Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Beyond the green beer, leprechauns and jolly sing-a-longs, there is a real commemoration of a real man whose impact stretches far from the Emerald Isle. He is St. Patrick.

Patrick was born in the 5th Century in Roman-governed Britain. He was the son of a deacon and the grandson of a priest.  He was captured as a teenager by Irish pirates and brought to Ireland to tend sheep as a slave. It is believed he was kept near Slemish.

Slemish Mountain in Northern Ireland.

Patrick escaped captivity after six years, returning home to began a deep study of his Christian faith. After receiving a vision about the people of Ireland, he became a Christian Missionary determined to return to the island to spread the gospel there. It is believed that he landed first in Wicklow, was not at all welcomed by the native people, and was forced to move on further North. He was not deterred, writing later, “If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me.”

Patrick founded his first Christian Church in Saul, now known as the Cradle of Christianity in Ireland.

“For more than 300 years following Patrick’s death there was an abbey on this site until it was plundered and burnt by Vikings. In the 12th century Saul was refounded as an Augustinian Priory but it too was later plundered in the 14th century by Edward Bruce. One wall of this abbey remains along with an intact monastic cell in the old graveyard. The present church building, which replaced a very simple building that had been built in 1788, was erected to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the landing of St Patrick and was opened on All Saint’s Day 1933.” (downcathedral.org)

From there, he spent his life spreading the message of Jesus Christ to the people of Ireland. Legend holds that the “Apostle of Ireland” used the shamrock as an illustration of the Holy Trinity when explaining it to the Irish, and that he banished all snakes from Ireland.

Patrick died in Saul where he first began his work. The story goes that when he died, he was placed on a cart pulled by two untamed oxen, unguided by men. Wherever the oxen stopped, there would be a church built to honor Patrick’s body and life. There is no way to be certain where the body of St. Patrick is, but the oxen are said to have stopped in what is now County Down in Northern Ireland. A church was built there and in 1900 a memorial stone was placed to mark his grave.

Down Cathedral and what is believed to be St. Patrick’s grave.

Although he has never been formally canonized by a pope, Patrick is recognized as a saint by various Christian churches and is in the List of Saints. March 17th is believed to be the date of his death, and began to be celebrated as his Feast Day in the early part of the 17th century.

Though the day is celebrated with much secular revelry as St. Patrick’s Day, we also recall the somber reverence of the man himself.