She also had a foster father who was a druid. Bitel claims Brigit’s father was a client of the king of Leinster who then enslaved the mother, Broicsech who became a slave to Brigit’s father Dubthac. She is from the fifth and sixth centuries, born in 452 the daughter of a king in some sources, while Lisa M. Saint Brigit is widely known and venerated, second only to Saint Patrick in Ireland. Once each figure has been introduced, we’ll examine the similarities and differences of both, along with our question regarding spiritual and personal agency and leadership. Beginning with the Abbess, Saint Brigit of Ireland, and then on to Amma Syncletica, one of the leading Desert Mothers, examining each of their biographical and hagiographical portraits and teachings in the case of Amma Syncletica. This paper takes a comparitive look at two key figures from the fourth through sixth centuries. Sayings from the ammas quoted within were found in a number of places in lieu of access to the Benedicta Ward’s Sayings of the Desert Fathers, which are all noted. While a copy of The Life of the Blessed & Holy Syncletica, was not directly available, the hagiographical work is described in great detail in a number of places, including in papers by Mary Forman entitled Amma Syncletica: A Spirituality of Experiences, and another by Susan Dreyer OSB, Amma Syncletica: Urban Ascetic and Desert Mother. Cogitosus’ hagiography is also found in Maeve Brigid Callan’s book Sacred Sisters, and geographic details can be found in the Bethu Brigte. Brigit the Virgin by Cogitosus and the Irish Life of Brigit both are found in Oliver Davies’ Celtic Spirituality. Primary sources evaluated here include The Life of St. ![]() An embodied, active spirituality bears fruit through good deeds. ![]() Their lives serve as a reminder that women are effective leaders, ministers, and healers, capable of making disciples, and that women can thrive with the mutual support of their brothers. As women have done for centuries, women embody and express their faith and spirituality through the everyday, mundane, as well as the miraculous, as Brigit’s story highlights. Women who sought to diverge from the path dictated by their families found refuge in the wilderness and deserts of Egypt, Syria, Israel, and throughout Ireland.īy looking at two dynamic and diverse examples in the figures of Saint Brigit of Kildare of Ireland and Amma Syncletic of the Egyptian Desert, we can see that their embodied faith was just as important, if not more important than the doctrines argued by their male contemporaries. Religious and monastic communities provided the space, practices, and freedom to choose a life outside of societal expectations for a woman whose value was only as a wife and as a mother, with childbearing being a great risk. Women of the fourth and fifth centuries sought freedom and agency in spiritual and religious communities through lives that embodied devotion and charity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |