Saint for the 1^st January 2004
Saint Concordius

Saint Concordius spent most of his adult life in the desert, meditating and praying to God. About the year 178, when the Emperor Marcus Aurelius was presiding over a systematic persecution of Christians, Concordius was captured and brought to trial at Spoleto. The governor of Umbria, Torquatus, promised to release the saint if only he would renounce his faith and worship a stature of Jupiter.  Concordius refused, so Torquatus ordered his soldiers to beat him with clubs.

Still Concordius seemed not to care about Torquatus's threats but treated the governor with scorn. When Torquatus demanded his name, Concordius merely answered, 'I have already told you, I am a Christian and confess to Jesus Christ.'

The governor decided to torture the saint on a rack. While this was being done, Concordius sang a hymn of praise to Jesus. Torquatus flung Concordius into prison and two days later soldiers came to behead him. They made one more attempt to persuade him to make a sacrifice to an idol. Instead the saint spat at it. This was too much for his persecutors, who executed him immediately.

                                                Richard. F. Sibley

 Saint for the 1^st February 2004

Brigid, was a daughter of an Irish chieftain named Dubhthach, and his wife Brocca, Brigid was born towards the middle of the fifth century. Very early in her life Brigid decided to become a nun, and when she was about eighteen she settled with seven other like minded girls near Croghan Hill in order to devote herself to God's service. Then around the year 470, she founded the first convent of Ireland's history, at a place known as Cill-Dara ('the church of the oak') and now called Kildare. Almost certainly this convent housed both monks and nuns, with the saintly Brigid presiding as abbess over both.

Even as a child Brigid showed especial love for the poor. When her mother sent her to collect butter, the child gave it all away. Her generosity in adult life was legendary: it was recorded that if she gave a drink of water to a thirsty stranger, the liquid turned to milk; when she sent a barrel of beer to one Christian community, this proved enough to satisfy seventeen more.

Brigid saw the needs of the spirit went hand in hand. Dedicated to improving spiritual as well as the material lives of those around her, Brigid made her monastery a remarkable house of learning, producing exquisite works of art, copying and illuminating precious manuscripts and books, educating those who sat at her own feet and the feet of her followers.

During an important synod of the Irish church, one of the holy fathers announced that he had dreamed that the Blessed Virgin Mary would appear among the assembled Christians. When Brigid arrived the father cried, ‘There is the holy maiden I saw in my dream. ‘So Brigid became known as ‘the Mary of Gael'.

She died on the 1st, February 525. When the Danes invaded Ireland her body was taken from Kildare to Downpatrik, to be buried beside the remains of St Patrick, who, like Brigid, is a patron of Ireland.