Everyone venerated St. Brigit, who performed ever greater deeds, and [they] marveled at what she had done by excellence of her holiness and the prerogative of her many virtues.
– Cogitosus, The Life of St. Brigit the Virgin
And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
– Galatians 6.9, 10
Quality and quantity
Comments like today’s excerpt can be found throughout the hagiographical literature of this period. It’s as if the storyteller doesn’t want those individual stories, on which he spends so much time, to obscure the sheer number and unfailing excellence of a saint like Brigit’s work.
Brigit did many good works, and she did them all very well.
I find these three nouns to be worth pondering: excellence, holiness, and prerogative. Excellence suggests that Brigit did all things as well as they could be done. She left nothing out, finished what she started, and made sure her every good work was just as it should have been. All her works were done with excellence. This included her everyday labors as head of a monastery as well as the more specific miracles and good works Cogitosus records. She was a woman of excellence in all things.
Holiness, of course, implies Christlikeness and the practice of offering her works up to the Lord for help and with praise and thanksgiving. Brigit set aside each work as holy, as a ministry and an offering to the Lord. She did all things as unto the Lord, and not men, keeping her eye on Jesus. She did her work from out of the Presence of the Lord and in a manner that would truly represent Him.
Prerogative is the most difficult of these three. A prerogative is a right, typically, an exclusive right. What “rights” did Brigit’s life and work afford her? Respect, no doubt, even among kings and clerics. Also, as we have seen, the right to intervene in cases of justice. To go where she pleased and minister as she saw fit. Certainly, these all must have been prerogatives that her excellence and holiness gained for Brigit.
An age of entitlement
Christopher Caldwell’s book, The Age of Entitlement, is an indictment against this generation of Americans, who have come to see government as the source of all our freedoms and the supplier of all our needs. Americans clash about rights—who has them, who doesn’t, and how to secure the ones we insist to be ours. We have become a nation of people for whom securing prerogatives is the goal. We are entitled to a good life, to do what we want, go where we like, make up our own values as suits our disposition. These are rights, so it goes, and anyone who tries to curtail or remove them will be resisted.
We have not learned the lesson of Brigit. Prerogatives are valid because they are earned, in Brigit’s case, as they were accompanied by excellence and holiness. We do not acquire prerogatives just because we make enough noise to get some politician’s ear. We are endowed with certain rights, as our Declaration of Independence declares: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. God gives these to us, but it remains to be seen whether we will make good use of them—by excellence and holiness—or fumble them away. If we try to redefine life, let’s say, by insisting it’s something other than what God says. Or if we try to turn liberty into license or the pursuit of happiness into idolatry, we’re misusing our rights by presuming to be God.
And as for excellence and holiness? We skip those if we can, considering them as inconvenient, unfashionable, out of date, irrelevant to our times, or whatever. We do not want to earn the respect and deference of our peers, and the prerogatives that come with that; we insist on having things as and when we want them, just because we insist.
As Christians, we have an opportunity to help our society find surer footing than politics and stuff. Brigit was respected everywhere, and showered with prerogatives, because she did many good works with excellence and holiness.
When we begin letting our light shine like that, we may gain the attention and respect of our neighbors and earn the right to tell them the Good News of Jesus and His Kingdom.
For Reflection
1. In what specific ways can you show excellence in your work today?
2. What can you do throughout the day to offer your works to the Lord?
Psalm 144.3, 4, 15
(Tidings: O Zion, Haste, Thy Mission High Fulfilling)
LORD, who are we, that You regard and love us?
Why should You care for our poor sinful plight?
We are but breath; You dwell on high above us;
our days like shadows pass before Your light.
Refrain v. 15
Happy are they on whom blessings fall!
Blessed are the people who on Jesus’ mercy call!
T. M. Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment to give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
Other columns of interest this week: In our ReVision series on “The Kingdom Economy” we are looking at the role of God’s Law in the life of the Church. In our Read Moore podcast we continue in our series of readings from three booklets on life in the Kingdom. And in the Scriptorium daily column, we are considering Ephesians 5 all this week. Click here to see all the other columns and writers available to you.
And please prayerfully consider supporting The Fellowship of Ailbe with your prayers and gifts. You can contribute online, via PayPal or Anedot, or by sending a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.
