The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 98

Of Saint Comhgallus, and the Monastery foreshowed of Heaven.

Oftentimes did Saint Patrick travel through Ultonia, very earnestly teaching unto its inhabitants the Catholic faith. And not seldom he turned, for the sake of rest for himself and his holy company, unto a certain hill situated in a valley where afterward was builded the Monastery of Beannchor. And sitting there, they beheld the valley filled with heavenly light and with a multitude of the host of heaven; and they heard, as chanted forth from the voice of angels, the psalmody of the celestial choir. Then did all who beheld this wondrous vision earnestly entreat of Saint Patrick that in that place, consecrated of heaven, he would build a church. But the saint refused, and prophesied unto them: "When threescore years have passed away, then shall a son of life be born, and his name shall be Comhgallus, which is, being interpreted, the Beautiful Pledge; for he shall be beloved of God and of man, and beautiful in his manners and in his merits; and he shall happily go forward, and reign with Christ, and be accounted among His pledges. And in this place, which is fore-showed by the heavenly light, shall he build a church, wherein he shall collect innumerable troops of the children of life, to be bound by the yoke of Christ." And of all these things which Patrick foretold, not one jot hath passed unfulfilled. But at the prophesied time Comhgallus was born, and in the ripeness of his years and of his virtues, even in that place named Beannchor, he builded a most stately monastery, wherein he brought forth unto Christ many thousands of holy monks. And this saintly place, so fruitful of saints, even as a vine increasing the sweetness of its odor, extended its shoots unto the sea and its branches beyond the sea; for it filled with monasteries and with pious monks Hibernia, Scotia, and many islands, and even foreign regions, inasmuch as we gather from ancient writers that one of the children of Beannchor, Luanus by name, founded of himself an hundred monasteries. And another, named Columbanus, a man most holy, and filled with the abundance of all graces, as having instituted many monasteries, may be accounted the father of innumerable monks. And he first presided over the renowned Monastery of Luxovia, in Gaul, and then over that of Bobi, beyond the Alps, wherein, having shone with many miracles, he now resteth in peace. Thus is the prophecy of Saint Patrick seen to be fulfilled. But of the antiquity of the church of Beannchor needless is it to speak further here, inasmuch as it is most amply described in the acts of those holy saints, Comhgallus, who was the first abbot of that place, and Malachia, the bishop, who was the legate in Hibernia of the apostolic chair.