Finnian was born in Ulster about the year 495, traditionally reckoned a descendant of Fiatach the Fair, though modern scholars have questioned that pedigree. He is sometimes named Finbarr, "the white head," from his fair hair, and appears in early sources under the older form Uinniau or Winnin. He must not be confused with his elder namesake, Finnian of Clonard, nor should Movilla (Maigh Bhile) in County Down be mistaken for Moville in County Donegal.
From his youth he was given to the monks. He entered the monastery of Nendrum under the guidance of Saint Mochaoi and studied also under Saint Colman of Dromore, learning at their side the discipline, silence, and love of Scripture that would mark his whole life. Seeking still deeper formation, he crossed the sea to Candida Casa at Whithorn in Scotland, the great Christian school founded by Saint Ninian, where the Britons and the Picts met at the same books. Tradition tells that as a young man there he played some prank upon Drustice, the daughter of a Pictish king, who was lodged in the women's quarter of the monastery; had he been less well connected, the story says, his clerical career might have ended before it began. God, however, had other designs, and the youth's high spirits gave way to a lifelong seriousness of purpose.
Finnian then made the long pilgrimage to Rome. He remained there seven years, completing his studies at the tombs of the Apostles, and was ordained a priest. When at last he turned homeward about the year 540 he carried with him a treasure greater than gold: a copy of Saint Jerome's Vulgate, said to be the first complete text of that translation to reach Ireland. In an age when books were rarer than land, this volume brought honour and prestige to whatever house should possess it — and Finnian meant it to serve the whole Church of Ireland.
He founded his monastery at Maigh Bhile, "the plain of the ancient tree," a place venerated in pagan times, about a mile from the northern shore of Strangford Lough near what is now Newtownards; some accounts place the foundation in 540, others in 545. There too he established the renowned school of Druim Fionn. The kings of the Dál Fiatach became his patrons and paid for the building of the monastic enclosure. Under his hand Movilla grew into one of the great communities of Ulster and of all Ireland: a centre of Celtic Christian worship, of learning and copying, of mission to the countryside, and even of commerce for the people who gathered under its protection. Legend adds that Finnian sought to convert Tuan mac Cairill, the mythical last survivor of the race of Partholón, and that in the course of their meeting Tuan recited to him the ancient tale of the takings of Ireland which fed the Lebor Gabála Érenn.
For his monks Finnian wrote a rule, and also a penitential code — one of the earliest of its kind — in which he named some fifty-three sins and set out the medicine proper to each. His penitential was not a bare list of punishments but a physician's book of souls, teaching that contraries are healed by contraries: anger by patience, greed by generosity, lust by continence. Through such books the Irish gift of private, repeated confession spread across Europe, and countless Christians since have received in the confessional the mercy that Finnian helped to order.
His most illustrious pupil was Saint Columba, who under Finnian served, according to Adomnán of Iona, as a deacon while Finnian himself was a bishop. Adomnán records that once, when Finnian was celebrating Mass and the wine had run out, Columba went to a well, drew water, blessed it in the name of Christ, and brought it back changed into wine for the altar — the first miracle, Adomnán says, that Columba ever worked. Tradition also preserves the famous quarrel of master and disciple: Columba, unable to resist so beautiful a book, secretly copied Finnian's psalter by night in the church of Movilla. Finnian claimed the copy, and the High King Diarmait mac Cerbaill, sitting in judgement at Tara, ruled in his favour — "to every cow her calf, and to every book its copy." The dispute, the story goes, ended in battle and in Columba's penitential exile to Iona, from which he evangelised the Scots. The surviving leaves of that copy, the Cathach or "Battler" of Saint Columba, long carried by the O'Donnells into war, are kept today in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, its shrine in the National Museum of Ireland. Scholars debate the chronology and the details; the Church has kept the tale because it shows how God draws great good even out of the passions of the saints.
Other legends gathered about Finnian's name. It is said that birds came and settled near him, so gentle was his holiness; that he drove parasitic insects, worms, and vermin from the island of Flathlom and from the region of Nantcarfan; that he moved the course of a river; and that when Saxon raiders threatened his community the earth opened at his prayer and swallowed them. Whatever history may sift from these tales, they witness to what the people of Ulster believed of him: that God's power was near this man.
Finnian died about the year 589 — some annals say 579 — and was buried at Movilla, where miracles were reported at his tomb. The Book of Armagh calls him "vir vitae venerabilis qui jacet in miraculis multis in sua civitate Maghbile," a man of venerable life who reposes in many miracles in his city of Movilla. His name is recorded in the Martyrology of Óengus, and his abbey endured as a place of Christian witness for more than a thousand years, until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1542; the fifteenth-century ruins may still be seen at Newtownards. He is honoured as a patron of Ulster, and his feast is kept on 10 September by Catholics and Anglicans alike.
Finnian's whole life was spent carrying holy things to others: the Scriptures from Rome, the discipline of the rule to his monks, the mercy of penance to sinners, and the fire of the Gospel to a young Columba who would carry it further still.
Let us ask Saint Finnian of Moville to obtain for us today a hunger for the word of God and the humility to seek God's mercy in confession, that what we receive we may hand on to others.
