Stepping Out in Rome with St. Brigid

As many of you know, I was born in Ireland to parents who immigrated to New York City when I was 11 months old. As some of you also know, a friend of my mother’s brought a plaster statue of Saint Brigid to Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital on the day I was born. She has been in the family ever since, another immigrant with us and a traveler from New York to Michigan to New York State to Maryland, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and then update New York again. She has a few chips and her nose could use some work but she is still with me. It’s only in recent years that I’ve paid her due attention, displaying her in a greater position of honor in the house and trying to take her out on her feast day, February 1. So it seemed appropriate to bring her along when we moved to Rome. I’ve been looking forward to taking her out in Rome on her feast day …  

                                                               

Lily and I walked her over to the Vatican this morning. We had hoped to catch the tail end of the Papal audience that typically occurs on Wednesday mornings when the Pope is in town but, for some reason, it didn’t happen today. So we took photos in and near the square instead. 

See Brigid up at the base of the three papal crowns ... 

.... here ....

It is amazing how much like spring it felt today, after so many weeks of unusually cold weather. (That’s fitting since, in the old European calendar, February 1 is the first day of spring and May 1 the first day of summer: the only way to make sense of midsummer, which happens on June 21 or 22.) It almost seemed like someone had turned a switch, not only on the weather but on the tourists and the hawkers—the line for St. Peter’s was longer than we have seen in a couple of months.

Then we walked over to Borgo Pio with its many stores selling “articoli religiosi.” Shortly after arriving in Rome when Brad and I walked along that street, I had noticed a store featuring dozens of little golden crowns in the window (along with golden chalice and paten sets and elaborate monstrances). 

I had decided then that I might buy a crown for my Brigid (even if it might be inappropriate for an abbess like herself), so Lily and I found the store and went in. The owners, elderly father and son, spoke very little English but we managed to explain that it was our saint’s birthday (Lily’s middle name is Brigene, meaning little Brigid) and we wanted to get her a crown. 

We decided on one with red "gemstones" to match the bible under her arm ….

 Later that day, we traveled south of the Coliseum, near St. John Lateran, which is Rome’s cathedral. (The Pope is not only head of the Catholic Church but also Bishop of Rome, and St. John Lateran is his church in that function.) We went to visit Villa Irlandese, which has been the Irish seminary in Rome since the 1600s. 

It has a small chapel with modern mosaics celebrating Ireland’s major saints, chief among them St. Brigid (second in line after St. Patrick). The young man who let us in was glad to hear the greeting “Happy St. Brigid’s Day.”

My St. Brigid and mosaic St. Brigid holding her plaited cross of reeds ... 

That evening, Lily and I make chicken soup with homemade tortellini. Tomorrow is Lily’s last day in Rome. Her wonderful boyfriend, Luke, went home yesterday and we really missed him tonight. The flowers on the table are a thank you gift from him.

A formal way to say hello in Irish is “Dia Duit,” meaning God to you. In response, one might say “Dia is Muire duit,” meaning God and Mary to you. The first person might then respond “Dia, Muire, agus Pádraig duit,” meaning God, Mary and St. Patrick to you. In which case, the second person (illustrating the position that St. Brigid holds) might say, “Dia, Muire, Pádraig, agus Bríd duit,” God, Mary, St. Patrick, and St. Brigid to you. This can go on indefinitely, they say, as there are hundreds of Irish saints … St. Brigid’s Day is big in many parts of Ireland, with making St. Brigid’s crosses an important part of the holiday …

Here are more details:

General information about the feast: http://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/02/brigids-belt-in-poetry-of-seamus-heaney.html

How to make a St. Brigid’s cross (from pipe-cleaners if you don’t have the appropriate rushes on hand): https://dontforgetyourshovel.com/2014/02/25/keeping-the-traditions-alive-st-brigids-crosses/

The tradition of tying pieces of cloth outside on the eve of St. Brigid’s Day for her to bless with healing properties as she walks the land with her little brown cow: http://www.irishamericanmom.com/2012/02/01/st-brigids-day/

Happy St. Brigid's Day!