Deacon Fournier has a wonderful article here on Saint Patrick in today’s Catholic Online website. I had forgotten that Patrick was not living the Faith when he was captured by Irish pirates, even though he had pious parents. He turned to God in the sanctuary of the grazing fields in the woods in his solitude, praying all day and much of the night. He made the very best of a situation that could have turned him into a embittered man bent on revenge. His revenge on the Irish was to bring them to Christ and salvation. As far as miracles are concerned, I know of few saints who performed such stupendous ones by the power of God. In contending with the Druid priests he was like Moses dueling with the magicians of Pharaoh, always out doing whatever prodigies they performed through evil spirits. He raised the dead and commanded the elements. His penances were incredible, such as reciting the entire Psalter standing in ice cold rivers. (I just read about Saint Cuthbert the hermit (+687). He must have read Saint Patrick’s Confessions, for he, too, used to pray in the freezing Celtic sea for penance.) Most of all, he was a good shepherd who loved his people, and faced death innumerable times to convert the pagan chiefs who had threatened to kill him. He feared nothing on this earth, appearing at Tara before the high-king of Armagh in all his episcopal regalia, as emissary of the High King and Priest, Christ the Lord. His Confessions are a delight to read as are the many good biographies written about him. One more thing: His father was probably Italian, serving imperial Rome in Britain as a magistrate, hence the name “Patrick” (from patrician), which, if I remember rightly, he gave himself after his conversion. His mother, however, was from ancient Pannonia, the sister of the father of Saint Martin of Tours. They left their country for Italy, where Saint Martin’s father was converted. This was before Attila and the Huns conquered the area, giving it the name Hungary.
Here is the final paragraph of Deacon Fournier’s article. It is written in the spirit of all the great missionaries and echoes our crusades commitment to the conversion of America:
The most loving thing we can do for our fellow countrymen and women is to bring them to the Lord Jesus Christ and into the Church which he founded. On this day the world becomes Irish, St. Patrick calls us to live in the Heart of the Church for the Sake of the World. As we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day let us join in his prayer: “Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me King of my heart; Christ within me, Christ below me, Christ above me never to part. Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand, Christ all around me shield in strife; Christ in my sleeping, Christ in my sitting, Christ in my rising light of my life. Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me King of my heart; Christ within me, Christ below me, Christ above me never to part.”
