I’m reading Janina Ramirez’s The Private Lives of the Saints at the moment. It’s a mix of hagiography, anthropology, and British social history which is completely up my street. Over the weekend I was reading the section about St Brigid of Kildare, whose feast day is on 1st February. Much of what we know about her is anecdotal. She is one of the patron saints of Ireland, as well as the patron of healers, poets, blacksmiths, livestock, and dairy workers.

One of the things that fascinates me about St Brigid is the possibility that the stories surrounding her life draw on some of the traditions about the Celtic goddess Brigid. The obvious connection is their shared name, but historians have pointed out similarities between anecdotes about her and Irish folklore. Whether or not St Brigid was a real person who helped Christianity spread through Ireland in the 5th century, or a fabrication to homogenize older Irish traditions with newer religious customs, we’ll never know.

February is also LGBTQ+ History Month. I’ve spent most of my twenties getting to know my own queerness, and one of the ways I’ve done that is by trying to look back and find those who came before me. I spent a lot of time during lockdowns exploring the queer history of working class women. More recently, I’ve found myself doing the same with church history and theology, reading articles on saints who could be read as gender queer, or about queer readings of bible passages.

The act of modern queer Christians revisiting and recontextualising previous readings of people and texts isn’t so different to the way that people drew on ancient traditions to illuminate the life of St Brigid. I find a lot of delight in the way queer theologies add vibrancy to biblical texts and spiritual encounters. Bringing my authentic self to God - my questions, my rejections, my frustrations, my hopes about a more inclusive church - has become key in reaching towards the divine in a way that makes sense to me.