Episode Details

It's the Feast of St Clare of Assisi, 3rd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: "Detraction", today's news from the Church: "Faith in God Does Not Stop at His Unity", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org

Sources Used Today:

• "Detraction" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption
  
  
• "Faith in God Does Not Stop at His Unity" (FSSPX.news)
  • https://fsspx.news/en/news/faith-god-does-not-stop-his-unity-60477
  
  
• The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
  
  

Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:

• Learn more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Wp4MQdK2o
• Donate:https://sspx.gifts/audiobook

Saint Lelia of Killeely is one of those early Irish saints who almost disappears into the mist of history. We don't have a detailed biography, famous sermons, or dramatic stories about her life. But we do have something very Irish: a holy woman, an ancient church site, a local tradition, and a name that has survived for well over a thousand years.

Lelia, sometimes called Liadhain, probably lived sometime around the sixth century, during the great flowering of Irish monasticism. Tradition places her in County Limerick, where she is associated especially with Killeely.

Even that place name tells part of the story.

Irish place names beginning with Kil or Cill usually point back to a church or monastic cell. Killeely is traditionally understood as the "church of Lelia." So even though the details of her life have largely vanished, her name became attached to the landscape itself.

That's quite a way to be remembered.

Tradition describes Lelia as a consecrated virgin or abbess who gathered other women around her in a small religious community. These early Irish foundations were usually nothing like the enormous stone monasteries we picture from later centuries. Think instead of a small church, simple dwellings, gardens, animals, prayer, work, and a handful of women trying to build their lives entirely around God.

One tradition also connects Lelia with Saint Patrick, although the chronology is uncertain and the details come from later accounts. That's fairly common with these early Irish saints. Their stories were passed down locally for generations before anyone thought to write them down.

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