Birth and childhood
St. Kevin was born in the year 498 in the Irish province of Leinster
to noble parents, perhaps even descendant of the Kings of Leinster.
Tradition holds that when he was born, his mother felt no labour pains,
and the snow that fell on the day of his birth melted as it fell around
the house. An angel is said to have appeared during the child's baptism,
telling his parents that the child should be named "Kevin." St.
Cronan, the officiating
priest, said, "This was surely an angel of the Lord, and as he named the child so shall he be called." So the babe was
baptised
Kevin, Coemgen in the Irish tongue, which means "He of Blessed Birth."
He is the first person in history to be called Kevin. His childhood was
marked by a horrible temper and dislike of other people, although he
loved animals.
The blackbird's nest
At the age of seven, his parents sent him to the
monastery run by St.
Petroc in Cornwall. While there, Kevin was kneeling, his arms outstretched in prayer, on the first day of
Lent
in a small hut in the wilderness when a blackbird landed in his palm
and proceeded to construct a nest. Kevin remained perfectly still, so as
not to disturb the bird, for the whole of Lent. Kevin was fed by the
blackbird with berries and nuts. By the end of Lent, the last blackbird
hatchlings had flown from the nest, which now lay empty in his hand, and
Kevin returned to the monastery for the Paschal celebration.
Kevin's isolation
After being ordained to the priesthood, Kevin spent seven years as a
hermit in the mountains surrounding Glendalough, which comes from the Gaelic words
glen (meaning "valley") and
lough
(meaning "lake"), meaning "Valley of the Two Lakes." He lived in a
small, five by seven by three foot cave, now know as St. Kevin's Bed,
which was, legend holds, shown to him by an
angel.
His life was spent in prayer and self denial, and he lived off herbs
and fish an otter that lived in the lake would bring Kevin whenever
Kevin visited the lake, which he did in the winter, when he would stand
up to his neck in the ice cold water to pray. During one of these
sessions of prayer in the Upper Lake of Glendalough (which he preferred
to the Lower Lake, because it it was much more remote and colder), he
dropped his
breviary
into the lake. An otter appeared from the bottom of the lake with the
prayer book, unstained or damaged in any way, in its mouth. Henceforth,
the otter would bring fish to Kevin for food.
Kevin valued his solitude very much; overmuch, some would say.
When, at the beginning of his hermit's life, a woman followed him
constantly, trying to get him to marry her, he eventually solved the
problem by pushing her off a cliff.
Return to society
Kevin returned to society when a farmer, named Dima, followed a cow
of his who would continually wander off. The cow would come every day,
when the erd was sent out to pasture, to St. Kevin's cave and lick his
clothes and feet while he was in prayer. When the cow returned at
evening, she would produced unbelievable amounts of milk. Dima,
wondering greatly about this, one day resolved to follow the cow. When
Dima stumbled upon Kevin's cave, and saw what was the cause of this, he
fell to his knees in penitence. Kevin raised him up, and, as Dima was a
pagan, taught the farmer about Christ and the
Gospel.
Dima eventually begged Kevin to come out of his isolation and teach his
family about Christ. After a day of prayer, Kevin saw that it was God's
will that he return to society to spread the Gospel. He began by
teaching Dima's family, but his tutelage soon grew to dozens of families
and he began to attract followers. And so, seeing the need of a central
place from which to teach, Kevin decided to establish a monastery.
