Skellig Fragment

Skellig Fragment

Fragment of a document recently rediscovered in a remote location on a small island off the Atlantic coast of Europe.  Held in private ownership for specific reasons (Translated from the Latin Language and slightly adjusted for modern understanding)….

This glorious morning has just dawned, today being the high summer day, in the month of June in the year 786 Anno Domino:  As I sit here in our hermitage on the Skellig on the very western edge of civilization, I look out at the world beyond.  I look across the ocean to the mainland were our monastery is.  But I can see further than this.  In my mind’s eye I can picture the lands of Europe right across to the centre of the world the glorious city of Rome.  In the knowledge we have I can use my mind to travel further east into the lands where He, the Son of God, once walked amongst us. 

In my imagination I can also travel in time.  I can try and picture this land and its people before the Good News came from the east.  I know that our ancestors had a deep affinity with the divine nature of our world but they lived at a time before our saviour was born on earth and before the Good News could be heard.  Also I can try and imagine who will live on this sanctuary in another seven hundred years or even seven hundred years beyond that, if judgement day has not arrived.  I have to admit to myself that I have some knowledge of the world from the travellers who have recorded their experiences.  I also have some knowledge of historical events; I know the Greeks and the Romans were great pagan philosophers.  But I have to leave the future to the wild roaming of the mystics and their visions.

But all these musings are only one part of Our Lord’s creation.  We are here on the Skellig because of a different challenge.  We are here to try and understand ourselves as the children of God’s creation who are constantly being tempted by the evil one and this is not an easy task.  It is not just the physical hardships for our bodies that challenge us here but we are discomforted by the battle of the forces of good and evil within ourselves that we continually have to face.  Brother Cuirithir the mystic has had visions of the future times which he has tried to explain to us but as they make no sense to him they make no sense to me.  Some of his visions are very dark and foreboding.  Wars and violence, pillage and carnage we know about and try to understand their place in God’s creation.  But in Brother Cuirithir’s visions there are premonitions of darkness which do not relate to anything we can understand. 

I have this presumption, which may be a sin of pride, that we the brothers of the Skellig should leave some history of ourselves and our times to future generations.  Such a record is not just for passing interest but it may in some small way help even one individual in their search for meaning.  I know that it is possible that our building, our small stone church, our beehive huts may endure and they will reflect something of who we where and what we sought to do here.  But it may also be useful for some record to remain of an individual or small group that would throw light on the greater picture. 

I know that our Abbot would not be happy with my presumption, but he has not forbidden it either.  It may well be that future generations will fail to understand why we came to the Skellig and what we hoped to achieve here. We are here, as community, to praise and to live the praise of the wonder of God’s glorious Creation.  We believe that on our island our witness of God’s Creation enhances our prayers.  What glory is the roar from the sea and the crash of the mighty waves against the rocks below.  Glory, to God too when the storm is passed and the gentle flow of the calming sea returns to us.  What glory the clear blue sky with its ever changing cloud shapes and then the dark clouds that bring their walls of rain to replenish our water.  What glory the night sky sparkling with its countless stars and all the mysteries of the heavens. 

We are here, as individuals, to try and liberate ourselves from the dull thoughts of the world that crowd our minds.  But we are still only human and heaven is not easily won.  My thoughts even as we sing the holy psalms go dancing on paths that I dare not admit.  The more I try and control them the more they slip through my grasp. I know that this will stand against me on judgement day but sometimes they do take the path of virtue which I hope may be of some help to me, when I stand before Peter on the last day.  But If I myself was too leave a record for those who may wander this path in the ages to come what could I say?  Would it even be worth saying?  Maybe that is for others to judge and I see now why the Abbot might be against this project.  But I will proceed and I need to be brief for a number of reasons.

I have not found any magical formulas or any keys that would unlock the door of wisdom.  This record is just a personal observation that may be of some passing interest.  All that I have already said is part of my observation.  We all know that if we live we must also die.  Our small graveyard is home to those who bear witness to this.  It may well be my home too and maybe sooner than I would want to consider.  In order to join the community on the Skellig we all have given up many possible opportunities in the other world.  We could be warriors or poets, husbands and fathers or any of the other possibilities.  But we choose a different path or maybe this path chose us.  I am writing this record today because this night I will start my vigil above and alone on the south hermitage.  This trial will be my greatest challenge.  When the new person returns he may well not write another word or destroy what is already written here. 

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…The words above were written by me some years ago.  They were put away in a safe place and by chance I have just come across them again.  Since that time much has happened to me and to my community.  I have travelled extensively within the various centres that our communities have established.  I have lived and prayed for many years on the sanctuary of the pilgrim island of Iona in the monastery founded by our great patron St. Columcille.  As I had originally set these words out as a personal testimony I will continue in that focus and leave the great events to the official records of the historians. 

Looking back now I know that my whole future life was shaped by those glories years on the Skellig rock.  They were not easy years in any way but nothing valuable or well built ever comes out of ease.  That may be the most important lesson that I carry from the Skellig.  

I want to say that I still think that it is worth while leaving this short personal testimony which may by chance be found by someone in the future who in their graciousness may read it and say a prayer for the soul of the person who wrote it.  Because of pressing issues I cannot spend any more time at this stage on this document but I intend to store it in a place that it will be relatively undisturbed for some time, if ever.  At this time, I cannot see myself being in a position to add anything else here. 

May Christ and his Mother go with me on my judgement day and may His blessings and Her love be with you the person who may read this short record.