September 9th. St. Ciaran [Kieran] of Clonmacnoise.

St. Ciaran is a fine example of the freedom of spirit and nearness to nature associated with early Celtic Christianity. A carpenter's son, born in about 512 he became a pupil of St. Finnian, before joining a monastic community on the island of Aran and later being ordained priest. He later chose the site of Clonmacnoise, on the River Shannon in County Meath, to found what was to be one of Ireland's most flourishing religious communities (only extinguished in 1552). Ciaran died in about 545, when the community was only one year old, but his spirit lived on. In particular, the succession to the abbacy at Clonmacnoise was not hereditary, an unusual and radical situation at the time. Like many Irish saints, Ciaran's life is associated with animals - tradition says that as a student he used to have a tame fox take his written work to his master Finnian in a satchel, until the fox outgrew its tameness and ate the contents. Ciaran's holiness was so obvious that many others were jealous and prayed that he would die young; in this they seem to have been successful. He told his disciples to leave his body on a hilltop "like a stag", as he had little concern for relics and remains. His wish was not fulfilled and his shrine was a place of pilgrimage for centuries. In the National Gallery in Dublin is a crozier, the Clonmacnoise crozier, which is believed to date from Ciaran's time.