I
am Patrick, a sinner, unlettered, the least of all the faithful, and
held in contempt by a great many people… (St. Patrick, Confessions, 1)
Today
we celebrate our patron saint. For many people it is simply
‘Irish’ day. A day to be proud of being Irish, but from our
point of view, it’s a day to celebrate what God has given to us.
It marks the day when Christianity was first brought to Ireland.
And in sixteen centuries the faith in this country has developed to a
huge degree, even with penal times and serious persecutions. So
many men and women have been inspired to give their lives to God in
the priesthood and religious life and in turn bring it to other
countries. And so many men and women have lived out their faith
in ordinary lives, bearing witness to God by the way they live.
St. Patrick was the instrument God used to give us this great gift.
Why did Patrick come to us anyway? Weren’t we doing OK on our
own?’ Did we really need Christianity? Hasn’t it
brought many divisions? The reason why Patrick came to us was
very simple: The Lord of heaven wanted to make himself known to
us, and to know what He had done for us through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. God wanted us to share the joy of
knowing him and to know what our life is about and why we were
created.
During his time here as a slave, through suffering and hardship, the
Lord was helping Patrick to grow in the spirit. According to
his own writings, when he came here first he did not know the living
God. But somehow God made himself known to Patrick. He
says that he used to get up during the night to pray and no matter
what the weather was like, he used to spend time praying each day.
God was inspiring him to do this, to come to know him better, so that
later he would be strong enough in his faith to see him through his
difficult mission to the Irish people.
Then when
Patrick finally became free and returned to his own people he had a
dream that the Irish were calling him back to them to teach them
about God. Here is how
Patrick describes the dream in which he was called:
I
saw in a vision of the night a man coming as it were from Ireland,
whose name was Victoricus, with countless letters, and he gave me one
of them, and I read the beginning of the letter, which ran: ‘The
voice of the Irish’; and as I was reading the beginning of the
letter aloud I thought I heard at that very moment the voice of those
who lived beside the wood of Voclut: ‘We beg you, holy youth, to
come and walk once more among us’. And I was greatly troubled in
heart and could read no further. (Confessions, 23)
[God]
came powerfully to my aid when I was being walked upon… for many
were trying to stop this mission of mine; they were even talking
among themselves behind my back, and asking: ‘Why is that fellow
thrusting himself into danger among a hostile people who do not know
God?’ (Confessions, 46)
Patrick
says that his call to go to Ireland brought him great pain, because
understandably he didn’t want to go back to where he had been
imprisoned. Can you imagine how
difficult it would be to return to the very people who had enslaved
you? But he believed that God was asking him to do this, and
this gave him the strength that he needed. His faith meant
enough to him that he wanted us to have it too. But it wasn’t
easy and he says that he met with great opposition:
Daily
I expect to be slaughtered, or defrauded, or reduced to slavery or to
any condition that time and surprise may bring. But I fear none
of these things because of the promise of Heaven, for I have cast
myself into the hands of Almighty God, who rules everywhere.
(Confessions, 55)
No one would
have known Patrick when he came first and he had to start from
scratch. But he came here and he preached to the
people and taught our ancestors about God, about Jesus Christ and his
death and resurrection, about Mary and the saints. And his
efforts paid off because he was prepared to give up everything so
that we might be able to share in the same faith. The people must
also have been ready to hear these words, or otherwise they wouldn’t
have borne such fruit. So it is thanks to him that we are here
today praying to the same God, receiving the same Jesus in Holy
Communion.
Then in 1879
during a time of great suffering in Ireland, 30 people in Knock saw a
vision of Jesus as the Lamb of God on the altar accompanied by Our
Lady, St. Joseph and St. John the evangelist. It was a silent
apparition that lasted approximately one hour but the people
understood that it was a message of encouragement not to give up and
reassuring them that they were on the right track. The vision showed them the Lamb of God on the altar, representing Jesus coming to us in the mass. The people had suffered greatly to be faithful to the mass which was forbidden during penal times.
In recent
years our faith has been greatly tested through scandals of various
kinds. Many people have fallen away and it is hard to blame
them, but we persevere in our faith and if we want our children to
have this faith too, then we will have to pass it on. We do
that primarily by the way we live, rather than by anything we say.
We may not feel that we are having much effect on the world
around us, but if we do our best to live it, then we are planting
seeds all the time and perhaps that is all that we are called to do.
There has been faith in this country for sixteen centuries, and
please God we will have it for many more centuries as well. So
as we celebrate our patron saint, let us give thanks to God for the
faith that He has given to our people and let us also pray for the
grace to pass it on to those who come after us. Happy St.
Patrick’s day.
I am Patrick, a sinner, unlettered, the least of all the
faithful, and held in contempt by a great many people…
(Confessions, 1)
Check out this interesting
website on St. Patrick: http://www.confessio.ie/#
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