St Canaire and the sacred fire that guides us.
My one word practice for the new season.
Hello friend,
St Canaire lived in Ireland in the early 6th Century. Her story made me gasp when I first read it, and as yesterday was her feast day, I thought I would share her less-well-known story with you…
Canaire had dedicated her whole life to God - she was a hermit, committing her life to prayer and seeking the Divine in silence and solitude.
One evening, when she had grown elderly, she had a vision of the whole of Ireland, in which every church was a tower of fire stretching up to the heavens. The tallest column of fire came from the island of Inis Cathaig and she made it her heart's desire to journey there, and to make it her place of resurrection.
She pilgrimed across land with only the inner light of her vision to guide her way, and legend tells us that once she reached the shore she kept walking miraculously across the waves until she reached Inis Cathaig.
But there her way was barred. The island held a monastery, but only men were permitted. The abbot Senan came to meet her and before she had set foot on the sand asked her to go instead to a neighbouring island where a nun would host her.
But Canaire would not be moved from her vision, would not have her heart's desire taken from her. And in a rousing speech worthy of any Christian feminist today, said to him:
"Christ came to redeem women no less than to redeem men.
No less did He suffer for the sake of women than for the sake of men.
Women have given service and tendance unto Christ and His Apostles.
No less than men do women enter the heavenly kingdom.
Why, then, shouldst thou not take women to thee in thine island?"
Oh the fire in those words!
In response, Senan called her stubborn (ha! how many women have had that insult hurled at us for claiming our fullest identity) and permitted her only to lie "on the brink of the wave". She could come no further. He was finally persuaded to give her communion, there on the edge of the sea, and there she lies down, with the waves breaking over her body, and dies.
It could be seen as a story of failure, of dismissal and denial. But I see fire in her story.
I wonder whether that towering flame she saw in her vision was actually not Senan's, or any of his fearful small-minded monks, but her own. Her own fire blazed out of a sure belief that she was worthy, that she was the Beloved, that she was called to the resurrection life.
Although men stood against her, creation itself rose to support her pilgrimage, the water bearing her weight with each footstep out across the sea. Water carrying her to the place of fire.
One Word.
Each year (more or less) I pick one word to guide me through the coming year, like a touchstone or northern star for this season. Last week I met two friends and we collaged pages for our new words for the year.
It’s a practice I’ve used on and off for the last twelve years, and there are a few things I know to look for as I’m finding a new word:
Am I curious about this word? If I pick one that I think I need or think I know what it will mean, it’s likely not the right word. The right word will make me wonder, will grab my curiosity and…
It will make me want to go on a journey with it. I won’t know where the journey will take me, but there will be and energy and willingness to walk with it as a guide. (The very first year I did this I picked the word brave as I was in a new country, but a few months later I miscarried our first child and the word accompanied me in a whole new way).
My word for this year (or possibly shorter or longer - I am less fussy about the timing now) is fire. I don’t know why, I can’t really explain why it is the word that wouldn’t leave me alone the last couple of weeks as I considered it. But I’m curious. I’m ready to go on a journey with it.
Yesterday, as I returned to Canaire’s story (which I’d put in my calendar weeks ago to share with you) I laughed at how central the image of fire is to her story!
It’s a fire of vision and calling. It’s a fire that marks the place of resurrection. It’s a fire that lights the way as a beacon. Today, I’m sitting with what that looks like in my own life.
A few year ago, I wrote this as I reflected on Canaire’s story:
When we are barred from full inclusion, we will stand held up by the living water and proclaim our truth which is Divine Truth.
When we are insulted and belittled by voices external and internal, we will trust the vision of our own self-worth that the Sacred Guide gives us.
And when we are blocked from entering the institutions of human power, we will make our bed in the waves, and let their God-given power break over us, and wash away any remnants of shame.
With our Sister Canaire, we will discover the place of our resurrection.
I’d love to hear, if you’re willing to share (in the comments or reply to the email if you read that way):
What does it mean for you to journey to your place of resurrection? Who are the guides along the way - the sacred fire beacons and the waves to bear you?
Do you have a “one word” practice? How has your word been sparking your curiosity and inviting you on a journey?
Upcoming Events
Would you like a space to further reflect on that in-between space of your faith, where the waves break upon the shore, where we stand between belonging and strangeness, between death and resurrection, between water and fire?
With my friend Debbie Horrocks, I am hosting an afternoon online retreat at the end of February. Registration is open, and there’s a sliding scale pricing to allow as many as want to to attend.
It’s on Sunday 25th February, from 2-5pm UK time. You can sign up on my website.
Also, for those who are spiritual companions, I am running a three-session course for the London Centre for Spiritual Direction, beginning on February 23rd, reground you in your practice, empower you to develop your unique charisma, and reconnect you with a vision for spiritual direction in the church and wider community.
You can find out more and register on LCSD’s website.
Fiona, thank you for this. I thought I could feel a word hovering in the background and so decided to journal and mindmap around it. The word was "doors" as in opening and closing doors. But as I journalled, finishing up with a bit of a prose poem, it emerged that doors was not the word for me. Instead it was more of a "trusting my heart to be in the right place at the right time and being true to me". So if it had to be one word it would be "emergence" as in coming out of the cocoon. Thank you so much for encouraging me to explore all this as I don't think i would have got there otherwise.
And I would say that my "resurrection guides" would be my writing but also those random people one meets who say something that resonates with my heart.
Thank you X
Fiona, thank you so much for telling/sharing this story. It's amazing and I know it will stay with me. I also appreciate the invitation to sit with the invitation to journey to a place of resurrection. My word this year is Grace. I've been resting and restoring into and around the idea of atonement and repair. I've felt a significant shift at the invitation to journey with Grace. I don't have to reach it in a literal sense. I get to carry Grace as a companion and as a "sacred fire that beacons." The Grace that is shown to me along with the Grace that I'm able to grant bears me and sustains me.