Examining What Is Truly Beautiful for Our Daughters

The Taylor Swift phenomenon appears to be another sign of the de-Christianization and re-paganization going in the United States.  Statues, graves, street names, holidays, etc. of Christian soldiers, statesmen, missionaries, and others are destroyed, but things in honor of Miss Swift are increasing:

So far on her sold-out Eras stadium tour, Swift has not responded to any of the host cities’ symbolic offers — Tampa declared her “honorary mayor” and gave her the key to the city; Glendale, Ariz., temporarily renamed itself Swift City; Arlington, Texas, named a street Taylor Swift Way; and Las Vegas lit up its 80-feet-tall Gateway Arches in colors representing all of her albums. 

And what kind of a person are these cities honoring?  An open Leftist:

Now — this is a Decline-of-the-West tragedy at hand — see what she released nearly a decade later, when she came into political consciousness in the Trump era. This is 2019’s You Need to Calm Down, which is on the surface level a love letter her gay / trans fan base, but on a deeper level a hate letter to her traditionalist fan base of mostly Christian girls from the 2000s. Just watch and you’ll see, it’s loathsome and revelatory.

As it happens, Swift the next year released a documentary about herself, Miss Americana, for the specific purpose of showcasing her arrival at progressive-left political consciousness. 

Worse, an open Leftist who is trying to redefine Christianity:

The singer-songwriter’s beliefs appear to differ from the more traditional Christian values. Mainly, this includes Taylor’s support of the LGBTQ+ community as well as support for abortion access.

Taylor told Variety in 2020 about breaking away from her previous apolitical public persona: “This was a situation where, from a humanity perspective and from what my moral compass was telling me I needed to do, I knew I was right, and I really didn’t care about repercussions.”

In a 2019 interview with The Guardian where she discussed her disdain for President Trump and the current atmosphere of U.S. politics, Taylor noted that she supports abortion rights and wants to bolster political candidates who will expand access to it.

“Obviously, I’m pro-choice,” she said at the time, as Tennessee was gearing up to vote on an abortion ban. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s really shocking and awful. And I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help.”

If one thing is clear from all of this, it’s that Taylor has established her own relationship with faith. Although her beliefs deviate from some of Christianity’s traditional values, she stands firm in her faith and the causes she supports.

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Now, whatever the Taylor Swift phenomenon is – whether feminist subversion/goddess worship, an intelligence agency culture creation psychological operation, or a mass mental illness, it is quite distinct from the Christian inheritance of western Europe’s past.  In traditional Western Christian culture, the women who were most exalted were women like St Brigid of Kildare, Ireland:

The most venerated Irish woman saint, St. Brigid (Bridget, Bride) lived in the second half of the fifth century and the early sixth century. She was most probably born between 450 and 454 and reposed between c. 523 and 527. Her name means “light-bearer” (other possible translations: “power”, virtue”, “exalted one”). In truth the saint by the light of her virtuous life justified her name. She is often nicknamed “Mary of Ireland”1 and “the pillar of Ireland” and is venerated on a par with Sts. Patrick and Columba. . . . 

Her Christianity is the opposite of the progressive “values” Swift espouses to her millions of adoring–and unsuspecting–fans:

According to one tradition, the holy maiden Brigid was born in Faughart near Dundalk in what is now County Louth in Ireland, and, according to another tradition, in Uinmeras near Kildare. From her childhood Brigid was noted for her beauty, strictness, devotion to God, love, and many miracles. She may have been baptized by St. Patrick and tonsured by either St. Mael of Ardagh or the Holy Bishop Maccaile. It is believed that her father, Dubtach, was a pagan chief in Leinster, and her Christian mother, Brocca, of Pictish descent, was his slave. Later Dubtach’s wife persuaded him to sell Brigid’s mother to a druid. It is believed that her father, the king, was so amazed by his young daughter’s wisdom and kindness that he allowed her to work at his palace as a servant. The saint had been instructed in the Christian faith by her pious mother so she remained free of any pagan influences and temptations at her father’s court. The glory of the pure and kind-hearted young girl, who already worked miracles in her teens, spread far and wide, and the king eventually gave her freedom. When St. Brigid grew up, her father wanted to give her in marriage to a chief in Ulster, but the saint who wanted to become a nun answered that her only Bridegroom was Christ and thus refused a promising marriage.

The holy virgin took the veil at a very young age in about 468. First she lived in prayer and fasting together with seven other virgins near Croghan Hill in Offaly, where she may have founded a monastic community, and then in the valley of Maghlif. Her main achievement was the foundation in about 480 of the double monastery in Kildare in what is now County Kildare in the east of the Irish Republic. At first it was just a tiny cell under an oak tree, but in time it grew into a huge and great monastic community of Kildare (the name “Kill Dara” means “church of the oak”). The ancient oak under the shade of which Brigid built her principal establishment stood till the tenth century. The saint ruled both parts of her double monastery—that is, the abbot of the community for men was subordinate to her (then to her successor, and so on). This continued for many years. St. Brigid invited the holy hermit Conleth (feast: May 4/17) to be the spiritual father in her monastery, and afterwards he was consecrated first bishop of Kildare. A highly reputed co-worker of Brigid, a brilliant metalworker, who copied and illuminated many manuscripts, St. Conleth was widely venerated after his death in c. 519.

The most popular woman saint of Ireland, St. Brigid is ranked as the second patron of this land after St. Patrick. After founding her main monastery she carried on the apostolic labors of St. Patrick in converting the pagans to Christ and encouraging the Christian and ascetic way of life among the island’s inhabitants. She had a great influence on her contemporaries with her extraordinary abilities, learning, intelligence and miracles. The monasteries founded by her and her disciples across Ireland contributed enormously to the promotion of monasticism, piety and the Christianization of Ireland.

And yet this made St Brigid more, rather than less, attuned to the needs of those darlings of the Left – the poor, sick, students, etc.:

St. Brigid is especially venerated for her love, compassion, mercy, care and generosity for everybody. It was related that as a girl she once gave away all the butter she was carrying home to paupers. Fearing that her mother would be disappointed, she prayed—and all the empty pails in the house were miraculously filled with butter! On one occasion as a young maiden she met a pauper in the street and without thinking took off her cloak and shoes and gave them to him. In all accounts of that time St. Brigid is praised for her miracles and works of love: She would distribute food and other gifts among the poor, heal the sick, and she never turned down anybody who needed help. Remarkably, the Lord bestowed a very rare gift upon His holy abbess: “multiplying bread”. Through the prayers of the holy maiden, who imitated Christ, her monastery never ran out of supplies of butter, cheese, meat and many other treats for guests—there was always sufficient food and drink for everybody. On one occasion the water at her monastery miraculously turned into low-alcoholic beer to quench the thirst of her guests—priests who had suddenly arrived. Even the cows of St. Brigid’s Monastery provided three times as much milk as an ordinary cow can give, sometimes in enormous quantities contrary to the laws of nature, so that it would suffice for all the bishops or other guests. Hospitality was one of the top priorities of the saint!

 . . . Amazingly, the holy abbess wasn’t afraid to cure lepers and insane people—those who had been rejected by society. No other Life of a saint can boast so many accounts of healing lepers! Brigid felt no aversion to anybody, seeing the image of God in every neighbor. The saint possessed the gift of discernment: sometimes people appealed to her as to a judge, when there was no hope of justice on earth. Students, priests and even bishops from across Ireland flocked to St. Brigid, seeking her advice, support and encouragement. She was regarded as an eldress, a vessel of wisdom and many other gifts of the Holy Spirit.

All of this has earned her high renown in the centuries that have followed her holy life:

The fifteenth-century vellum Book of Lismore, which is based on earlier manuscripts and includes the Lives of several Irish saints, contains a panegyric to St. Brigid, which has the following passages (translation by the Irish Celtic scholar Whitley Stokes: 1830-1909): “Everything that Brigid would ask of the Lord was granted to her at once. For this was her desire: to satisfy the poor, to expel every hardship, to spare every miserable man. None was ever more retiring, more modest, more gentle, more humble, more wise, or more harmonious than she. She was abstinent, innocent, prayerful, patient; she was glad in God’s commandments; she was firm, humble, forgiving, loving; she was a consecrated casket for keeping Christ’s Body and His Blood; she was a temple of God. Her heart and her mind were a throne of rest for the Holy Spirit. She was simple before God; she was compassionate towards the wretched; she was splendid in miracles and marvels; wherefore her name among created things is Dove among birds, Vine among trees, Sun among stars…

“She helps everyone who is in strait and danger; she banishes pestilence; she quells the anger and the storm of the sea. She is the prophetess of Christ, she is the Queen of the South [implying that St. Patrick is the apostle of the north]; she is the Mary of the Gael [Ireland].”

Her feast day (1 February) is still festively kept:

St. Brigid’s day is one of the most beloved holy days among the Irish to this day. There were many folk traditions celebrating it. On the eve of the feast, people would cook a special dish in her honor, leave a piece of cloth or a ribbon on the door or windowsill so that the saint would bless it at the night and it would possess a special curative power for the next year; they would visit her holy wells, and go from home to home with her image raising money for charities. To this day rural people in Ireland make “St. Brigid crosses”2 for the eve of her feast using straw, rushes, reeds, grass, or hay, and hang them above the door of the kitchen as well as in the domestic animal sheds to secure the saint’s blessing, success and good health for the whole year. Many people still leave pots with milk or cottage cheese on their windowsills on the eve of her festival, asking Brigid to bless their produce and agricultural labor. Many of these dishes are then consumed by the poor, which is in the spirit of St. Brigid who would always feed the hungry and give shelter to strangers and the homeless.

Now, if Louisiana and the rest of the South (which have all received a large Irish immigration over the years of their existence) want to strengthen their Christian culture, they can start by officially declaring Feb. 1st St Brigid’s Day and noting all the achievements she accomplished and the legacy she has left behind.  The hospitality of Louisiana and the South that Gov Jeff Landry noted in his inaugural address are part of that wonderful legacy, to name only one thing.  Naming a prominent street or building or etc. after St Brigid should be seriously considered (a look at all the kinds of people for whom she is the patron saint will give us an idea of the many places and things that could be named after her, from farms to ships to votech schools:  ‘St. Brigid is a patroness of poets, blacksmiths, doctors, nurses, midwives, children, students, women in labor, dairymaids, farmers, seamen, travelers, nuns, those seeking priestly ministry, scholars, paupers, and agriculture.’).  School kids could make St Brigid’s crosses on her Feast Day during class time (teachers may look here for directions on how to do this).  Families could say her Akathist Hymn together (available through Paul Kingsnorth).

Taylor Swift may be the pre-eminent female pop-poet of the day, but we would rather have St Brigid’s poems – poems from her warm, simple, Christian heart – on our tongue instead:

I would wish a great lake of ale for the King of Kings;

I would wish the family of heaven to be drinking it throughout life and time.

I would wish the men of Heaven in my own house;

I would wish vessels of peace to be given to them.

I would wish joy to be in their drinking;

I would wish Jesu to be here among them.

I would wish the three Marys of great name;

I would wish the people of heaven from every side.

I would wish to be a rent-payer to the Prince; the way if I was in trouble He would give me a good blessing.

And so should our young daughters looking for a Godly feminine role model. May we in Dixie (including Taylor Swift) have the blessing of being in her prayers!