 You don't have to have a glowing arm. You don't have to have a glowing arm. As cool as that would be. Not this time. You don't have to have a bell that flies to you every time you call it. You know, you don't have to. You don't have to live in a cave. You don't have to live in a cave. That would also be kind of cool. Hey, I'm Jordan Burke. And I'm Kristen Brieola. This is Saints and Sages. Where we talk about the wisdom of the saints and how it's relevant for you. It's 2021. 2021. And we are starting on a whole new batch of saints and sages and we're really excited. And today, we're going to talk about an Irish saint. It seems that for a while there, it was French, Spanish, a few Italians. Where are we going? We're going to Ireland. We're going all the way to the Green Isles. Is that Ireland? Did I just make that up? I don't know. Gaelic Celtic. Yeah, Jacksepticeye. Yeah, you don't know who that is. Don't worry about it. We're going to the Ireland. So Saint Philan is our man today. We are going to talk about him because he is an incredible human who walked this earth as a monk. He did. Well, yeah, he walked this earth as a few things. But let's preface this really quickly. Back it up. So I'm actually really glad that the last episode that we did was Saint Lucy because Saint Lucy was a really good example of someone whose history is passed down mostly through just verbal tradition, oral tradition, right? And we didn't have a ton of like actual historical paperwork like we did with like Saint Joan of Arc or Saint Gemma or, you know, all these other saints that we've talked about. Maggie's giving me a look because any time I can mention Saint Gemma, I'm going to mention Saint Gemma, all right? But everybody who listens knows this by now. So but Saint Lucy, as we mentioned in the last episode, is said every day in the mass. So it was it was a really good example to show that even just on oral tradition alone, the level of importance of the saint is astronomical. Why am I saying that? This is another saint that is based a lot on oral tradition. It was actually this was one of the harder ones for me to research because it really wasn't a lot to go over and find. But so that's why we wanted to preface this. Did was am I saying things that make sense? Is this making sense? Yes, he withstood time. He's a timeless man. Yeah. And that's just through the faith that people have in his story and the tradition of our awesome Catholic Church. And he has some awesome legends. We'll call them legends or stories. I don't really know the appropriate title for them that are associated to him. Kind of similar. You you wrote this in your notes similar to Saint Anthony, which I thought was a good kind of connection to make. Go back and listen to that episode as well. But Born in Ireland 695 around late seventh century. He was the son of a prince and a princess. I wasn't going to attempt to give the name, but you go ahead. And you vary in Saint. Kent to Garner, Kent to Garner to Garner. Apologize to Irish listeners for our horrific accents. But that's a fun thing to say. Honestly, though, he moved a lot as a kid. And I don't know about you guys, but if I'm certain, some of you, words are hard, have moved a lot and can relate to him because he moved with his mom, his brothers and his uncle, Lock Dweeke, and he moved again as a young adult. He's just moved a lot. So he's actually born in Ireland, but he was a missionary in Scotland. One, he became he entered the monastery at a really young age. So he started this faith journey as, by the way, many saints have, you know, we have so many stories that we've told where these saints are are so young when they begin this journey. He's he's one of those as well. But something I found was really interesting and this comes into play later. But well, first of all, his name, they believe that it comes from Old Gaelic, which means Little Wolf, which I thought was really neat. There's a story that comes into play there. And then I had read that he his arm glowed. And well, you just like jump two pages ahead. Yeah, so we'll go this out here. So because this comes, this is going to come into play later. Basically, the story goes is that he was in a monastery monastery that didn't allow them to use candles at night, but he wanted to continue reading and writing scripture. And because of his love for reading and writing scripture and learning and really diving into the faith and, you know, becoming that servant of God that he wanted to be, he was given the ability, I guess. I don't know if he can control it, but I guess his arm glowed. That's basically all we have. And you'll realize why we brought that up because it comes into play later, his arm. But that's the story of the glowing arm. Well, in legend has it that it was his left arm. Yes, he was writing. Yes, he was getting a little frustrated. I mean, he didn't have power. There was no electricity, no source of energy. Hello, we're at 6.95. So candles were really the only option and being in a cave as a monk, he needed light. So he was like, Lord, I really need light. And his arm began to glow. So that's just a little mini miracle. A really handy miracle. And honestly, if I could like have a pick of miracles that may be at top like top three. Just to have light wherever I needed it. So that's just me. Now, he is a missionary, as you said. He later becomes an abbot. And at one point, he's building a church. This is kind of, you know, you, Chris, and correct me if I'm skipping ahead, the timeline was kind of hard to follow. But there's a certain there's a certain time and where he was building a church and he had an ox that was killed by a wolf. And it's basically was said that he convinced the wolf of his wrongdoing and the wolf took the place of the ox. And that's kind of what we had mentioned before with the St. Anthony story. But I love that little legend there. Yes, because he was really fulfilling his duty as a missionary with the pikes, the Gaelic Celtic people. I think it's Celtic people of originally Roman times. And then just sharing his faith as a missionary, as a Christian. And between carrying the building materials to build this church, you know, the ox was murdered by the fox. And the wolf. I mean, the wolf. Yeah. That makes it's good, right? Yeah, I like what you did there. Whichever, you know, whatever you feel. No, it's just a wolf. He totally actually began picking up materials, supposedly, because St. Anthony, I mean, St. Philan was like, dude, I have to build this church. You're either going to. This is my mission for the Lord. I mean, I have no idea what he actually said, but I could just imagine him being like, really. And so the wolf took on all the building materials and began to assist him. So that's the story goes like this. Um, and so also legend has it, word got out that there was a pool near the church, which was used as a shrine to remember the saint. So later on, after he passed away for many years following and similar to what I just was thinking about St. Anthony as well, because of that fish moment. I don't know if y'all listen to our St. Anthony episode, go back if you haven't. But there was a miracle when he was presenting the gospel to the people, they weren't listening. So he turned around to the river and was like, Hey, fish. Hey, fish, preach to the fish. Repent. And they actually lifted out of the water miraculously and bowed at St. Anthony out of gratitude for his preaching. So like similar to St. Anthony and of course St. Francis, we love him. He loves the animals. It seems St. Philan had a relationship with animals and really shared with him what he desired. Well, and so you brought up the pool. The pool is also very important. So yes, it was a part of the shrine. And this is this is again, we're just going through the legends. And just to preface one for one more time, there isn't a ton of information on this saint. We're so we're giving you exactly what we have. So if it seems like we're kind of jumping around, if it seems like we may be missing something, it's just because we're piecing it together. We've pieced this together the best we can. I mean, we pulled from the official Scottish website. We pulled from, you know, BBC. We pulled from historical museums that actually have some of his his his staff, which is beautiful if you get a chance to look it up. That sort of thing. So that's why this seems a little bit more scattered than I think some of our other episodes. It's just the nature of going over the saints. We're going to have one of these every once in a while. But luckily for you, we've done the work. So you just have to listen and you're going to have you're going to have all the information compiled for you here. But so for the pool, he is the patron saint of mental illness and an affliction and affliction. And so this he had this like healing pool that was there was a pool in his cave, which we'll get to. And then there was this pool by his shrine and by the church, by the church later became a shrine. Correct. And one of the things that they did was they would take people and some who were mentally ill, suffering, mental illness, whatever kind of this was after he passed away, by the way. Yes. Yes. Thank you. And they'd submerge them in the pool and then they'd bind them and wait and wait. They'd bind them and leave them on. I thought I thought I read it was like a stone, like an outside pew, a bench. Something like that. Just a bench, you know, wood together. And so if they came back in the person the bindings had fallen, then they were recognized as, you know, you're cured. And that's how the story goes. So that was kind of interesting. And they attributed a lot of that healing to St. Phyllian, because that's where he prayed and where he wrote and spoke to God and really had a divine relationship with the Lord. And so the village, the fish village was adamant about sharing that St. Phyllian, really it's through his intercession that these people were receiving healing. And later on, that fishing village was named after him. So. Yes. And oddly enough, it was said that in. So the the cave is called Piton Weem. I don't know if I got that right, but Piton Weem, the cave that where his arm glowed is actually still a location that you can go to because it said after he died, his legacy in Scotland remained even outside of Christianity, because his staff and Bell were taken by the Abbott, which was like the kind of the bishop of the the monks of the Abbott of Inchefrey to a battle. And in that battle, the battle of Bannacupam, the Scots. Y'all brought that by me again. One more time. No, I'm not saying anything. Oh, the Scots uses relics and they won the battle. So there's two stories. Yeah. So there's that story. And the second story is that they wanted to bring the relic into battle and someone was protecting it. So you can't bring it into battle. The arm ended up falling out of the container that was held in on its own and they attribute and and that same day, the battle was won and they made the connection. The bell, by the way, has another relic of his. This is another one of the legends where when he was praying over somebody, he would call to the bell and wherever the bell was, it would fly to him, which is really kind of interesting. So either way, the town and the people really attribute the miracle of them winning the victory to his spiritual aid and through his intercession, the wind. Yeah. And you can go and we both had actually found a video. Someone did a walkthrough of the cave on YouTube. It's really neat if you search for Saint Philan. And it's really just kind of this fast. I'm always fascinated by the stuff. I'd love to go there someday, but there's even a second level somehow. Like they have it blocked off so you don't go up there. But there's stairs carved into the side of this cave to go to a second level. It's just a really fascinating kind of story scenario. And again, this is one where we don't have a ton of like actual, you know, paper information. This is all passed down from oral tradition, but it's it's still interesting. It's still, you know, it's still a saint recognized by the Catholic Church on the calendar, right? So there's some merit here, you know, to everything where everything we're talking about. But yeah, I'm just I don't know. This was a this was a tough one, but it was an interesting one. And also it's through the attribution of all those people who were physically healed because there are many documents for centuries of people who were mentally ill or afflicted went to those pools or ponds near his cave and were healed and those bonds were loosened. And so that attribution really has just withstood history and time. And the people who are mentally afflicted and go there and who have experienced that healing really attribute a lot of his prayers to that. So there's a lot of hope in his story. And I think just the fact that he really gave himself to the Lord in all things and devoted, I mean, in the entirety of his life through prayer and meditation and writing as a monk and then being a missionary in a different country with his family. He devoted a lot of his time and efforts to serving the Lord in ways that are not normal. And I think just kind of our, I don't know, tying it into our modern day topic and then also Catholic authentic spirituality. It's really easy to not actually live out the call that got asked of us. The mission, the purpose that he has for us when the world screams at us to hide and run and live just kind of a facade, fake life and that that's OK, we can pretend like just keep pretending, fit into the mold that people make for us and live in the dark and don't actually reveal your true self to people. Like, don't be authentic. It's OK, be in the dark. That's what the world screams at us. But really, we are called as Christians, as faithful Catholics to live out our life with light and love, truth, joy and who we actually are and to be honest about where we've come from. And that is like true gospel message, right? It's like being who God has made us to be and being honest about where we've come from. And then the beauty of transformation that the Lord has in store for us. And that's how we can go make disciples, you know? You don't have to have a glowing arm. You don't have to have a glowing arm. As cool as that would be. Not this time. You don't have to have a bell that flies to you every time you call it. You know, you don't have to live in a cave. You don't have to live in a cave. That would also be kind of cool. You just have to be authentic. You just have to be who God has called you to be. And look, I mean, I'm glad that I'll just I'll say it. I'm glad you found something to tie to a modern topic because I was reading through this. I was like, I don't know where we're going. Like, have faith that these miracles occurred. Yeah. But regardless, as I said, this is still church history, no matter what, you know, and it's good to take time to set aside to learn these things, even if it doesn't come up again, even. But, you know, I just, I don't know. I don't really have anything else to say. I mean, I guess just to wrap it up, though. Um, he is a witness to really living out his faith. And as Catholic Christians in a world that it's pretty difficult to be honest about where we actually are in our life. I just encourage you to go before our Lord and really meditate on, like, Lord, where do you have me in this world and where am I not being honest with myself and with others? And how can I be more like you in all things? And it's pretty simple, right? God is not a complicated God. Us humans overcomplicate things all the time. It's really simple. We can be simple like Saint Philan and pray and fast and be a missionary for other people and really live out our our lives authentically. We don't have to pretend. I don't know. There's been seasons of my life where it feels like I have to be someone else or I'm reaching out, like, oh, if I were just like them or if I could be, you know, like someone else, maybe I could just be a better person or maybe that's where I'm supposed to be. Maybe that's what other people want with me, my reputation, you know, whatever it is, I've struggled with that in the past. But the Lord is like, no, I have placed you through certain circumstances like this man, Saint Philan, who was born in Ireland, lived in Scotland. It was a missionary to people who probably didn't actually want to become Christians. Maybe some of them did. I'm sure they did just through all of his travel and story. But he really lived it out and he wasn't afraid to do that. And so anyway, just continuing to walk on this journey without fear and knowing that your story is important and what you've been through is good. It's true. It's beautiful. What's happened to you is real. And we can share that with the world authentically. You don't have to pretend. So that's just my thought. That's what I received from this. You definitely carried this episode because I was. No, I declared a gun. I was at a little bit of a loss with this one. So no, I think that's great. And I think that's something, again, that people need to meditate on. And until the next episode, I guess. Yeah, same feeling. Pray for us. Pray for us. Bye.