St. Patrick

We just had the feast day of St. Patrick the Bishop of Armagh and the Enlightener of Ireland, and it might be that not many people know the story of this saint, so I have decided to write a little about Patrick’s life based off his own work, The Confession.

St. Patrick was born in Britain to Calpurnius the deacon, and his grandfather, Potitus was a priest. At the age of sixteen, pirates captured Patrick and took him to Ireland where he became a slave. He had not really known the true meaning of Christianity and had not had a relationship with God when he was captured. One day as he was shepherding his sheep he came to believe. From that day on he began to pray long hours of the day and also in the night. He sat on mountains that were filled with snow and under freezing rain when he prayed.

One day, he heard of a ship going back to Britain, and he decided to board it. He ran away from his master whom he had served for six years. When Patrick arrived, the sailors didn’t want to take him. He turned aside and prayed, and when he came back they asked him to board the ship. After three days they arrived on land, but it was uninhabited. They kept wandering for twenty-eight days and ran out of food then they started asking Patrick that if his God was all powerful why he was leaving them to die. Patrick told them that if they believed, God would save them. He turned aside and prayed and then they received food and ate until they were filled. When they ran out of food the second time, it happened to be that they finally reached inhabited land.

Patrick went back to his family in Britain with his Christian faith. One day, as he was asleep, he received a vision: “And, of course, there, in a vision of the night, I saw a man whose name was Victoricus coming as if from Ireland with innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of the letter: ‘The Voice of the Irish’; and as I was reading the beginning of the letter I seemed at that moment to hear the voice of those who were beside the forest of Foclut which is near the western sea, and they were crying as if with one voice: ‘We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us.’ And I was stung intensely in my heart so that I could read no more, and thus I awoke.” Now, God speaking to him to go preach to the Irish, Patrick became a Bishop and went back to Ireland.

Patrick is most famously known for using the Shamrock or the Three Leafed Clover to teach the Irish about the Trinity. The Shamrock, even though it has three leaves, has one stem and is one plant. Patrick, in his work the Confession, always gives glory to God the Trinity. In his icons, he is usually holding the Shamrock in his right hand. Here is something that Patrick wrote concerning evangelism, “According, therefore, to the measure of one’s faith in the Trinity, one should proceed without holding back from danger to make known the gift of God and everlasting consolation, to spread God’s name everywhere with confidence and without fear.”

Overall, Patrick is a good example of prayer, obedience, and evangelism. He prayed regularly and whenever he was in trouble, instead of just being discouraged. Even though he loved his home country of Britain and wanted to travel abroad to Gaul (France), he obeyed when God in a vision told him to go and preach to Ireland. This is a prayer that Patrick said that we should all share in and say, “I pray God that he gives me perseverance, and that he will deign that I should be a faithful witness for his sake right up to the time of my passing.” Let us learn from this saint’s example.

May his prayers be with us and glory be to God both now and ever and unto the age of all ages. Amen.