Columba is remembered as the Irish missionary who did much to evangelize the Picts in northern Scotland. Archaeologists have identified a site in Iona that dates to the time of Columba and that they believe may have been the cell where he prayed and wrote. You can read the story at Atlas Obscura.
The missionary was also a hymn writer. Here is a fragment of his most famous hymn, Altus Prosator, as translated by Samuel Stone.
High Creator, Unbegotten,
Ancient of Eternal days,
Unbegun ere all beginning,
Him, the world’s one source, we praise:
God who is, and God who shall be :
All that was and is before:
Him with Christ the Sole-Begotten,
And the Spirit we adore,
Co-eternal, one in glory,
Evermore and evermore:—
Not Three Gods are They we worship,
But the Three which are the One,
God, in Three most glorious Persons :—
Other saving Faith is none.
All good angels and archangels,
Powers and Principalities,
Virtues, Thrones, His will created—
Grades and orders of the skies,
That the majesty and goodness
Of the Blessed Trinity
In its ever bounteous largesse
Never might inactive be;
Having thus wherewith to glory,
All the wide world might adore
The high Godhead’s sole-possession
Everywhere and evermore.
