St. Patrick

Yesterday we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with the usual Irish beer, corned beef and cabbage (which was excellent, by the by) and the wearing o'the green.  And I asked myself "Self, what does any of this have to with St. Patrick???"

And I had no answer to that question.

But!  I do have a book on the Lives of the Saints.  So, I proceeded to look up the Irish Saint and read about him and his life.  Let me share with you what I gleaned from it.

He was born in either Ireland, Scotland or Wales.  There is dispute about that. His father, the deacon Calpurnius, (you will notice the father has a Roman name. He was some sort of muckity-muck from Rome sent to oversee these heathen Irish)  had a farm beside the sea. About 404 a.d. it was pillaged by pirates (aarrrggh) who carried off Patrick, aged sixteen. They sold him to an islander who employed him for six years in tending his flocks, after which Patrick fled and returned to his parents.

In a dream he had a vision that caused him to devote himself to the evangelization of Ireland, still in idolatry.  So he crossed the sea, stayed with the monks of Le`rins, then went to Auxerre where, from 415 to 432 he was at the school of the bishops St. Amator and St. Germain.

**(So he left being a pagan Irish farmer to follow his dream of being a French-trained Roman Catholic bishop). Then it goes on to explain how after being freed from Roman domination, the Irish were ruled by a host of minor kings.  And it was towards these kings that Patrick directed his "zeal" on arriving back in the country. Wielding absolute power, the kings' religion was their subjects' religion. And since they owned all the land, they alone controlled the building of churches. And the story of the evangelization of Ireland is almost entirely written in terms of the conversions made by St. Patrick among the heads of the clans and families.

There are many legends about St. Patrick but the main idea expressed by all of them is the extreme veneration of the Irish people for the apostle who made them Christians.  One of the stories is how he used the Irish shamrock to show the trinity as the three parts in one whole.

** There is no mention of the pagans who were perfectly happy in their paganism being forced to convert.  And typically that conversion meant "convert or die".   Sorry, I meant to just relate the information and not put my own sensibilities in there, but I just can't abide the whole "oh, my particular brand of religion is the true faith, and unless you convert, you are totally less-than and just not getting in to the Really Good Heaven with us".

And then I googled images of St. Patrick to get a look at who people are venerating.  Here's what I found.

Thus endeth today's lesson.

Go in peace.