The Bachall Isu—The Crozier of St. Patrick
Of all the relics bequeathed to us by Ireland’s catalogue of saints, the greatest was undoubtedly the episcopal crozier used by St. Patrick known as the Bachall Isu. The Irish word Bachall comes from the Latin baculus, a crozier or staff; Isu is a shortened form of the Latin name for our Lord, Iesus. Bachall Isu thus means “Staff of Jesus,” a name reflecting a popular tradition that the staff was given to St. Patrick by Jesus Christ Himself. According to the fourth book of the medieval Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, when Patrick was in Italy preparing for his Irish mission, he traveled to an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea where he encountered a strange prodigy—a young man and and his wife with an elderly woman. The young man told Patrick that the old woman was one of his descendants. Patrick, mystified at how a young man could have an elderly descendant, asked how such a thing could be. He was told:
We have been here since the time of Christ. He came to visit us when He was on earth amongst men; and we made a feast for Him, and he blessed our house and blessed ourselves, though this blessing did not descend to our children. Thus we shall be here without age or decay forever.[1]
The young man recounted that Jesus Christ had told them that one day Patrick would visit the island. He accordingly had left a gift behind for the saint:
And it is long since thy coming was foretold to us, and God prophesied unto us that thou would come to preach to the Gael; and He left a token with us, i.e., His bachall (crozier), to be given to thee.[2]
Patrick was unsure of this story and told the man that if Jesus wished him to receive this bachall, He would have to deliver it to him Himself. Our Lord obliged:
Patrick remained three days and three nights with them; and he went afterwards into Sliabh-Hermoin, near the island, where the Lord appeared unto him, and commanded him to go and preach to the Gael; and He gave him the Bachall Isu and said that it would be of assistance to him in every danger and every difficulty in which he would find himself.[3]
St. Patrick came cherished this crozier. He asked his traveling companion, the goldsmith St. Tassach, to construct a special case for the relic. The case was not a box, but more of a form-fitting covering that allowed Patrick to keep the relic enclosed while still making use of it. The case would become an integral part of the relic; in later years, the staff itself was never removed from its protective covering.
