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| Croagh Patrick, where it is believed Patrick spent time as a slave. |
Although
today is the 5th Sunday of Lent, I would like to talk about the
saint we celebrated yesterday, St. Patrick, not just because I am Irish (!),
but because the lives of the saints are so inspiring, but we are often given a
very unrealistic picture of their lives. The truth is that most of them
struggled a great deal during their lives, but the key to it was that they
persevered to the end. They trusted in God against all odds and they kept
going.
Every time we
celebrate one of our saints—that is the official saints we recognize, since
everyone in heaven is a saint—we are not just celebrating what that individual
person has done, but rather what God has done through an ordinary, weak human
being.
For many
people St. Patrick’s Day has just become ‘being Irish’ day. A day to be
proud of being Irish, but from a Christian point of view, it’s a day to celebrate
what God has made known to us through another one of his instruments. It
marks the day when Christianity was first brought to Ireland. And in
sixteen centuries the faith in Ireland has developed to a great degree, even
with times of savage religious persecution. 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, such as the United States. So many men
and women have lived out their faith in ordinary lives, bearing witness to God
by the way they live, thanks to the seeds planted by St. Patrick. He was
the instrument God used to give us this great gift.
So why did
Patrick go to Ireland anyway? Did they really need Christianity? Didn’t
it bring many divisions? The reason why Patrick went to Ireland was very
simple: The Lord of heaven and earth wanted to make himself known to them
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.
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| St. Patrick's seminary, where I and over 12,000 other men studied for the priesthood |
Patrick was
brought to Ireland initially as a slave. Through suffering and hardship, the
Lord was helping Patrick to grow in the spirit. According to his own
writings, he says that when he went there 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.
When Patrick finally escaped
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)
Patrick says
that his call to go back to Ireland brought him great pain. 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:
[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)
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 the people about God, about Jesus
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 those
people might be able to share in the same faith. The people must also have been
ready to hear these words, or otherwise his work wouldn’t have borne such
fruit. Only for his sacrifices I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you
today.
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| The apparition at Knock in 1879 |
Then in 1879 during a time
of great suffering in Ireland, 30 people in a small village called 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 Lamb of God on the altar was the symbol of the mass and it was
accompanied by Mary and the angels and saints. It was heaven’s way of telling
the people they were on the right track and that their perseverance was worth
it. They had been through very brutal religious persecution, but they had
remained faithful.
In recent years the 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 remember saint Patrick, let us give thanks to
God for the faith that He has passed on to us through people like Patrick and so
many others and let us also pray that we will have the grace to pass it on to
those who come after us.
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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