Reflection for St Bridget's Day

COMMUNION REFLECTION FOR ST. BRIGID’S DAY

The following reflection is from the Diocese of Kildare & Leighlin.



Legend holds that Brigid made her first cross from rushes she picked from the floor as she visited a pagan chieftain who was dying. While sitting by his bed she began to weave the rushes into the shape of a cross and tell the stories of her Christian faith. The cross became a symbol of peace and protection, protection of animals and protection from fire and disease and a blessing for home and hearth. Crosses were exchanged too in times of clan feuds as a sign of reconciliation. From that time Irish people have never ceased to weave these crosses. These rushes represent our hopes, our dreams, our gifts and our efforts in working towards a more caring society.

Look. She is gathering the dreams to weave something new. She gathers our rushes of sorrow and gladness, of happiness and pain, tears and laughter, kindness and caring, of voluntary groups and organisations, of families, relations and friends, of schools and hospitals, of work and sport and recreation, and all the little words and deeds offered in hope, in faith and in love. She is weaving them all with loving hands into a new form, a richer and more beautiful creation.

God, too weaves patiently and persistently with the rushes of our lives. He invites us to keep offering him the shreds of our suffering and the stuff of our dreams and to take our place beside him to weave the shape of new creation.

To welcome the new with faith and courage.

To cherish all that has gone before,

To become an example of justice and peace,

Weaver God, accept, please do,

the offering of ourselves, our separate strands,

to be woven in and out, over, under and through.

Grant us eyes to see the whole, of which we are a part,

to see the tapestry you weave,

calling us beyond our aloneness and security,

to be surprised by miracles.

Oh, if we could but perceive

out of parts we weave a whole.

Rise with the road on your journey,

May Brigid bless you, possess you, caress you,

with her ever faithful love.

Rise with the road on your journey,

May Brigid hold you, enfold you, console you,

with her ever faithful love.

Further information about the celebrations of Féile Bhríde in the Diocese of Kildare & Leighlin can be found here.