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A Reflection of Faith and Inspiration

February 1, 2025

Image: St. Bridget of Kildare’s Feast Day


According to Celtic spirituality, women’s power was most  manifest in Bridget of Ireland—goddess, saint, and threshold  figure. She bridged the worlds between rich and poor, pagan  and Christian, slave and free. 


Bridget of Ireland was born in the middle of the 5th century CE  into a Druid household. She was taught the secrets of the old  religion. She was goddess of hearth and guardian of fire. She  founded a famous monastery in Kildare that housed a sacred  flame until well into the 16th century. 


Brigadine Sisters
Brigadine Sisters

Most Holy Bridget, Excellent Woman, 

Bright Arrow, Sudden Flame; 

May your bright fiery Sun 

Take us swiftly to your lasting kin-dom. 


The context of Bridget’s birth has great significance. She was  born during a transitional time as Ireland was moving from the  old religion into an era where St. Patrick and others were  bringing the message of Christianity to the people. She was  also born in a transitional location, the place of the threshold.



At sunrise, as Bridget’s mother crossed the threshold into the  house, she gave birth in a place neither in nor out, neither day  nor night. In Celtic spirituality, thresholds are sacred places  where the veil between heaven and Earth seems especially thin  and people feel keenly the presence of the sacred. Even today,  many hang Bridget’s cross on their threshold or hearth to seek  her blessing and to remember that the sacred is part of our  everyday life. 




Neither in nor out, 

Neither day nor night, 

Neither heaven nor Earth, 

Shedding the past, walking into the future 

We pass through the threshold of Bridget.


Later in her life, Bridget asked a rich man for land to build a  monastery. He offered to give her a site as far as her cloak  would reach. When she spread her cloak, it encompassed all of  Kildare. This story places Bridget in the long line of female  divinities throughout Europe and beyond who used their cloaks  to claim the land they needed for their work. 


Bridget’s cloak is a cloak of mercy. 

Roaringwater Journal
Roaringwater Journal

An Old Irish Blessing: May Bridget’s mantle protect me always! 

And we pray… 


Holy Bridget, watch over our homes and our communities.

Goddess of hearth and guardian of fire, 

Embrace us with your mantle of protection. 

Breathe your healing blessing on each one.  


In what now may be seen as "dark times," the marking of Imbolc (February 1st) and the Feast of St. Bridget are signs of  resurrection. In Celtic tradition, it is the beginning of spring.

Bridget loves the earth, and she awakens in us an appreciation  of “new life rising.” As winter gives way to spring in the  Northern Hemisphere, we can feel the “resurrection energy.”  Even in places where the ground is frozen and bare, we know  that below the surface, seeds are active, reaching their roots  down and extending their shoots upward. 



Bridget, our friend of the heart, dwells beyond the veil between  worlds. She is our midwife as we give birth to our hopes and  dreams, our longings for a world desperately in need of  resurrection. Bridget holds us in the sacred places, the  thresholds, the liminal spaces. She holds us between the known  and the unknown. Between our humanity and our understanding of the Divine Feminine within us. Between the  now and what is still possible in our future. 



Irish hillside – free images
Irish hillside – free images

Song for Meditation:

Come Sing a Song with Me, (lyric/video) words and music by  Carolyn McDade, Sister, Carry On © 1992. Video from "Singing the Living Tradition" Words and  Music - Carolyn McDade, Brian Kenny, Alena Hemingway, and the KUUF Choir 2019 


Come sing a song with me (x3) 

That I might know your mind.  


Chorus: And I’ll bring you hope 

 When hope is hard to find 

 And I’ll bring a song of love  

 And a rose in the winter time. 


Come dream a dream with me (x3) 

That I might know your mind. Chorus 


Come walk in rain with me (x3) 

That I might know your mind. Chorus 


Come share a rose with me  (x3) 

That I might know your mind. Chorus 



St Brigid, image from Reddit
St Brigid, image from Reddit

Gathered materials from the Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER); planned by  Diann L. Neu and Mallory Naake, 2016, and Nancy Tondy, Community of St. Bridget. 2024.


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