The village of Kilfenora is famous for more than the filming of Father Ted during the mid 1990's. The name means Church of the Fertile Hillside, and within the ruined but covered nave there are several very fine carved stone crosses. Ireland is a land in which the geography and topography is littered with historical artefacts, and that history is demonstrably Celtic and Christian. Long before the sectarian divide which betrays the spiritual tragedy and the ethical paradox of Christians engaged in reciprocal hatred and mutual mistrust, and at times foments bloody violence in the name of God or land, long before that, there were deep traditions of faith, richly textured stories of Christian spirituality, mystical and mysterious figures whose lives were touched with fear and awe and a longing to draw near to God.
Amongst the landmark achievements of Celtic Christianity are the standing crosses, stone carved witnesses to the Gospel, centuries old reminders of a faith that is not easily erased, forgotten or ignored. And whatever else our postmodern hunger for relevance and meaning might question, these stone crosses silently bear testimony to a faith that can survive questions because our deepest human answers fall short of its own eternal realities. Creation, incarnation, atonement, resurrection; Father, Son and Spirit; sin, forgiveness, reconciliation; church, sacrament, service; peace, justice, joy; faith, love and hope. So standing for a while gazing at these larger than life stone crosses, I felt I was incorporated into something vaster than my personal experience of God, immensely wider than my own denominational tradition, defiant of all theology that makes claims of certainty locked into human words, and deeply rooted in a faithful history of dicipleship that our postmodern impatience might fail to understand, and again pay the price.
Ancient celtic cross,
silent witness to Love, carved
in grey weathered stone.
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