Saints -- Scotland; Scotland -- Church history -- Biography
This saint was an Irish virgin, who received the monastic habit from
St. Patrick himself, and was a dear friend of St. Bridget. She took
up her abode in Scotland, where she founded many monasteries for
women. Some of these foundations were in Strathclyde, but the
greatest of them was in Galloway, at the place now styled Kirkmaiden
(formerly Kirkmedan), where St. Medan's Well and Cave may still be
seen.
St. Modenna is said to have lived to the age of 130 years and to have
died at Longforgan, near Dundee, after having made during the course
of her long life three pilgrimages to Rome, barefoot and clad in
hair-cloth.
Edinburgh probably takes its name from Medana. Her sanctuary,
marking, it was said, {104} one of her monastic foundations, and
known as "St. Edana's," was a place of pilgrimage long before the
time of King Edwin who was once supposed to have given the city its
designation. The discovery of the foundations of a much more ancient
building under St. Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, in 1918,
seems to corroborate the statement in an ancient Latin life of this
Saint of the erection by her of a church on the top of Edinburgh
Rock, while it strengthens the tradition of the origin of the name,
Edana's Burgh. Maiden Castle is really Medan's (or Medana's) Castle.
A new Catholic church, situated in St. Meddan's Street, Troon, was
erected in 1911 and dedicated to this saint in conjunction with Our
Lady.
7--St. Palladius, Bishop, A.D. (about) 430.
St. Prosper of Aquitaine tells us that this saint was a Roman deacon
who was sent by Pope Celestine I. to those Irish who were already
Christians, that he might be their bishop. After founding several
churches in Ireland, and meeting with opposition from the pagans
there, he left that country for Scotland, where he founded churches
in the Mearns. He died at Fordun, and his relics were still preserved
there {105} in 1409, when the Archbishop of St. Andrews placed them
in a new and costly shrine adorned with gold and gems. The ruins of
his chapel are still to be seen there and a well bears his name.
"Paldy Fair" is still held at Auchinblae in the parish of Fordoun
(Kincardineshire); it formerly lasted eight days.
Pope Leo XIII. in his Bull concerning the restoration of the Scottish
hierarchy in 1878, refers to the share of St. Palladius in the
evangelisation of the country. "St. Palladius," he says, "deacon of
the Roman Church, is said to have preached the Faith of Christ there
(in Scotland) in the fifth century."
The same Pontiff, in 1898, restored this saint's feast to Scotland.
11--St. Drostan, Abbot, 6th century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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