SENAN
713
SENANQUE
rambar^, Paraguay, 19 July, 1614. He entered the
Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona, Aragon, in 1608.
Before completing his studies he volunteered for
the Guarani missions of Paraguay, and sailed from
Lisbon in company with the veteran missionary'.
Father Juan Romero, in 1610, continuing his studies
on the voyage. The rest of his hfe was spent at the
Guarani mission to-mi of Guarambare or with the
uncivilized cognate tribe of Itatines, whose language
he studied and reduced to dictionary form. He was
distinguished and beloved among the Indians for
his virtues and for his courage in defen.se of the
natives against the slave-dealers, declining offered
preferment at Sante Fe in order to remain with his
mission work. After mini.stering without fear to the
sick throughout a contagious epidemic, he was him-
self seized by a fever, for which no medicine could be
procured, and succumbed to it after intense suffering.
His remains were afterwards taken up and reinterred
at the Jesuit college at Asunci6n.
LozANO, Hist, de la. Comp. de J. en Paraguay, II (Madrid,
1754-5). James Mooney.
Senan, Saint, bishop and confessor, b. at Magh Lacha, Kilrush, Co. Clare, c. 488; d. 1 March, 560, his parents being Ercan and Comgella. His birth was prophetically announced by St. Patrick on his visit to the Hy Fidhgent (Co. Limerick), and as a boy he was placed under the guidance of a saintly abbot called Cassidan, finishing his studies under St. Naul, at Kilmanagh, Co. Kilkenny. He commenced his mi.ssionary career by founding a church near Enniscorthy, in .510 for 512), and the parish is still known as Templcshannon {Teampul Senain). He then visited Menevia, Rome, and Tours, and returned to Ireland in .520. Having founded churches at Inniscarra (Co. Cork), at Inisluinghe, at Deer Island, Inismore, and Mutton Islanrl. he finally settled at Iniscathay, or Scattery Island, Co. Clare. He was visited by St. Ciaran and St. Brendan, and other holy men, who had heard of his sanctity and miracles. Scattery Island became not only a famous abbey but the seat of a bishopric with St. Senan as its first bishop. This event may be dated as about the year 535 or 540, and St. Senan's jurLsdiction extended over the existing Baronies of Moyarta and Clonderalaw in Thomond. the Barony of Connelo in Limerick, and a small portion of Kerry from the Feal to the Atlantic. The legend of "St. Senanus and the Lady", as told in Tom Moore's IjTic, is founded on the fact that no woman was allowed to enter Scattery Island; not even St. Cannera was permitted to land there, yet St. Senan founded two convents for nuns, and was actually on a visit to one of them when he died. He was buried in the abbey church of Iniscathay on 8 March, on which day his feast is observed. The Diocese of Inniscathy continued till the year 1189, when it was suppressed. It was, however, restored by Pope Innocent VI, and continued as a separate see under Bishop Thomas (13.58-68) . In 1378 its pos- sessions were divided, and the island remained a portion of Killaloe, being subsequently merged into the parish of Kilrush. One of the earliest references to the Round Tower of Inniscathay is in the Irish life of St. Senan.
CoLGAN, Acta Sand. Hib. (Louvain, 1645); Archdall, Mon. Hib. (new ed., Dublin, 187.3); O'Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, IV (Dublin, s. d.) ; Frost, Hist, of Co. Clare (Dublin, 1893); Begley, Diocese of Limerick (Dublin, 1906).
W. H. Grattax-Flood.
Senan, Josfi Francisco de Paula, b. at Barcelona, Spain, 3 March, 1760; d. at Mi-ssion San Buena- ventura on 24 Aug., 1823; entered the Franciscan Order in 1774. In 1784 he was incorporated in the missionarj'- college of San Fernando in the City of Mexico, and in 1787 sent to California. He was there assigned to the Mission of San Carlos and remained until 1795, when he retired to Mexico and reported the missionary conditions in the territory to the vice-
roy. In 1798 he returned to California, and was sta-
tioned at Mission San Buenaventura until his death.
From July, 1812, till the end of 1815 Senan held the
office of presidente of the missions. In October, 1819, he
was reappointed and continued in office until he died.
As presidente he was also vicar forane to the Bishop of
Sonora for Upper California. A month before his
death he moreover received the appointment of
vice-commissary prefect. Senan was familiar with
the language of the Indians, and his reports and
mission entries are distinguished by their exact-
ness and beauty of penmanship. Though a very
zealous missionary, Senan loved a retired life. He
disliked to hold office or give orders; for this reason
he wa,s sometimes nicknamed Padre Calma. The
commLssary-general of the Indies directed him to
write a history of the missions, and Senan in 1819
promised to comply; but he left no papers on the
subject. His remains were interred in the church of
San Buenaventura Mission.
Santa Barbara Archives; Mission Records of San Buenaventura; Engelhardt, The Franciscans in California (Harbor Springs, Mich., 1897); Bancroft, California, II (San Francisco, 1886); Mission.'i and Missionaries of California, II (San Francisco, 1912).
Zephyrin Engelhardt.
Senanque, Cistercian monastery and cradle of the modern Cistercians of the Immaculate Conception, situated on the rivulet Scnancolc, Diocese of Avignon, was founded, with the concurrence of St. Bernard, by Alfant, Bishop of Cavaillon, and RajTnond Berenger II, Count of Provence. The original community came from the Cistercian abbey of Mazan, in 1148, under Peter, their first abbot. In the beginning their poverty was extreme, until the Lords of Simiane be- came their benefactors, and built, with the assistance of the neighbouring nobility, a spacious monastery, according to the rule of Citeaux. The attraction of St. Bernard's name drew numerous postulants to the new foundation, so that in a short time the commu- nity numbered more than one hundred members, enabling them, in 1152, to found the monastery of Charnbons, in the Diocese of Viviers. Little by little, however, it suffered the fate of so many abbeys of those times, and weakened in fervour and numbers; after it had been governed by thirty regular abbots, it fell in commendam in 1509; having, at that time, not more than a dozen members. When suppressed by the Revolution, 1791, there was but one monk remaining of the whole community.
In 1854 Abbe Barnouin, of the Diocese of Avignon, bought the abbey, which was in a state of perfect preservation, and established a community there. The object of the founder was to institute a medium regime more severe than the common, but less strict than the Reform of La Trappe. After a short time in the Novitiate of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme (Rome), having obtained approbation for his monastery. Abbe Barnouin was professed in 1857, taking the name of " Mary Bernard". A new decree, in 1867, erected the house into a particular congregation affiliated to the Cistercians of the Common Observance, under the title Congregation of the Cistercians of the Immac- ulate Conception of X. D. de Senanque", with a vicar- general, elected for six years, at their head. Dom M. Bernard, the founder, first filled this office (1868). After establishing several other subordinate monas- teries, he began the restoration of the celebrated Abbey of Lerins, and was authorized to make his residence there. His .successors followed him in this, until compelled by the persecutions of 1902, to leave the country, transferring the community to N. D. du Suffrage, Province of Lerida, Spain, where they are now established.
Manriqce, Annates Cistercienses (Lyons, 1642-59); Joxgeli- Nus, Notilia abbatiarum ordinis cisterciensis (Cologne, 1640); Gallia Christiana, I; Besse, Abbayes el prieures de I'ancienne France (Paris, 1909) ; Moyne, L'abbaye de Senanque (.\vignon, 1857); L'ile et l'abbaye de Lerins (Lerins, 1895), by a monk of
