The high abbesses... had the power to heal, ...almost certainly heard confessions, probably ordained clergy, and may even have celebrated Mass. - Thomas Cahill

The Irish... developed a form of confession that was exclusively private and that had no equivalent on the continent. In the ancient church, confession of one's sins—and the subsequent penance... had always been public. ...one did not necessarily choose one's "priest" from among ordained professionals: the act of confession was too personal and too important for such a limitation. One looked for an anmchara, a soul-friend, someone to be trusted over a whole lifetime.

Whatever we experience in our day, whatever we hope to learn, whatever we most desire, whatever we set out to find, we see that the Greeks have been there before us, and we meet them on their way back.

Dour, anxious Hesiod writes about the daily round of farming and the effects if the seasons on rural life but also speaks in his Works and Days about the value of festal competitions with "potter against potter, carpenter against carpenter... poet against poet."