Columba

Scotland, besides, is so full of historic reminiscences and so favored by nature with splendid scenery that a visit to Europe is incomplete without a look upon its rugged hills, its romantic lakes, and lovely valleys, now made so interesting by the works of Sir Walter Scott and other writers.

The land once evangelized by Columba and his bands of missionary saints has besides an indescribable charm for a Catholic missionary.

He went, therefore, with great pleasure to Scotland, and he cannot speak too highly or too thankfully of the kindness which the venerable Archbishop of Glasgow, the bishops and the clergy he happened to meet with, showed him.

But with the exception of a Sunday sermon to oblige the good pastor of whatever locality he happened to pass through, it was his fixed intention not to speak publicly during his rather rapid progress through the country.

These laws were based on things like hospitality and justice and fairness.

The Iona community, which was founded by St. Colmcille in Scotland.

He's called St. Columba.

He was a disciple of St. Patrick, according to tradition.

That was a wonderful observation.

Yeah.

And it was in the context of our conversation about St. Colmcille.

Yes.

And what they did is they baptized that culture in the gospel.

So, for example, Columba, who's one of the Celtic saints, when he met the Druids, who were a religious order, a pagan religious order, he said to them, Christ is my high Druid.

He didn't get into a culture clash.

What he did is he baptized what he saw.

Now, there are real historical figures, not too far off from when Merlin existed, of whom we can say that there are figures like that.

So St. Columba, St. Columb, that founded Iona, and from Iona, you know, evangelized a lot of England, and after whom I'm named.

My name, Mal Columb, means disciple of Columb.

Columb was born in Ireland at a time when it wasn't clear which way Ireland was going to go.

And we would have had to envisage a kind of traffic of people travelling between the places.

And in fact, some of the literature that was written on Iona, including the biography of its founder, St. Columba, shows people traveling from here, there and everywhere and passing through Iona on their way between the islands of Britain and Ireland.

So it can now seem very peaceful and, as I say, somewhat isolated.

But actually, in the Middle Ages, it was at the heart of this kind of constant sea traffic between the two islands and So much so that the population of Iona would sometimes have to go to rather more distant or isolated islands in order to get that kind of peace and quiet and contemplative life that they might have been hoping for, because Iona was a bit of a hub, really.

Scotland, besides, is so full of historic reminiscences, and so favored by nature with splendid scenery, that a visit to Europe is incomplete without a look upon its rugged hills, its romantic lakes, and lovely valleys, now made so interesting by the works of Sir Walter Scott and other writers.

The land once evangelized by Columba and his bands of missionary saints has besides an indescribable charm for a Catholic missionary.

He went, therefore, with great pleasure to Scotland, and he cannot speak too highly or too thankfully of the kindness which the venerable Archbishop of Glasgow, the bishops and the clergy he happened to meet with, showed him.

But, with the exception of a Sunday sermon to oblige the good pastor of whatever locality he happened to pass through, it was his fixed intention not to speak publicly during his rather rapid progress through the country.