Are you going to Whithorn on Sunday
to honour Saint Ninian?
Mass is on the beach at 4.00pm or in the town at 4.45pm.
Saint Ninian of Galloway (360-431) is the first name we have in the story of the Faith in Scotland. He was born in the Border area (possibly south of it!) into a family which was already Christian. Who brought the Faith to them? We do not know, but the young Ninian, while probably still in his teens, wanted, in the time-honoured phrase, "to know more about the Tradition" his family had received, and so he went to Rome. Here and on his journeys he would have known of, or come into contact with, some of the great names of the Church of those times - St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus of Nola - and so, when Pope Saint Siricius consecrated him Bishop for Scotland in 394, after many years in Rome, he was bringing home the riches of the Church of the day to share with the people of Scotland, among which would have been the New Testament, just recently translated into Latin, the common language of the time, by St. Jerome.