Most of us are familiar with the folklore about St. Patrick such as the stories of him driving the snakes out of Ireland and using the shamrock to show the nature of the Trinity. Fewer of us are familiar with the historical figure of St. Patrick. Much of what we know about St. Patrick comes to us from an autobiographical reflection titled
Confessio.
Patrick was born in the western part of Roman Britain to a Christian family in about 390 A.D. His father was a deacon and a town council member. At about age 16 Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and placed in slavery as a herdsman somewhere in Ireland. During this period of isolation he developed his habits of prayer. After six years he either escaped or was set free and, after a series of adventures, returned home to Britain.
Once at home he took some training in the Latin Bible and eventually was ordained a priest and later a bishop. Patrick returned to Ireland in 430 and settled in the North and used this area as a base for his evangelization work. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He spent little time among those already Christianized in southeastern Ireland and, instead, concentrated on converting the barbarians in other parts of the island. His
Confessio reveals a clear commitment to preach the gospel in the remote parts of the earth, at the edge of the inhabited world.
Patrick urged both men and women to take up the consecrated life. He was a staunch opponent of paganism and a preacher to all classes. Given his personal experience as a slave, he vehemently denounced slave holding in a letter to the soldiers of a certain Coroticus. His letters also indicate that he spent his inheritance for the good of the Church. Patrick died circa 461. He is honored with the title of both bishop and apostle of Ireland. Although he did not single-handedly bring the faith to Ireland, there is no doubt that he deserves the titles he has received.
Born into a Christian family, Patrick was not much interested in his faith until he turned to God during his years as a slave herdsman in a remote part of Ireland. He identifies himself as both a sinner and true follower of Christ. Patrick said that God “kept watch over me before I knew Him.”
The Patrick that emerges from the Confessio is a person of human failings, and yet one burning with zeal to spread the message of Christ and His Church. He knew the depths of servitude and experienced the scorn of the sophisticated. He was a lover of the poor and a rescuer of the lost. Patrick’s mission to Ireland laid the foundation for a flourishing Christian culture. One hundred fifty years later Ireland sent forth a generation of monks as missionaries to the European continent. These
Irish monks kept the light of Christian culture burning in a Europe that was descending into the Dark Ages. St. Patrick’s Christian influence eventually was felt both in Ireland and throughout the continent of
Europe.
Source: The Confession of St. Patrick. Ed. D.R. Howlett. Triumph Books, Liguori, MO, pp. 8-20.
