St. Patrick
Patrick, the great apostle of Ireland, was the son of a Roman Decurio in Britain, and through his mother was closely related to St. Martin of
Tours. When he was 16, some Irish raiders carried him off into captivity, and he spent six years as a shepherd in the service of the Chief
Milch in Dalaradia (Antrim) before he was able to escape and make his way to Brittany and the monastery of Tours. His spiritual understanding
and prayer life having meanwhile developed greatly, he longed to instruct the pagan Irish in the faith, but some 20 years were to pass before
he would return to them in the official capacity of a missionary.
The British Bishop Palladius was sent to Ireland by Pope Celestine I in 430 'to the Scots who believe in Christ', but he encountered such
hostility on the part of the pagans that he returned to England and died soon after. Thereupon St. Patrick, then in his forties, was
consecrated Bishop and commissioned to evangelize his one-time captors. He too was at first driven back to his ship by the Druids, but
effected a landing further north, where he converted the Chieftain Dichu by a miracle, and dedicated the first Christian sanctuary at a
place called Sabhall (Saul).
When some years later all the chiefs assembled at the Hill of Slane near Tara, St. Patrick seized the opportunity to expound boldly the faith,
and used the shamrock to illustrate the doctrine of the Holy 'trinity. The enraged Druid priests demonstrated their demoniacal powers by
levitation etc., but when St. Patrick's prayer was able to bring them to naught, King Leoghaire gave him permission to teach Christianity
throughout the isle. It was at this time that the saint composed the magnificent hymn we call 'St. Patrick's Breastplate.'
St. Patrick spent seven years in the zealous evangelisation of Connaught, and then wandered through Ulster, Meach, Leinster, Limerck and God
permitted him to work numerous miracles. A number of times he was thrown into prison with his companions and threatened with death, but in
the end his success was astounding, and chiefs and common people came into the Church by the thousands.
The Pope sent him three auxiliary bishops in 439, and two years later St. Patrick went to Rome to report his work to Pope Leo the Great. Upon
his return he travelled about Ireland continually, organising parishes and diocese with a native clergy, and before long there also sprang up
a number of converts and monasteries - the training schools for those later saints who contributed so greatly to saving the faith in Europe.
When St. Patrick died at Sabhall in 493, he had established the church in Ireland on a truly solid foundation. So rapid and thorough had been
the country's conversion, that within ten years of his landing he had been called upon to aid in the revision of the laws on a Christian basis.
Until his very end, this great man of prayer never relaxed his penitential exercise and mortifications. To this day, the shamrock is a symbol
closely associated with St. Patrick. He is also said to have banished all snakes from Ireland.
Of his indisputably genuine writings which have come down to us, his "Confessio' and 'Epistola and Coroticum' deserve to be more widely known
and appreciated, for they reveal God's wonderful and providential workings in and through his great soul.
His feast is celebrated on March 17, believed to be his death anniversary. His mortal remains are said to be buried in Down Cathedral, Ireland.