Happy feast of St. Columba! I would have liked to be on Iona today to talk to you
about St. Columba and just to take you everywhere, from the abbey to St. Oran's
and then to the place where they landed on the island, but because of this
lockdown we cannot get there, and it's very frustrating because Iona is just
10-15 minutes away from the monastery. Instead I'm at Kilvickeon, which is
an abandoned monastery, most probably built in the first millennium and
dedicated to St. Eoghan, which was apparently a distant cousin or a nephew
of Saint Columba. So I'll go in the abandoned church and I will tell
you something about St. Columba from there.
We all think of St. Columba as being the Scottish Saint by definition,
but St. Columba was actually born in Ireland, he was an Irish monk, an Irish priest, he
lived his entire life in the 6th century, and before he sailed to nowadays
Scotland to the Isle of Iona, he had already founded a number of very
important monasteries in Ireland. He was also one of the students of St. Finnian
and is counted to this day as one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Around 560 he
got caught into a controversy regarding of Psalter. Apparently what happened is
that he borrowed a Psalter from St. Finnian and created a copy of that Psalter, a
handwritten new illuminated manuscript, and then there was some sort of
misunderstanding regarding returning the Psalter to St. Finnian or returning the
copy of the Psalter to St. Finnian and what was a misunderstanding between two holy
people degenerated, as often happens, into a battle, into a real fight between their
respective tribes and their villages, and in this battle, human lives were lost.
Because of this misfortunate event and this tragic loss of life, St. Columba was
asked to leave Ireland and basically live at least part of his life into
exile. Of course, St. Columba could have spent one or two years on one of the
many islands around Ireland and then just returned and lived the rest of his
life in one of the monasteries he had founded, but because he felt so guilty, he
felt so remorseful for what had happened, and he wanted to offer true repentance
for the disaster of those lost lives, he actually decided himself
to leave Ireland for good, to leave Ireland permanently, and in fact when he
sets sail towards Iona his only criterion regarding where he would stop
and where he would live this life of repentance was that that island had to
be far enough for him not to be able to see his home country, Ireland, anymore. And
so towards the beginning of the 560s he set sail with twelve companions, twelve other
monastics, among whom my own beloved St. Oran as well, and he just sailed north,
and all he knew was that he would keep on sailing north until he would reach
this island where, looking back south, he would no longer be able to see his home
country, and this is how St. Columba ended up landing on Iona. There is a
landing place called St. Columba's Bay on Iona, and at the very centre of the
bay there is this hill, which to this day is known as the hill of the turning back
to Ireland, because by tradition St. Columba climbed on top of this hill and
looked south, and that was the first time when he could no longer see Ireland. So
they decided to settle on Iona and to make that little islet a place of
life-long repentance for a mistake that wasn't really his mistake, but it was something
that had started with him, it was the fruit of his actions. There are so many
reasons why I love St. Columba, but this must be the most important one for me at
least, because he brings before the eyes of my soul the example of true
repentance, and he teaches me a lesson which is very difficult, but it is
absolutely vital: God can take anything and turn anything into our salvation. As
long as our repentance is honest, as long as our repentance is not played
safely, as long as we don't mimic repentance but we burn in our repentance,
God receives it and turns even our mistakes
into fuel for our salvation. If you think about it, Iona itself and everything
that these monastics have done there, the beautiful building, the hundreds of
lives monastic lives that found their salvation on that island, the hundreds of
thousands of pilgrims from the sixth century all the way to today who go
there and are refreshed in their faith through the prayers of the Saints who
lived there, the beautiful illuminated manuscripts, the conversion of the
Scottish nation, all these things, all these things would have been lost had
St. Columba not fallen that one time. Without that one mistake of his, he would
never have left Ireland. And of course, God only knows what his life would have
looked like, but we know that Iona, this amazing centre of Christianity and this
centre of Celtic life, and a centre of spirituality to this day would not have
existed, and nothing, nothing connected to that beautiful tradition that started
there would have existed. It should come as no surprise to anyone that we all sin
and that we all fall. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Saints
themselves fall and they sin. But the image of this beautiful tradition, of
this amazing monastery, and all the beautiful things that happened there,
spiritual and material, I mean, think of the Book of Kells and
think of all the wonderful saints who lived and became who they were simply
starting on Iona, think of the heritage of that beautiful monastery, think of a
place like Lindisfarne, for instance, in Northumbria, that would not have
existed, because Lindisfarne was founded by St. Aidan, and St. Aidan was a monk
from Iona; all these things would not have existed without two things: without
St. Columba's humanity, which led him into sin, and without St. Columba's
repentance. And we all share in his humanity, humanity is the same for all of
us: we are all weak, we all fall, we all sin, whether we like it or not, whether
we accept it or admit to it or not; but what makes St. Columba St. Columba
and what makes us us is the intensity of his repentance, the fact that he didn't
choose the easy way out, the fact that he didn't just accept the canon of
repentance that was given to him, but actually took it upon himself to do much
more, to act not based on some sort of a logical assessment of what that sin
meant, but to actually act on his heart, based on what his heart was saying.
Repentance can not only wash away a sin, but it can also turn our sin, our fall,
our weakness into our strength. The heritage of St. Columba, this beautiful
monastery on Iona with everything that it contains, the heritage of St. Columba
is based on his fall and on his true repentance for that fall, and there is
something for each of us in that lesson. May St. Columba be with all of us. May
St. Columba teach us how to offer true repentance to the extent of the pain and
the suffering that we feel in our hearts. May we learn not to negotiate not to
compromise, not to dilute our repentance, and when
we've learned true repentance, then God will do the rest. Our fall, our sin, our
weakness can be turned into the fuel of our salvation, if only, if only we offer
true repentance, a life-long repentance, as you see in the eyes of this old monk,
already a holy monk, already a holy man recognised by everyone, but in his eyes,
even towards the end of his life, that sight of true repentance lived on. May we
all be blessed and may we learn that for a repentant heart there is no real fall,
that for a repentant heart there is only Christ and only Heaven. I love you all in
Christ and I keep you all in my prayers. Please keep me and the monastery in
yours. Amen.