eBook - ePub

Saint Patrick

Name: Saint Patrick
Author: Edmond Grace

An Ancient Saint for Modern Times

Edmond Grace,

English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

Saint Patrick

An Ancient Saint for Modern Times

Edmond Grace,

About this book

Patrick is a global saint, celebrated across the world, from the Americas to Asia. How much, however, do we know about this enigmatic saint? Did you know that he struggled at school and that his rise to the rank of bishop was not only unexpected but not welcomed by many of his contemporaries? With Patrick, as Edmond Grace SJ writes, facts and myth co-exist and it is this combination that enables Patrick and his story to remain relevant to people all over the world for many centuries. In Saint Patrick: An Ancient Saint for Modern Times Edmond Grace SJ presents a new Patrick, 'the patron saint of the reconciliation of peoples', a man whose experiences instilled in him a deep commitment to overcome differences of rank, place and culture in the service of Christ.

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Yes, you can access Saint Patrick by Edmond Grace in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & Religion. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

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Messenger Publications

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CHAPTER 13 To the Ends of the Earth

Patrick was not particularly good at remembering his dreams. Sometimes all he could remember was a voice in the night as was the case with that first dream he had in Ireland: ‘You have fasted well. Very soon you will return to your native country’ (CP, 17). The second dream was much the same: ‘Look – your ship is ready’ (CP, 17). When he heard those words he knew what to do and he set out for home.

Often, when we have been through a tough time and the tough time comes to an end, that is the moment when we finally fall apart. This happened to Patrick after he escaped from slavery and made his way back to Gaul where he spent twenty-eight days wandering through a desolate landscape. It was not till after those pigs appeared and that blasphemous incident with the honey, that Patrick was tested by Satan. He tells us that he cried out and ‘the splendour of the sun fell on me; and immediately, all that weight was lifted from me. I believe that I was helped by Christ the Lord, and that his spirit cried out for me’ (CP, 20).

His next dream, the big one, was about those letters from Ireland and the people by the wood of Voclut calling to him. He remembered what he saw in that dream – people near the wood of Vocult calling him back to Ireland. The whole world knows about this dream.

His next dream was peculiar as dreams often are. He saw someone but he did not know, ‘God knows, whether it was within me or beside me’ (CP, 24). He heard a voice speaking with authority, though he could not make out what was being said until the very end: ‘The one who gave his life for you, he it is who speaks in you’ (CP, 24).

Another time, he saw someone praying inside him. ‘It was as if I were inside my body, and I heard him above me, that is, above my inner self, praying strongly, with sighs’ (CP, 25). He was amazed and astonished, and wondered who was praying inside him but when he woke up he remembered the words of St Paul: ‘The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words’ (Rom 8:26).

On the night after he heard that his teenage sin had been laid bare before the world, he had a dream in which he saw writing ‘before my dishonored face’ He heard a voice: ‘He who touches you touches the apple of my eye’ (CP, 29).

One more time, when he had been taken captive yet again by Irish heathens, he heard a divine voice: ‘you will be with them for two months’ (CP, 21). Sixty days later he was set free. As he grew older he could feel God’s love drawing closer.

Patrick had no time for those who worshiped the sun that rises every day and sets every night. That sun will never reign nor will its splendor continue forever. He believed in ‘the true sun, that is, Christ, who will never perish’ (CP, 60). Towards the end of his Confession Patrick got a bit carried away. He even said that he wanted to shed his blood ‘with these converts and captives’ (CP, 59). That did not happen but, instead of bloodshed, he left us with written words:

Again and again I briefly put before you the words of my Confession. I testify in truth and in great joy of heart before God and his holy angels that I never had any other reason for returning to that nation from which I had earlier escaped, except the gospel and God’s promises. (CP, 61)

I pray for those who believe in and have reverence for God. Some of them may happen to inspect or come upon this writing which Patrick, a sinner without learning, wrote in Ireland. May none of them ever say that whatever little I did or made known to please God was done through ignorance. Instead, you can judge and believe in all truth that it was a gift of God. This is my confession before I die. (CP, 62)

Patrick died. We are not quite sure how, but he was old enough to die and people had enough sense to care for the words which you have just read. They were kept safe. His story was told again and again. The people of Ireland turned to Christ. They loved Patrick as their saint and shortly afterwards Irish monks would travel across Europe like him, preaching the Gospel and founding monasteries. Many centuries later Irish people would travel to every part of the world with their story of a youth who had been a slave in their land, who escaped, and who later returned to the people who enslaved him.

Then one day I stood in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York looking at that woman praying to the patron saint of my land. She had a message for me: ‘You Irish have a claim on him but you do not own him. He belongs to everybody who wants to stop hating, everybody who wants to love those who do them wrong’.

Helpful links:

The Confessions of Saint Patrick at www.confessio.ie

Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus at

www.confessio.ie/etexts/epistola_english#

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent

Social Change at www.thekingcenter.org