The Real St. Patrick
St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching and with it will come various celebrations of this unusual holiday. People throughout America and Europe will be sporting green clothing and wearing various leprechaun decorations; there will be much made of the uniqueness of the Irish race; in several neighborhoods, people who drink too much green beer will come out of the bars to paint big green shamrocks in the public streets. Very strange behavior at any time, but especially inappropriate when one bothers to peer beneath the pagan coverings which hide the testimony of a truly noble Christian hero - Saint Patrick of Ireland. So let’s take a look at the historical figure of Saint Patrick. Let’s ignore the silliness and learn those lessons God would teach us by hearing about a faithful, zealous servant of Christ.
You know the legends, of course - how Patrick expelled the snakes from Ireland; how he explained the Trinity by reference to the shamrock; and how he accomplished immense missionary tasks of conversion single-handed (though they actually took many evangelists and several generations to accomplish). But, in truth, the historical Patrick is much more attractive than even the Patrick of legend.
Patrick was none the less a real person by being a saint. Indeed, he was a devoted adventurer of Christ Jesus whose history should be well known by Christians today. He lives in example, but he also lives through his writings, the earliest to still survive from the British church. They are his Confession (his autobiography), the “Letter to Coroticus” (which was a protest against British slave-traders), and the Lorica (translated “Breastplate”) which stands as one of the most beautiful pieces of ancient Christian literature.
Patrick was actually British by birth, he was not Irish at all! He was the son of a decurio (a town councilor) who served as a deacon. His grandfather was also a man of the cloth. While still a youth, Patrick was captured by Irish pirates and reduced to slavery there for six years! The specific location of his service (which consisted primarily of tending his master’s goat and sheep herds) is not known to us, but he describes himself as finally using this time to pray, in contrast to his earlier years in Britain when he “knew not the true God” and did not heed the “clerical admonitions for our salvation.”
Patrick escaped from his slavery and made his way to a port some 200 miles away on the southeast coast of Ireland, and eventually persuaded some sailors to take him with them.
After various adventures in strange lands, including a test of near-starvation, Patrick returned to his family, much changed. He had embraced the faith of his family by his own convictions now, and because of his new knowledge of the harshness of sin, he embraced the call of service as well. He quickly received some form of clerical training for the priesthood, which would have included instruction using the Latin Bible which he came to know well.
However, it was not a highly academic education, the lack of which he always regretted, and for which he was sometimes criticized in later years by his enemies. His own Latin writings are certainly inelegant, even at times rustic, but they reflected a purity and power arising from a heart dedicated to the Lord. Then, in an amazing display of compassion and courage, Patrick made his way back to Ireland in 435. By his own choice, he returned to the nation which had enslaved him to help reveal to them the liberation available through the cross of Jesus! He worked principally in the North, setting up his see at Armagh and it was from this base that he made his many missionary journeys.
Those missionary activities among the heathen Celtic tribes were very successful. Patrick was a tireless worker, an expert organizer, and a man of consecrated, courageous prayer. By the end of his life, he had planted over 200 congregations and introduced thousands to the true religion of Jesus Christ. Patrick had a sincere simplicity and deep pastoral care for those in his sphere of influence. His most crucial goals were pursued with tremendous zeal: abolishing paganism, idolatry, and sun-worship. Patrick made no distinction of classes in his preaching and was himself ready for imprisonment or even death in his following Christ. He was a man of God in its most comprehensive description.
Humble and faithful, never forgetting from where he had come, Patrick retained as an old man the consciousness of his being an unlearned exile, a former slave, a desperate fugitive, and a lost soul who, by the incredible mercies of God, had finally learned to lean into the everlasting arms of the Lord Jesus for his salvation and his missionary calling.
Consider the humble brilliance of this man of God as you read from his Lorica:
“May the strength of God pilot us.
May the power of God preserve us.
May the wisdom of God instruct us.
May the hand of God protect us.
May the way of God direct us.
May the shield of God defend us.
May the hosts of God guard us against
the snares of the Evil One and the temptations of the world.
May Christ be with us. Christ before us.
Christ in us. Christ over us.
May thy salvation, O Lord, be always ours
this day and for evermore.”
