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132 enjoy the glories of heaven, since we ourselves have lost all hope of entering there.” “Ah!” said the saint, “how different is my inclination! If I could not go to heaven myself, I should wish to open to all others the gates that I knew to be shut against me.” She then asked what business he had in a religious community. He told her that he was harboured there by one of the nuns, who did his will rather than that of her ostensible Master. Brigid ascertained from him the name of the nun, and then opened her eyes with the sign of the cross, that she might see what a hideous and cruel master she served. The nun, with tears, besought her prayers, and promised to amend her life. Brigid then banished the devil from amongst them, and the nun led a holy, penitential life, and was saved. Boll., ''AA. SS.'', in the fifth Life of St. Brigid.  St. Briga (4), Jan. 7, was the sister of St. Brendan, the navigator. After his seven years’ voyage, he founded the monasteries of Clonfert and Annadown, and set his sister over the latter, and there, in 577, he died in her arms, at the age of ninety-four. Smith and Wace. This Briga is thought to be the same as St., who settled in Cornwall, but it does not seem very likely that, when her brother had died at ninety-four, she could have been young enough to start on a missionary tour to another country.  Briga (5),.  Brighe,. Brighite,. St. Brigid (1), Feb. 1, with, , cousins of , and daughters of St. Kilian, one of the conductors of her campaign. ''AA. SS.'', Oct. 21.  St. Brigid (2), Feb. 1, born about the middle of the 5th century, died in or before 525 (,, , , , , , , ; in France, ; in Holland, , ; the of Ireland), the “Fiery Dart.” Patron of Ireland, Leinster, Kildare, of the family of Douglas, and of cattle and dairies. The dedications in her name are very numerous in Ireland and on the western side of Great Britain.

Represented (1) with flames playing round her head; (2) with a cow and a large bowl.

The greatest of all the Irish saints, except St. Patrick. Founder of the first nunnery in Ireland, and chief over many monasteries for both sexes. Bishop Conlaeth, or Conlian, at the time head of the bishops and abbots, attended to the spiritual interests of her nuns and the services of her church.

Montalembert says that Ireland was evangelized by two slaves, Patrick and Bridgid; that Brigid was twice sold, was flogged, insulted, and subjected to the hardest labour required of a female slave in those days; she learnt mercy in the school of suffering and oppression; she became a nun, but by no means a recluse; she travelled all over Ireland, and had frequent and important intercourse with all sorts and conditions of persons, but always in the interest of souls, or with a view to helping the unfortunate. She was honoured with the friendship and confidence of the holiest and most learned Irishmen of her time, among whom tradition places St. Erc, bishop of Slane, St. Mel of Ardagh, Cailaet, bishop of Kildare, St. Ailbe of Emly, St. Brendan of Clonfert, St. Gildas, who sent her a small bell cast by himself. St. Finnian was also her contemporary, and once preached before her and her nuns at Kildare. She is believed to have been contemporary with St. Patrick, although much younger. There is considerable uncertainty as to her dates, and still more as to his. She died, upwards of seventy, in or before 525. In an old Life of St. Patrick, it is said that she fell asleep while he was preaching, and that he made her tell her dream, which he interpreted as referring to the future history of Ireland. One legend says that he taught her to play on the harp, and that she embroidered a shroud for him at his own request, and took it to him at the monastery of Saball; he then charged her to bless Ireland for thirty years after his death.

Here are some of the countless 