Above: Group of monasteries in Bobbio

The life work of Columbanus must be judged, not by his own accomplishment alone, but by the accomplishment of the men who were trained by him, and under the rule which he established. It has been calculated that 105 monasteries were founded by his disciples in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.

The great monastery of Bobbio which he founded in Lombardy became one of the most celebrated homes of religion and learning in Europe. ” St. Columbanus,” said Montalembert, ” lit up at Bobbio a fire of science and teaching which for ages was a centre of peace for Northern Italy.” Frederick Ozanam writes: ” The apostolic zeal which drove (lie monks of Ireland to the Continent, led St. Columbanus to Bobbio, at the foot of the wild deserts of the Appenines. He bore to this place, along with the severe observances of the hermits of his country, their passion for letters, and the necessity which possessed them for learning and teaching.

Below: Picture of Frederick Ozanam

The spirit of this great reformer lived after him and spread on from those Irishmen who were his companions to their Italian disciples and successors.” There are many sides to the character of this great Irish Saint, but in whatever light we view him he stands out nobly in relief, worthy to take rank with the highest types that Christianity has produced. Perhaps the outstanding feature of his character is his dauntless courage, and history, as Montalembert says well, should admire in him monastic integrity struggling against Merovingian vice and brutality; the fiery and solitary missionary talcing up, in the face of the conquerors of Gaul, the freedom of the prophets of the ancient law against the crowned profligate.

The task which he accomplished in France is sufficient to establish his fame amongst the great Saints of the Church, but his activities did not cease after he left that country. When more than seventy years of age he founded the celebrated monastery of Bobbio in Italy, and at the time of his death he is said to have contemplated a mission to the Slav nations. A French History of Literature sums up thus his life work : ” The light of St. Columbanus, disseminated by his knowledge and doctrine, wherever be presented himself, caused a contemporary writer to compare him to the sun in his course from East to West; and he continued after his death to shine forth in numerous disciples whom he had trained in learning and piety.”