REMEMBERING ST. PATRICK:

Stricken by war fever, I neglected to honor St. Patrick yesterday. He deserves a salutation today.

St. Patrick, born and raised in Britain, was captured by Irish marauders and sold into slavery in Ireland at the age of 16. Like so many slaves, he was drawn to the Christian message. In his "Confessio" he tells how he prayed in captivity:

[T]he faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me.

After six years in slavery Patrick, instructed by an angel, fled, walking 200 miles to the sea and persuading a captain to take him to Britain.

Patrick became a priest and a disciple of the missionary bishop St. Germain. On St. Germain's recommendation, Patrick was made bishop and missionary to Ireland. His intended first act was to visit his former master, pay ransom for his freedom, and implore the man to convert. However, he was opposed on his way by a Druidic chieftain, Dichu, who sought to strike Patrick with a sword. Legend has it that his arm became rigid as a statue until he declared himself obedient to Patrick. Impressed by Patrick's gentleness, Dichu presented Patrick with a barn, which Patrick consecrated as the first church in Ireland. Alas, word that Patrick had returned and was working miracles of great power preceded him to his former slavemaster Milchu, who, expecting to be destroyed and too proud to be vanquished by a former slave, set his house and barn ablaze and killed himself in the conflagration.

Legend has it that a series of miracles helped Patrick persuade the Irish from Druidism. It could not have been easy, for the pagan and Christian minds were quite foreign, and misunderstandings were easy:

While engaged in the baptism of the royal prince Aengus, son of the King of Munster, the saint, leaning on his crosier, peirced with its sharp point the prince's foot. Aengus bore the pain unmoved. When St. Patrick, at the close of the ceremony, saw the blood flow, and asked him why he had been silent, he replied that he thought it might be part of the ceremony.

St. Patrick's most famous miracle occurred on Croagh Patrick, the mountain known in pagan times as Eagle Mountain, where Patrick fasted forty days and nights, praying for the Irish people. According to legend, he was there beset by demons in the form of birds of prey. At length Patrick rang his bell, the symbol of his preaching. The Catholic Encyclopedia records:

Its sound was heard all over the valleys and hills of Erin, everywhere bringing peace and joy. The flocks of demons began to scatter, He flung his bell among them; they took to precipitate flight, and cast themselves into the ocean. So complete was the saint's victory over them that, as the ancient narrative adds, "for seven years no evil thing was to be found in Ireland."

Thus it is that Ireland has no snakes.

Patrick tells in his "Confessio" that twelve times he and his companions were seized and carried off as captives, and once he was loaded with chains, and his death was decreed. But it was not to be; Patrick lived to the age of 105.

On the verge of death, Patrick had a vision:

He saw the whole of Ireland lit up with the brightest rays of Divine Faith. This continued for centuries, and then clouds gathered around the devoted island, and, little by little, the religious glory faded away, until, in the course of centuries, it was only in the remotest valleys that some glimmer of its light remained. St. Patrick prayed that the light would never be extinguished, and, as he prayed, the angel came to him and said: "Fear not: your apostolate shall never cease." As he thus prayed, the glimmering light grew in brightness, and ceased not until once more all the hills and valleys of Ireland were lit up ...

Though the light may dim, it will never be extinguished. The ultimate triumph of light over darkness is assured.

Let us, as we battle the darkness of Saddam Hussein, bear difficulties with the courage of Aengus and the tenacity of Patrick. And may God continue to bless America.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at March 18, 2003 10:37 AM