Moling, also known as Molingus, also known as Dairchilla: The main thing known about this saint is that, back in 7th-century Ireland, he paid attention to politics and the oppression of people by governmental policies, and he did something about it rather than simply help people to comply or adapt or just turn their eyes heavenward. He did not quote Romans 13:1 to excuse governmental brutality, nor did he counsel the people of the countryside to unquestioningly obey their government leaders.

Instead, he took his grassroots popularity and support out for a spin, and used his influence. He betook himself to one King Finacta (of whom I could find nothing definitive on the internet) to lift a five-hundred-year tax of oxen laid upon the people of the Leinster province of Ireland. For more than five centuries, kings, rulers, warlords (take your pick of titles) had been requiring the farmers of this area of southern Ireland to provide them annually with oxen. This came at a great cost to the people of Leinster, not only on account of the price of the oxen themselves, but for their utility with respect to plowing and other agricultural purposes necessary to feed the people of that region. And this taxation (known at the “Boarian tribute”) also came at the cost of numerous lives: periodically, the people would rise up in rebellion against this taxation, with many lives lost and no relief from the oppression…often leaving women and children, without oxen, to find ways to grow food and feed themselves.

So Moling persuaded the King to lift the yoke from the people of Leinster who were suffering under an unjust and actually unnecessary taxation. After all, didn’t these royals have any kind of animal husbandry themselves? Or couldn’t they just demand crops like any other land baron did?

Moling refused to separate himself from the world. He didn’t scruple to meddle in politics–not to gain political power for himself but to work on behalf of the oppressed. He found peace preferable to bloodshed and humane justice preferable to oppressive laws. He put himself on the line–after all, what is the use of building good will only to wear it like a cloak rather than to spend it on behalf of others?

I honestly believe that more of us can and need to be Molings than we perhaps realize. Let’s think about it!