Christian Saints Podcast

Saint Patrick

March 13, 2021 Darren C. Ong Season 1 Episode 21
Christian Saints Podcast
Saint Patrick
Show Notes Transcript

Saint Patrick is a 5th century missionary who was primarily responsible for bringing the Christian faith to Ireland. He was born in Britain, but at a young age was kidnapped by pirates and forced into slavery in Ireland. Through divine providence he escaped and returned to Britain many years later, but received a vision telling him to go back to Ireland to bring the Gospel there. After some years of training in France, Saint Patrick returned and had great success bringing the Irish people to Christianity, despite strong opposition from the kings and druids of the Irish pagan faith. Saint Patrick is revered in Ireland, and is one of the most popular saints in all of Christendom.

In this episode we recount Saint Patrick's life, primarily drawing from an autobiographical text, the Confession of Saint Patrick, and a later biography by the Irish monk Muirchú. 


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 God is glorious in his saints! 
 
 Welcome to the Christian Saints Podcast. My name is Darren Ong, recording from Sepang in Malaysia. In this podcast, we explore the lives of the Christian saints, from the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Today, we will commemorate Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.
 
The dates for Saint Patrick’s life are rather uncertain. The best we can do is say he lived sometime in the 5th century. He was from Roman Britain, and grew up in a Christian family. Patrick was the son of a deacon, and the grandson of a priest. Nevertheless, Patrick did not take his faith seriously, and lived a life of sin. At the age of 16, he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave in Ireland.
 
 We are lucky enough to have Saint Patrick’s autobiography (The Confession of Patrick) so let us hear from his words of his time there, and how God delivered him from his slavery.
 
 After I arrived in Ireland, I tended sheep every day, and I prayed frequently during the day. More and more the love of God increased, and my sense of awe before God. 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 worse for it, and I never felt lazy – as I realise now, the spirit was burning in me at that time. 



It was there one night in my sleep that I heard a voice saying to me: “You have fasted well. Very soon you will return to your native country.” Again after a short while, I heard a someone saying to me: “Look – your ship is ready.” It was not nearby, but a good two hundred miles away. I had never been to the place, nor did I know anyone there. So I ran away then, and left the man with whom I had been for six years. It was in the strength of God that I went – God who turned the direction of my life to good; I feared nothing while I was on the journey to that ship. 



The day I arrived, the ship was about to leave the place. I said I needed to set sail with them, but the captain was not at all pleased. He replied unpleasantly and angrily: “Don’t you dare try to come with us.” When I heard that, I left them and went back to the hut where I had lodgings. I began to pray while I was going; and before I even finished the prayer, I heard one of them shout aloud at me: “Come quickly – those men are calling you!” I turned back right away, and they began to say to me: “Come – we’ll trust you. Prove you’re our friend in any way you wish.” That day, I refused to suck their breasts, because of my reverence for God[Nota]. They were pagans, and I hoped they might come to faith in Jesus Christ. This is how I got to go with them, and we set sail right away. 



After three days we made it to land, and then for twenty eight days we travelled through a wilderness. Food ran out, and great hunger came over them. The captain turned to me and said: “What about this, Christian? You tell us that your God is great and all-powerful – why can’t you pray for us, since we’re in a bad state with hunger? There’s no sign of us finding a human being anywhere!” Then I said to them with some confidence: “Turn in faith with all your hearts to the Lord my God[Nota], because nothing is impossible for him[Nota], so that he may put food in your way – even enough to make you fully satisfied! He has an abundance everywhere.” With the help of God, this is actually what happened! A herd of pigs appeared in the way before our eyes! They killed many of them and there they remained for two nights, and were fully restored, and the dogs too were filled. Many of them had grown weak and left half-alive by the way. After this, they gave the greatest of thanks to God, and I was honoured in their eyes. From this day on, they had plenty of food. They also found some wild honey, and offered some of it to me. However, one of them said: “This honey must have been offered in sacrifice to a god.” Thanks be to God, from then on I tasted none of it. 



That same night while I was sleeping, Satan strongly put me to the test – I will remember it as long as I live! It was as if an enormous rock fell on me, and I lost all power in my limbs. Although I knew little about the life of the spirit at the time, how was it that I knew to call upon Helias[Nota]? While these things were happening, I saw the sun rise in the sky, and while I was calling “Helias! Helias!” with all my strength, 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. I trust that it will be like this whenever I am under stress, as the gospel says: “In that day, the Lord testifies, it will not be you will speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you[Nota].” 



It happened again after many years that I was taken a prisoner. On the first night I was with them, I heard a divine answer saying to me: “You will be with them for two months.” This is how it was: on the sixtieth night, the Lord freed me from their hands. 



While we were still on the journey, the Lord provided food and fire and shelter every day until we met some people on the tenth day. As I mentioned above, we travelled for twenty eight days through the wilderness. On the very night we met people, we ran out of food. 



A few years later I was again with my parents in Britain. They welcomed me as a son, and they pleaded with me that, after all the many tribulations I had undergone, I should never leave them again. It was while I was there that I saw, in a vision in the night, a man[Nota] whose name was Victoricus coming as it were from Ireland with so many letters they could not be counted. He gave me one of these, and I read the beginning of the letter, the voice of the Irish people. While I was reading out the beginning of the letter, I thought I heard at that moment the voice of those who were beside the wood of Voclut, near the western sea[Nota]. They called out as it were with one voice: “We beg you, holy boy, to come and walk again among us.” This touched my heart deeply, and I could not read any further; I woke up then. Thanks be to God, after many years the Lord granted them what they were calling for. 
 
So despite his parents’ pleading, Patrick knew he would have to leave them again, and eventually return to Ireland to preach the gospel there. Patrick’s courage and willingness to return to a place where he had been enslaved, and his love for a people who had so mistreated him – explains why he is one of Christianity’s most beloved saints.
 
Before going back to Ireland, Patrick headed first to France, in order to pursue a Christian education. He was discipled under the Bishop of Auxerre, Saint Germanus, who was the most respected Christian leader in France. Saint Germanus ordained Patrick as a priest in this time. Eventually, after many years of learning under the tutelage of Saint Germanus, Patrick was ready to return to Ireland as a missionary.
Ireland was a difficult place to reach with the gospel, and Pope Celestine had just sent an unsuccessful missionary effort there, led by a man named Palladius. This account is from a biography of Patrick, by the Irish monk Muirchú moccu Machthen
 
Palladius, archdeacon of Pope Celestine, the bishop of Rome, who was then occupying the apostolic see as the forty-fifth successor of St. Peter the apostle, had been consecrated and sent to Ireland, this island in the cold north in order to convert it.(3) But he was prevented from doing so (by the fact that) nobody can receive anything from the earth unless it be given him from heaven. Neither were these wild and harsh men inclined to accept his teaching nor did he himself wish to spend a long time in a foreign country, but (decided to) return to him who had sent him. On his way back from here, having crossed the first sea and begun his journey by land, he ended his life in the territory of the Britons.
 
After Palladius’ death, Patrick was consecrated as bishop, and sent to Ireland. There he had to challenge powerful pagan kings, and influential druids. Curiously, Muirchú records a prophecy by the Irish druids, who predicted St Patrick’s arrival shortly before he landed in Ieland:
 
and these two, by their magical art, prophesied frequently that a foreign way of life was about to come to them, a kingdom, as it were, with an unheard-of and burdensome teaching, brought from afar over the seas, enjoined by few, received by many; it would be honoured by all, would overthrow kingdoms, kill the kings who offered resistance, seduce the crowds, destroy all their gods, banish all the works of their craft, and reign for ever.(5) They also described the man who was to bring this way of life and to win them for it, and they prophesied about him in the following words, in the form, as it were, of a poem, which these men often recited, and especially during the two or three years immediately before the coming of Patrick.(6) These are the words of the poem— not very intelligible, owing to the peculiarity of their language: " 

There shall arrive Shaven-head,
 with his stick bent in the head,
 from his house with a hole in its head
 he will chant impiety
 from his table in the front of his house;
 all his people will answer 'Be it thus, be it thus'.
 
 When all this happens' (the druids would say) 'our kingdom, which is a pagan one, will fall.' And so it happened afterwards: when Patrick came the worship of idols was abolished and the catholic Christian faith spread over our whole country.



In contrast with the earlier attempts at establishing a mission in Ireland, Patricks efforts were a huge success. Accounts of his life credit him with founding about 300 churches all over the island, and also many monasteries. Patrick at times faced fierce resistance, from the druids and kings. Instructive is this account, again from Muirchú’s life of Saint Patrick:
 
 1) In those days Easter was approaching, the first Easter to be offered to God in our island (2) and after many proposals had been made in this matter, at last holy Patrick, divinely inspired, decided that this great feast of the Lord, being the principal feast of all, should be celebrated in the great plain of Brega, because it was there that there was the greatest kingdom among these tribes, the head of all paganism and idolatry; (3) there, in the words of the Psalmist, he would smash the head of the dragon, and for the first time an irresistible wedge would be driven into the head of all idolatry with the hammer of brave action joined to faith by the spiritual hands of holy Patrick and his companions. And so it was done. 
 
 There they pitched their tent, and then Patrick with his companions duly offered Easter to God in heaven with great spiritual devotion, a sacrifice of praise, as the prophet says. 
 
The pagan king of that region, King Loiguire was furious. He gathered his chariots and his most powerful druids, went to the place where Patrick was celebrating Easter, and demanded that Patrick come and meet him. We continue with Muirchu’s account:
 
 And holy Patrick was summoned to the presence of the king outside the illumined place, and the druids said to their people: 'Let us not rise when he comes, for whosoever rises at his coming will believe afterwards and reverence him.' (2) When Patrick rose and saw the great number of their chariots and horses, he fittingly recited with his lips and his heart the verse of the Psalmist: 'Let others (come) on chariots and on horseback, we shall go our way in the name of the Lord our God', and went to them. (3) They did not rise at his coming; there was only one man who, with the help of the Lord, refused to obey the command of the druids, that is Ercc, son of Daig, whose relics are now worshipped in the city called Slane. He stood up, and Patrick blessed him, and he believed in the eternal God. (4) Then they began their dispute, and one of the druids named Lochru provoked the holy man and dared to revile the catholic faith with haughty words. (5) Holy Patrick looked at him as he uttered such words and, as Peter had said concerning Simon, so with power and with a loud voice he confidently said to the Lord: 'O Lord, who art all-powerful and in whose power is everything, who hast sent me here, may this impious man, who blasphemes thy name, now be cast out and quickly perish.' (6) And at these words the druid was lifted up into the air and fell down again; he hit his brain against a stone, and was smashed to pieces, and died in their presence, and the pagans stood in fear. 

I.18

(1) The king with his companions was furious with Patrick over this incident and he tried to kill him and said: 'Lay hands on this fellow who is about to ruin us.' (2) When holy Patrick saw that the pagans were on the point of attacking him he rose and said with a loud voice: 'May God bestir Himself, and may His enemies be routed and His illwishers flee before His face.' (3) And at once darkness set in, and there was a dreadful uproar and the infidels fought among themselves, one rising up against the other, and there was a big earthquake which caused the axles of their chariots to collide with each other, and drove them violently forward so that chariots and horses rushed headlong over the plain until, in the end, a few of them escaped barely alive to Mons Monduirn, (4) and by this disaster seven times seven men perished through the curse of Patrick before the eyes of the king as a punishment for his words, until there remained only he himself and three other survivors, that is, he and his queen, and two of the Irish, and they were in great fear. 


 

There are of course many different stories of miracles and stories of Saint Patrick, though the most famous ones (like Saint Patrick expelling all the snakes from Ireland) are absent from the earliest sources. Saint Patrick lived the rest of his days in Ireland, and is today is the most beloved saint of the Irish people. He is also celebrated by Christians of every denomination . His feast day is March 17.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Christian saints podcast. Look for the Christian Saints podcast page on Facebook or Instagram, or look for us on Twitter at podcast_saints. All music in this episode was composed by my good friend, James John Marks of Generative sounds. Please check out his music at https://generativesoundsjjm.bandcamp.com/
 
The translation of the Confession of Saint Patrick we used in this episode is by McCarthy, and © 2011 Royal Irish Academy. The translation of Muirchu’s text is by L. Bieler, and the copyright is owned by the School of Celtic Studies (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies)
 
We will end this episode with a famous prayer by the saint, known as the Breastplate of Saint Patrick. The title is a reference to Ephesians 6, where St Paul tells believers to put on the Breastplate of rigteousness:
 
I arise today 

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the Threeness,

Through confession of the Oneness

of the Creator of creation.



I arise today

Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism,

Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,

Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,

Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.



I arise today

Through the strength of the love of cherubim,

In the obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In the prayers of patriarchs,

In the predictions of prophets,

In the preaching of apostles,

In the faith of confessors,

In the innocence of holy virgins,

In the deeds of righteous men.



I arise today, through

The strength of heaven,

The light of the sun,

The radiance of the moon,

The splendor of fire,

The speed of lightning,

The swiftness of wind,

The depth of the sea,

The stability of the earth,

The firmness of rock.



I arise today, through

God's strength to pilot me,

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptation of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

afar and near.



I summon today

All these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel and merciless power

that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom,

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul;

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.



Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.



I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the Threeness,

Through confession of the Oneness

of the Creator of creation.