St. Columba, Ireland, 521-597 (St. Columcille)
Feastday
9th June
Born
521
Died
597
Irish
royalty, the son of Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill clan. Bard. Miracle
worker. Monk at Moville; spiritual student of Saint Finnian. Priest. Itinerant
preacher and teacher throughout Ireland and Scotland. Spiritual teacher of
Saint Corbmac, Saint Phelim, and Saint Drostan. Travelled to Scotland in 563.
Exiled to Iona, he founded a monastic community there and served as its abbot
for twelve years. He and the monks of Iona, including Saint Baithen of Iona and
Saint Eochod, then evangelized the Picts, converting many, including King
Brude. Attended the Council of Drumceat, 575. Legend says he wrote 300 books.1
1. Taken from the Patron
Saints Index at http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintc17.htm
“Hearken,
thou, until I relate things that shall come to pass in the latter ages of the
world. Great carnage shall be made, justice shall be outraged, multitudinous
evils, great suffering shall prevail, and many unjust laws will be
administered. The time shall come when they will not perform charitable acts,
and truth shall not remain in them, and truth shall not remain in them. They
will plunder the property of the church, they will be continually sneering at
each other, they will employ them at reading and writing. They will scoff at
acts of humility; there will come times of dark affliction, of scarcity,
monarchs will be addicted to falsehood. Neither justice nor covenant will be
observed by any one people of the race of Adam; they will become hard-hearted
and penurious, and will be devoid of piety. The clergy will become fosterers,
in consequence of the tidings of wretchedness; churches will be held in bondage
by the all-powerful men of the day. Judges will administer injustice, under the
sanction of powerful, outrageous kings; the common people will adopt false
principles. Oh, how lamentable shall be their position! Doctors of science will
have cause to murmur, they will become niggardly in spirit; the aged will mourn
in deep sorrow, on account of the woeful times that shall prevail. Cemeteries
shall become all red, in consequence of the wrath that will follow sinners;
wars and contentions shall range in the bosoms of every family. Excellent men
shall be steeped in poverty, the people will become inhospitable to their
guests, the voice of the parasite shall be more agreeable to them than the
melody of the harp touched by the sage's finger. In consequence of the general
prevalence of sinful practices, humility shall produce no fruit. The professors
of science shall not be rewarded, amiability shall not characterize the people;
prosperity and hospitality shall not exist, but niggardliness and destitution
will assume their place. The changes of the seasons shall produce only half
their verdure, the regular festivals of the Church will not be observed; all
classes of men shall be filled with hatred and enmity toward each other. The
people will not associate affectionately with each other during the great
festivals of the seasons; they will live devoid of justice and rectitude, up
from the youth of tender age to the aged. The clergy shall be led into error by
the misinterpretation of their reading; the relics of the saints will be considered
powerless, every race of mankind will become wicked! Young women will become
unblushing, the aged people will be of irascible temper; the kine will seldom
be productive, as of old; lords will become murderers. Young people will
decline in vigor, they will despise those who have hoary hair; there will be no
standard by which morals may be regulated, and marriages will be solemnized
without witnesses. Troublous shall be the latter ages of the world, the
dispositions of the generality of men I will point out, from the time they
shall abandon hospitable habits -- with the view of winning honor for
themselves, they will hold each other as objects for ridicule. The possessors
of abundance shall fall through the multiplicity of their falsehoods;
covetousness shall take possession of every glutton, and when satisfied their
arrogance shall know no bounds. Between mother and daughter anger and bitter
sarcasms shall continuously exist; neighbours will become treacherous, cold,
and false-hearted towards each another. The gentry will become grudgeful, with
respect to their trifling donations; and blood relations shall become cool
towards each other; Church livings shall become lay property. Such is the
description of the people who shall live in the ages to come; more unjust and
iniquitous shall be very succeeding race of men. The trees shall not bear the
usual quantity of fruit, fisheries shall become unproductive and the earth
shall not yield its usual abundance. Inclement weather and famine shall come
and fishes shall forsake the rivers. The people will be oppressed for lack of
food, shall pine to death. Dreadful storms and hurricanes shall afflict them.
Numberless diseases shall then prevail. Fortifications shall be built narrow
during these times of dreadful danger…” 1
“Then
a great event shall happen. I fail not to notice it: rectitude shall be its
specious motive, and if ye be not truly holy, a more sorrowful event could not
possibly happen…” 2
“I
cannot observe after the death of Conn, aught but a sameness among his kindred
clans, until the son of Ruadh from the glen appear, the span of the kingly
reign shall be but brief. After the blameless son of Ruadh, Cathbarr from
Cruachin shall assume the sovereign power, and though many fraudulent acts will
be committed during his reign, he will be upon the whole friend to the church…”
3
“After
the conclusion of a long and blood rule of Ireland by England, the garment of
death will descend and the rowing wheels will arrive. Ten hundred compartments
shall be in the fleet, and each compartment shall contain ten hundred men. The
armament will spread its forces over the sea and land and rear up mounds with
mangled bones. They will inflict on their enemies a severe, flesh-hewing course
of warfare to such a degree that scarce a man of them shall escape. The fleet
of rowing vehicles will remain two short years and a half…” 4
“This
fleet that will come across the sea shall consist of ten ships, ten hundred
fairy barks, ten hundred boats, ten hundred cock-boats and ten hundred spacious
skiffs. The principal seaport belonging to the country abroad shall look to the
west. Such a large assemblage of men never before met in the east or west; and
never again shall such a muster congregate while Ireland is a seagirt island…” 5
“The
nobility shall sink into humble life before the great war; that war will be
proclaimed against them from beyond the seas, by means of which the
frantically-proud race shall be subdued. The enemies of the English shall be
aroused into activity --- they who reside in the eastern and western parts of
the world --- so that they will engage in a battle on the circumscribed sea, in
consequence of which the English will be defeated…” 6
“A
fleet belonging to a foreign country will come hither, manned by the
descendants of Golimh of the gold-embroidered garments, they shall lay
prostrate the Gauls of the ships, and liberate the people who have been held in
bondage. This fleet that shall arrive here from the east, cannot be impeded by
the mighty ocean; through the impetuosity of its noisy breathing, its strange
appearance shall be marked by flaming mouths. They will engage in furious
conflict, it shall be a wonder that it will not be a mutual slaughter, the
conflict of those who will come hither to sever the intricate knot…” 7
“After
the English shall be defeated in this battle, they shall be harassed from every
quarter; like a fawn surrounded by a pack of voracious hounds, shall be the
position of the English among their enemies. The English afterwards shall
dwindle down into a disreputable people, and every obstacle shall be opposed to
their future prosperity; because they did not (rather: as long as they do not)
observe justice and rectitude, they shall be forever after deprived of power!
Three warnings will be given them before their final fall, the burning of the
Tower of the great kings; the conflagration of the dockyard of the English, and
the burning of the Treasury where gold is deposited….” 8
“Hearken, hearken to what will happen in the latter days of the world! There will be great wars; unjust laws will be enacted ; the Church will be despoiled of her property; people will read and write a great deal; but charity and humility will be laughed to scorn and the common people will believe in false ideas…” 9
Author’s
note:
The
first two warnings may have been fulfilled in World War II, when German air
raids bombed the Tower of London and the dockyards. The burning of the Treasury
has yet to occur. St. Columbcille concluded his prophecy with a promise of
prosperity and the destruction of Ireland: “This new Eire shall be Eire the
prosperous; great shall be her renown and her power, and there shall not be on
the surface of the wide earth a country found to be equal to this fine
country... Seven years before the last day, the sea shall submerge Eire by one
inundation.”....and of the monastery destroyed by the Scottish reformers of the
16th Century “…In Iona of my
heart, Iona of my love, Instead of monks' voices shall be lowing of cattle, But
ere the world come to an end Iona shall be as it was.”
References
1. Rev R. Gerald.
Culleton The Prophets and Our Times (Tan Books and Publishers 1941) p 128-130
2. ibid p 130
3. ibid p 130
4. ibid p 130-131
5. ibid p 131
6. ibid p 131
7. ibid p 131
8. ibid p 131-132
9. Yves Dupont, Catholic
Prophecy (Tan Books and Publishers 1970) p 13