The Changing Theory and Practice of Irish Pilgrimage
Kathleen Hughes
‘I know’, says St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, ‘that if this earthly I tent of mine is taken down, get a home from God made by no human hands, eternal in heavens. It makes me sigh, indeed, longing be under cover my heavenly habitation … have mortal element absorbed life…. know that while reside body am away Lord….’ Paul considering as flimsy tent, which may at any moment and Columbanus takes up passage his eighth sermon on essential instability, transitory nature life. Here elsewhere he speaks life roadway, where Christians must travel perpetual pilgrimage guests world ( hospites mundi ), content with sort travelling allowance. The same spirit detachment urgency infuses much hagiographical literature: “Leave thy fatherland for sake, thee out’, ‘This not place resurrection’, or wandering scholar Brigid when she asks him stay her, ‘O nun, leisure, gates heaven are open now, fear they shut against me’.
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History