Of headaches and fire

Brigid’s Day 2014
Isaiah 61: 1-3; Ps 138; 1 Cor 1: 26-31; Mt 6: 25-33


When we read Brigid legends, we find a lot of headaches.

One story tells of Brigid traveling to visit a family that had suffered tragic loss. All their children had died except two daughters, and these two were mute. Brigid took the two young women with her when she left. On the way, Brigid suffered a terrible headache. Then the horse pulling her chariot shied and pitched Brigid out. She hit her head on a rock and gave herself a bad gash. Strangely, Brigid’s headache vanished, and she told the two girls to bathe their necks with the water from the tiny stream by the road that had been mixed with Brigid’s blood. Immediately they began to speak. It’s a bizarre enough story to be true.

Brigid is a wounded healer in this tale. Headaches come up so frequently in her stories that I suspect she suffered from migraines. Brigid takes two young women with her, takes them to herself, voiceless and powerless. Brigid herself is wounded but shares her blood, her wound, with the two girls. The voiceless then begin to speak.

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to captives…to give them the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.”

The prophet speaks from the standpoint of wounds and vulnerability. Not many chapters before, he sang of the Suffering Servant, the one who “by his wounds we are healed.” Here and in this old Brigid story, it is the wounded who take to themselves the wounded. It is through wounds and vulnerability, not through power and coercion, that the voiceless are given voice, that the powerless are set free.

Brigid’s Mantle, the traditional cloth laid out on the eve of Feb 1, is strangely enough said to cure headaches. Behind this sweet old custom lies a powerful Gospel mystery. To be wrapped in Brigid’s Mantle is to accept one’s wounds and one’s need. To be wrapped in Brigid’s Mantle is to accept the healing that the wounded share with us. To be wrapped in Brigid’s Mantle is to believe that the poor and voiceless will have hope and voice. It’s strange that the Isaiah passage actually mentions a “mantle of praise.”

Some years ago we cast open our doors to Brigid. She’s been bringing her poor and wounded ever since

It was her fire and her passion that kindled our hearts to renew our meal program. Brigid vowed to “save every miserable person.” Misery is easy to come by on this street. Many of us have looked into misery’s eyes and given food to mouths often mute with their suffering. It is a hard, rich ministry, and as in all such ministries we get back more than we give.

And Brigid walked on the street outside casting her mantle around the women in the sex trade. Love and dedication were kindled in the hearts of those who began the Friday night ministry to this day.

This consciousness, this mad casting of Brigid’s Mantle, only deepens and grows. We have become a community that welcomes and reaches out. I think that is the single most important aspect of who we are.

Not many of us are wise, not many of us are powerful. Not many of us are famous in the world’s eyes. But God chooses a broken vessel like this church, and broken hearts like ours, to reach out to the poor and broken.

And how do we continue our life? That’s not clear. But this is what we’re told: “Do not worry about your life, or about your body…But strive first for the Kingdom of God.”

It is said of Brigid that her monastery was rich because she was always giving everything away.

To be the people of Brigid’s Mantle is to trust, to give, to reach out from the vulnerability of our own wounds. It is to know that when we do, headaches and all, the mad and generous Christ who loves his outrageous Brigid will reach out to us, through us, in us, to work rich and wonderful things, for us, through us, in us.