mentioned elsewhere, providing clues to what people meant by it when they were telling it.
I'd never heard of Pádraig Ó Riain before, though. Thanks for mentioning him. I'm going to have to put his "Dictionary of Irish Saints" on my wish list!
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
If it means anything, i suspect it means "woukdn't it be awesome if we could get out of a sticky situation this easily?" Because, of course, if he was doing the job properly he'd have restored her virginity at the same time. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Josephine:
quote:
I'd never heard of Pádraig Ó Riain before, though. Thanks for mentioning him. I'm going to have to put his "Dictionary of Irish Saints" on my wish list!
Tis good and well worth the money, even if a little scant in places, but he is extremely thorough in listing pretty much every Irish saint (even those that may be overlaps arising from confusions regarding local namings).
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
As far as super-powers go it is an odd one.
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It is better to be Kind than right.
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Charlie-in-the-box
Shipmate
# 17954
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Posted
Quote: Periodically I have to read stuff like this that makes me feel like the author/saint/whoever sees a woman as nothing but a womb on legs, and it makes me grrrrrrrrrr.
I almost blew all my beer all over the computer screen picturing a womb on legs.....my sides hurt from laughing. Thanks for that.
This story reminds me that being a virgin is all that matters. Once you've had sex....you are forever scarred. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
[ 05. January 2014, 18:35: Message edited by: Charlie-in-the-box ]
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Charlie-in-the-box
http://rosarygirl1962.blogspot.com/
Posts: 55 | From: Island of Misfit Heretics | Registered: Jan 2014
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Charlie-in-the-box:
This story reminds me that being a virgin is all that matters. Once you've had sex....you are forever scarred.
Why do you think it implies that?
It suggests to me rather that the saint's holiness is sufficient to erase all trace of the sin, even a sin that he initially felt to be utterly repugnant.
I can't say I'm too comfortable with the story, but I think it's at least an argument against sexual sin since carrying some sort of indelible taint, rather than the reverse.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
Being brought up with a combination of Presbyterianism and Anglicanism (in Sydney) I know nothing about the saint stories and hagiography but my first impression is that it is very interesting and I think I kind of like it. It sounds a weird tale to our modern ears but in its day i wonder that it wasn't quite a feminist tale.
To my initial, ignorant (?) reading it doesn't at all view the woman as a womb on legs I like the fact that it recognises the woman in her own right, it is the foetus that seems a mark of sin and something disposable, rather than the woman an incubator whose life is inconsequential compared to the "innocent child's" which is what we usually see. It is worrisome from a life begins at conception viewpoint but I like it for that-says to me things are far from simple.
As for the fleeing thing I like that also, the Saint's about face says that nobody, not even sinful, "fallen women" are beyond redemption and frankly, at the time I believe being an unmarried woman was a terrible position to be in.
I particularly like Huai's interpretation too.
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