This week on the Celtic Calendar . . . The Feast of St. Melangell

Now they reached Melangell’s lonely church:
Amid a grove of evergreens it stood,
A garden and a grove, 
where every grave
Was decked with flowers, 
or with unfading plants
O’ergrown,—sad rue 
and funeral rosemary.   
                            ~Robert Southey

May 27 is the fest of St. Melangell.  Despite her popularity in Wales where her story has inspired countless poets, the tale of Melangell and her hare isn't widely known in the rest of the world.  Born in Ireland of royal parentage, like so many of the women Celtic saints of her era she fled her homeland to escape an arranged marriage and ended up in a secluded valley nestled in the Berwyn mountains where she spent fifteen years living and praying among the creatures of the forest and field and avoiding human contact.  

One day as she was deep in prayer, she heard the distant horns of a hunter and soon a frightened hare, pursued by a pack of hounds, ran into the clearing and under Melangell's skirt, seeking shelter.  Rather than attacking Melangell in order to get to their prey, the hounds were brought up short, stopped by a force field of holiness that emanated from her.  Soon the owner of the dogs, the prince of Powys, rode up on his steed, furious that a

trespasser interrupted his hunt. Brochwell tried to encourage his dogs to go for the hare, but when he blew his hunting horn, it stuck to his lips and didn't make a sound.  After hearing Melangell's story, Brochwell asked her if she'd be willing to accept the surrounding land as a gift and establish an abbey that would offer sanctuary to all who needed it.  Melangell agreed and spent the rest of her long life offering shelter and hospitality to those in need.  

In latter years the church and Melangell's shrine fell into disrepair.  The church and shrine were restored in the 1990s and the St. Melangell Centre was established to offer pastoral support for cancer patients and their loved ones.  In 2003 the Centre expanded their ministry to offer sanctuary to anyone in need by providing space and resources for quiet days, retreats, and educational programs.

Finding Sanctuary

In today's vernacular, the word sanctuary has come to mean a safe haven, a place of protection.  We have bird sanctuaries, elephant sanctuaries, donkey sanctuaries and more generic wildlife sanctuaries. There is political sanctuary for endangered humans and plant sanctuaries for endangered plants. But a soul sanctuary? Where do we find one of those?

The original definition of sanctuary indicated a sacred site, someplace that was holy (as the root word, sanctus, indicates).  These holy places could be literally the sanctuaries in churches where pilgrims could shelter and rest from the elements as well as worship and pray or they could be holy wells, ancient trees, misty mountain tops, or fertile valleys. In Celtic lands, sacred structures were often built on ancient holy places, creating enclosures (the origin of the prefix llan in the Welsh language) and building churches near the sacred springs or trees where their ancestors worshiped. 

It is often easy to find rest for our hearts and minds in thin places like these with their gossamer veil between heaven and earth. And while some of this may be the expectations we bring to a site that is steeped in history and tradition, these aren't merely peaceful places where we relax and unwind-- they are places where we are re-created.  There's something about prayed up spaces, places where ritual and mystery have been honored for centuries, that seems to change the very atmosphere.  When we cross the threshold into these liminal landscapes, we  step out of our daily life and concerns and into sanctuary.

One of the challenges and opportunities for those of us who live in the "new world" is discovering our own places of sanctuary.  Many of the sacred sites of those who walked through these forests and fields before us have been  forgotten over time or worse, purposefully erased from memory.  But just because there isn't a plaque marking a healing spring or crumbling stone structure in our neighborhood doesn't mean sacred places aren't there to be found.  We can be open to noticing those places in nature where our mind begins to slow and quiet, where our restless heart eases and opens, where our soul can find sanctuary.