Dove of White Flame: A Historical Novel About Saint Columba
Ebook
Overview
Dove of White Flame: A Historical Novel About Saint Columba aims to enter the sixth-century world of Saint Columba--also known as Colmcille--as vividly as possible while maintaining historical accuracy. It aims to give the reader a taste of sixth-century Ireland and Scotland, known then as Eriu and Alba, with their sights and sounds and smells, and a feel for Saint Columba’s character, growth, and inner spirit. The reader will meet his parents, his family, his friends, his teachers, his fellow monks, and his inspirers, as well as his enemies--all of them people who really lived. The reader will follow the saint through miracles, sea voyages, successes and humiliations, confrontations, plague, pirates, angels, a monster, and even the famous “Battle of the Books,” and will see something of his great love for nature, for God, for his fellow humans, and for the Psalms of David which were his spiritual daily bread. Apart from a very short prologue, which gives a description of the appearance of the saint in adulthood, the book starts with his mother’s pregnancy and ends with his remarkable and beautiful death.
“The author traces Columba’s life from holy birth to student
under Ireland’s best tutors, from founder of monastic communities
to his exile and last great foundation at Iona. . . . She captures
for us his prophetic talent, his love of nature and poetry, his
flaws, but above all his passion for God. Columba stands astride
Britain and Ireland, a symbol in a post-Brexit world of the
fellowship that can flourish again between these two lands. In a
time of flight from abusive hierarchy in the church, this book
sparks hope that new, grassroots monastic communities may revive
the love of Christ among our peoples today.”
—Ray Simpson, Founding Guardian, The International Community of
Aidan and Hilda
“In this novel, we get to know Columba not as a haloed saint of the
past, but as someone who was as rugged and human as the rest of us,
yet who had a burning passion for Christ that transformed the world
around him. We are given fascinating insights into the world of the
sixth century, but at the same time we have a story which has much
to say to our twenty-first-century world.”
—Michael Mitton, Canon Emeritus, Derby Cathedral
“As Stella Durand implies, tradition sometimes embellishes
verifiable fact; yet there is a sense in which ‘tradition’ becomes
part of history. No fewer than thirty-five such saints are accorded
a place in the Church of Ireland’s Book of Common Prayer
(2004), the ‘three patrons of Ireland,’ Patrick, Brigid, and
Columba pre-eminent among them, and it is timely that Columba is
the subject of this presentation of the man as well as the
saint.”
—Kenneth Milne, author of A Short History of the Church of
Ireland
“Marvelous and vivid, Saint Columba is brought to life in Dove
of White Flame with great beauty and tenderness.”
—Paul McMahon, author of Bourdon: Poems
- Title: Dove of White Flame: A Historical Novel About Saint Columba
- Author: Stella Durand
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781725264564, 9781725264540, 9781725264557, 1725264560, 1725264544, 1725264552
- Resource ID: LLS:9781725264564
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T20:21:49Z
Stella Durand is a recently retired Anglican priest living in
the west of Ireland. She is the author of Drumcliffe (2000),
Through the Year with the Irish Saints (2020), and a volume
of poetry. She is a member of the International Community of Aidan
and Hilda and volunteers as a part-time tourist chaplain at St.
Columba’s Church, Drumcliffe.