St. Columba and the Crane

(Found here)

St. Columba was exiled from his beloved Ireland for apparently copying a psalter—a copyright infringement. Setting sail as a “Peregrini,” he founded a monastery off the west coast of Scotland, the island of Iona, where he lived out his life.

The saint has a vision,
a crane battered by wind and rain
would tumble onto lona’s shores
in three turns of sun and moon,
the third hour before evening.

Indeed at the appointed time
she slumps her long slender
body across grass still soaked
from storm, down fluttering,
her voice strained, then silent.

Columba sends a monk to greet her,
gather her tenderly into his strong
solid arms, lift her all hollow bone
and white feathers, welcome
this weary one into the hearth.

Crane comes as pilgrim
buffeted by elements into exile,
a stranger at the door,
three days later, renewed, revived,
enough time for resurrection,

she lifts her wide wings gently
at first, then with greater force
to carry herself back across sea
and threshold, her flight
a prayer of homecoming.

~Christine V. Paintner

————

I saw a stranger yesterday
I put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place:

And in the sacred name of the Triune God,
He blessed myself and my house,
My cattle and my dear ones.
And the lark said in her song
Often, often, often
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.

~A traditional Gaelic Rune of Hospitality