A fairly common trope in sit-coms is when someone is asked to give a eulogy for a person that the on-the-spot eulogizer did not know (or else had nothing good to say about). The most recent times that I saw this were on a first-run episode of Schitt$ Creek and a rerun of The Golden Girls.

This seems to be the situation Butler found himself in with respect to one of today’s saints–Chuniald. Butler knew he had to write something about him–the Calendar has this saint’s name on it–but really had no clear idea what to write. Let me quote from Butler’s brief entry about Chuniald:

He was one of those eminent Scottish or Irish missionaries who left their native country to carry the faith of Christ into Germany.

And apparently Chuniald is celebrated on September 24, because that is the date when his bones were moved from one place (not named) to another (not named).

In some ways, Chuniald puts me in mind of Millard Fillmore. All I can say about Fillmore is that he was one of those Whig presidents and, really, is more remembered for being in a list of presidents than for much of anything else.

So why then bother to write about Chuniald? Perhaps, like Butler, I feel that it’s better to pass on what little we can from history than to forget those bit entirely. Yet also, like an archeologist, I can find a shard of random pottery fascinating. For example, why did Celtic Christians feel so strongly the need to proselytize the Teutons? Chuniald really is one of a long line of those in ancient and medieval Christendom that left the British or Irish isles to head into present-day Germany, with the hope of making converts.

This opens up questions for me–especially Why?! There’s no reason to believe that they shared a common language. As well, there’s no reason to believe that by that point in time (or, really, any point in time since) all the Scots and the Irish themselves had become Christianized. Did these “eminent” missionaries see their acts as a contribution to stemming possible wars and related territorial encroachments? Did they regard the Germanic peoples as particularly in need of God’s grace? Or did they think that their chances of survival among the Teutons were actually so slim that such mission work might prove a pathway to martyrdom?

So, sure–let’s remember one of those guys that no one even knows where they came from or where exactly they went or whatever, in the end, happened to them!