St. Brigid: Cathedral and Cross

Friend Sharon sent pictures of St. Brigid Cathedral in Kildare on her recent trip to Ireland.

Brief Notes on the Cathedral's History says:

Just over 1500 years ago...Saint Brigid arrived in Kildare with her nuns in the year 480 A.D.  Her original abbey church would have been a simple wooden building, but so great became her fame that, soon after her death in 523 A.D., a costly shrine was erected in her honour in a new and larger building. For many centuries Kildare maintained a unique Irish experiment; the abbess ruled over a double community of women and men and the bishop was subordinate in jurisdiction to the abbess.

Sharon also sent a beautiful St. Brigid Cross that will be placed beside the inside entry of our home.  A smaller replica in the form of a lapel pin says:

The idea of St. Brigid's Cross probably goes back to Pagan times. Making the cross may have been part of a ceremony of preparing the seed for planting.  Legend has it that St. Brigid made her cross while sitting at the bedside of a dying leper. Some say the man was her own father, Dubthach. She whiled away the time making a cross from the rushes that covered the floor. Her father notices, and asked what she was doing. Explaining the cross, St. Brigid told him the Gospel story. It is said that Dubthach became a believer.

Yes, Sharon, it does give me inspiration.  Thank you, friend.