Lough Derg (Photo Credit: Amy Gilmor)
Now that I've added the "search" and "follow" feature to this blog, you can search "Patrick" and find all my St. Patrick posts over the years! I've shared many travel pictures and memories of St. Patrick. And here's the new one for today:
"Lough Derg" is better known as St. Patrick's Purgatory. Pilgrims have been coming to this distant, uncommercialized island in County Donegal for prayer and penance since the days that the fifth century St. Patrick visited.
"We are told how St. Patrick removed from the distractions of the world into that gloomy cave [on the Island]; and there prayed that the pains of Purgatory might be revealed to him. His request was granted. St. Patrick was so much awed by this vision, that he departed from the cave, and ordered that henceforth the island should be made a terrestrial purgatory, where sinners could atone for their sins by prayer and fasting." ~ Rev. D. Cannon O'Connor, P.P., St. Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg. Its History, Traditions, Legends, Antiquities, Topography, and Scenic Surroundings. 1903 edition.
To this day, pilgrims retreat there for three days of austere fasting - one bare, simple meal each day - and long prayerful vigils through the night, while visiting "stations" of the saints barefoot. Alice Curtayne, in her book Lough Derg: St. Patrick's Purgatory - that I bought secondhand at "House of Books" in County Donegal - calls the customs "native, sternly realistic, purely spiritual." Much like St. Patrick himself!
The picture above, taken as I stood next to the photographer, shows a statue of St. Patrick as a pilgrim, with "St. Patrick's Purgatory" in the background. We visited one day when there was no retreat going on, and staff were having a conference.
Lent, as we know, is a time of penance, and how fitting that St. Patrick's Day comes during this time! He, as the Irish would say, "was a great one for penance".
Sometimes, though, we experience sufferings in our lives that we did not choose ourselves, as penance. These penances are actually the ones most beneficial to our souls, if we accept them with love. Here is our inspirational quote for today:
"A great cross is, very often, the prelude to a great grace, even for an unbeliever. Suffering ripens the soul, sometimes very quickly. A great trial can, with one stroke, detach a soul from all that is created; it can be the source of a total conversion."
~ Father Jean C.J. D'Elbee
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