The Feast of Brigid

There is an ongoing debate about whether Brigid was an early abbess and saint whose life became intertwined with stories about an earlier pagan goddess of the same name; or, alternatively, if the folk tales later thought to be survivors of an earlier pagan tradition were themselves just spinoffs of the stories ordinary people came to tell about St. Brigid. 

It is emblematic of our age that Ireland has decided to elevate her status to that of a third patron, along with Patrick and Columba, a celebration that entails her being depicted as a "kick-ass warrior poet and goddess" by the celebrity appointed to honor her. As Irish Times dryly noted, "Few people have described St Patrick as kick-ass." Just as per the recent post here and at AVI's place on the way in which Jesus was differently depicted by different ages, though, the 'kick ass warrior goddess' is the only one our age knows how to value; if she is to be important to our culture at all, she perforce must be important in that way. 

What Brigid was really good at -- both the myths and the saint-stories agree -- was multiplication. She was reputed to be able to encourage or bar fertility, including of a pregnant nun (as one can multiply by zero, I suppose): "A certain woman who had taken the vow of chastity fell, through the youthful desire of pleasure, and her womb swelled with child. Brigid, exercising the most potent strength of her ineffable faith, blessed her, causing the child to disappear, without coming to birth, and without pain." This has led to a pro-abortion NGO being named after the Catholic saint, which is an irony of ironies; what the Church thinks about that particular saint-story, I have not heard. 

Irish Central has a collection of prayers.