St. Columban

St. Columban (c.543–615) was one of the great Irish missionaries who helped rekindle the faith in Europe after the fall of Rome. Born in Leinster, he studied under learned monks and became a monk at the famous monastery of Bangor in the north of Ireland.

Around 590, already a mature man, he set out with twelve companions for the continent as a "pilgrim for Christ." In Burgundy, in what is now France, he founded the monasteries of Annegray, Luxeuil and Fontaine, which drew crowds of young men. His rule was strict, and his Irish customs, including the Irish way of dating Easter, put him at odds with local bishops. When he rebuked the Frankish king for his immoral life, he was expelled.

Columban did not give up. He preached along the Rhine and around Lake Constance, where his companion St. Gall stayed behind, and then crossed the Alps into northern Italy. There, in his seventies, he founded the abbey of Bobbio, where he died in 615. His letters and rule remain, and a modern missionary society, the Columban Fathers, carries his name.