Patrick - Our Patron Saint

By TOM DENNEHY

We celebrate the Feast of Saint Patrick, our patron saint, on March 17th.

We owe so much to Saint Patrick as he was the one chosen by God to bring us out of the darkness of pagan times and in to the light of faith. This light is still burning today despite being under attack by media and the secular agenda which exists in Ireland.

This faith proclaimed to us by Saint Patrick has sustained us through so much persecution. It has sustained us during Penal times when many were martyred for our faith, during Cromwellian plantations and through famine and has ensured that many generations of our ancestors have reached their Heavenly home. Previous to Christianity and the great work of Saint Patrick, we had Paganism. Then we worshipped more than 200 deities or false gods and were involved in pagan rituals where animal sacrifices were made to please the gods we worshipped.

Saint Patrick had great difficulty in overcoming the Druids who ruled during these times but with the power of God and the Holy Spirit working powerfully in him he succeeded and built churches up and down the country, established dioceses, ordained priests and baptised thousands of people to the Catholic Church.

In the Confession of Saint Patrick, we get an insight into his life and his humility. He had total trust in the power of God working in him.

“My name is Patrick, I am a sinner, a simple country person. I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and did not keep His commandments. We would not listen to our priests, who advised us how we could be saved. The Lord brought His strong anger upon us, and scattered us among many nations even to the ends of the earth. It was there that the Lord opened up my awareness of my lack of faith. Even though it came late, I recognised my failings. So I turned with all my heart to the Lord my God, and He looked down on my lowliness and had mercy on my youthful ignorance. He guarded me before I knew Him, and before I came to wisdom and could distinguish between good and evil. He protected me and consoled me as a father does his son.”

We read how he tended sheep and prayed frequently during the day. More and more his love of God and his sense of awe before God increased, “faith grew, and my spirit was moved, so that in one day I would pray up to one hundred times , and at night perhaps the same. I even remained in the woods and on the mountain, and I would rise to pray before dawn in snow and ice and rain. I never felt the worst for it, and I never felt lazy-as I realise now, the spirit was burning in me at that time.”

After six years a voice - which he believed to be God’s - spoke to him in a dream, telling him it was time to leave Ireland. To do so he walked 200 miles to a ship waiting for him. His exploits on the ship ended with the conversion of the crew on board and his return home to his family.

There he had a dream that the Irish were calling him back to Ireland to tell them about God.

He trained as a priest and returned to Ireland as a Bishop where he went on mission baptising thousands of people and ordaining clerics everywhere, “I spent myself for you, I have travelled everywhere among you for your own sake, in many dangers, and even to the furthest parts where nobody lived beyond, and where nobody ever went to baptise and to ordain clerics or to bring people to fulfilment, it is only by God’s gift that I diligently and most willingly did all this for your good. “

As we celebrate the feast day of Saint Patrick, we must ask ourselves the burning questions.

Are we going to be the generation that will fail to pass on the faith to our children and grandchildren?

Are we going to be the generation to fail to acquire a true knowledge of the faith handed down to us through past generations?

Are we going to be the generation to stand idly by and let false ideologies and a secular world dictate to us?

Let us stand up for the faith brought to us by Saint Patrick, a faith won for us by Jesus Christ by His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. The one true faith which has sustained us over the centuries and will sustain us now also in whatever difficulties that lie ahead in our broken world.