Well, we’ve done the green beer, the colcannon and Guinness stew, the parades and dancing and jokes and celebration are over. How did we manage to go from celebrating the life of someone committed to faith, to celebrating beer and whiskey and funny songs and jokes? Like so much of our church history, we’ve forgotten where some things came from and ended up focussing on the less important parts of the celebration.
Our scriptures say nothing about shillelaghs, shamrocks or even about snakes. But there is a sense of places on a sea-coast, about the preaching of Jesus, about repentance, about discipleship, and about healing; all the things that belong to the ‘evangelium’ – the good news that is the meaning of the word, gospel. Something of that sensibility belongs to the Feast of St. Patrick, the outstanding Apostle to Ireland, the bearer of the Gospel to the what he perceived as the pagan darkness of the Gaels.
In Ireland, the Feast of St. Patrick is an important day for the church and for their history. In the dioceses of Ireland, it is a solemn and holy day of obligation; and, outside of Ireland, seen as a celebration of Ireland itself.
Who was this man? In old Irish/Gaelic, he was Cothraige, in Middle Irish Pátraic; and what we mostly know now, the Irish Pádraig. He lived approximately in the last half of the fifth century, and died on March 17. Two authentic letters from him survive, and most of what we know comes from that. When he was about 16, he was captured from Wales by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop in the north and west of the island.
Patrick believed he was called to minister to the people of Ireland. In his written letters, he recounts a vision: I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: "The Voice of the Irish". As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.
Patrick writes that he baptised thousands of people, ordained priests to lead the new Christian communities, converted wealthy women, some of whom became nuns in the face of family opposition. Patrick's position as a foreigner in Ireland was not an easy one. His refusal to accept gifts from kings placed him outside the normal ties of kinship, fosterage and affinity. Legally he was without protection, and he says that he was on one occasion beaten, robbed of all he had, and put in chains, perhaps awaiting execution.
Yet although we celebrate much of the good works done by Patrick with the poor of Ireland, we have to remember that he was part of an expanding empire which treated non-believers almost as non-people. So while we celebrate an icon of the church, we need to remember the time from which he came.
One of the pieces we read today is called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”. It comes from the writings of Paul, speaking about wearing our faith like a breastplate of armour. It is a hymn in Voices United as well, and celebrates the name of the Trinity.
The Trinity is the ‘strong name’. God is not just a remote, distant, impersonal and indifferent God in the way many people seem to think. God is a present and personal God, someone to whom we can bind ourselves, a God who has power to hold us and lead us. His eye watches us. His strength maintains us. His ear hears us.
So this is where I want to focus on the great contribution of Patrick to an understanding of faith. The Breastplate is a cry for protection made in confidence, that Jesus has been through all our human experiences. Patrick works through the Gospel story as he says, ‘I bind to myself Christ’s incarnation, baptism, death, resurrection” The power of the God who has done, and who will do all these things, is the power that is available to those who call upon him for protection.
Not only is God known through the faithful, but is known through a Creation that is filled with God’s power and energy. Patrick delights in the world around him: the starlit sky; the sun’s brightness, the moon’s whiteness; the power of lightning and storms; the reassurance of the solid earth, the massive sea and the unchanging rocks.
Remember that Patrick lived in a hostile time, where war and violence against all people were normal. Patrick believed that the world was being held by evil - as Paul said to the Ephesians, ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’.
I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity;
by invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three.
Many of the greats in the church whom we remember committed their lives to an expression of faith. As each generation passes, our expressions of faith may evolve, but they are grounded in a “great cloud of witnesses”....Padraig, Aidan, Brigid in Ireland; Theresa of Avila in Spain; Julian of Norwich in Great Britain; Hildegard of Bingen in Germany; to those like Pedro Claver in Colombia - for whom God was the Creator of ALL things, and all things to be treated with grace and respect. May we remember lives of commitment, and may we commit our lives as well. Amen.
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