Birthplace: Ireland
Date of Birth and Death: 543-615
Feast Day: November 23rd
Notable: Abbot of Luxeuil and Bobbio

Life:Born in Leinster Ireland, Columbanus was a handsome, well educated young man who had an eye for attractive women. When a female hermit advised him to turn his back on temptation, he took her literally. against his mother’s will, he became a monk to Congall’s monastery at Bangor where he studied and taught for many years.

During his mid-forties, he became a missionary and sailed to Gaul with 12 other monks to live in “voluntary exile for Christ”. Years of barbarian invasions had weakened religious practice in Gaul. Columbanus founded the monastery of Annegray on land donated by the king of Burgundy. it became so popular that he soon built another at Luxeuil and a third at Fontes. His supervision of the abbeys was stricter than the one the Frankish Church was accustomed to and the local bishops began to resent his presence. Columbanus defended his leadership but his refusal to bless the king’s illegitimate children caused him and his fellow monks to be deported. However, their ship was forced back by a storm so the monks continued on with their mission.

Traveling throughout Europe, facing opposition wherever they stayed, they preached the word of God. Finally, they ended up in Italy where they found acceptance and built a monastery at Bobbio where Columbanus eventually died.

It is through the monasteries that he built at Bobbio and Luxeuil that he is known for as these places influence religion and learning in Europe for centuries to come and today the Missionary Society of St Columban exists to bring a Christian perspective in three areas: working for justice, caring for our planet, and promote dialogue with other cultures.

Prayer

O give us patience and steadfastness in adversity
strengthen our weakness, comfort us in trouble and distress,
help us to fight; grant to us that in true obedience and contention of mind
we may give over our own will to You our Father in all things,
according to the example of Your beloved Son;
that in adversity we grudge not but offer up ourselves to You
without contradictions;
O give us a willing and cheerful mind;
that we may gladly suffer and bear all things for Your sake.