Thursday, March 15, 2012

Feast of St. Patrick


Feast of St. Patrick

Although St. Patrick is strongly associated with Ireland, celebrated as being a vital part of Irish heritage, the man was not Irish. He was not born in Ireland. St. Patrick was born sometime in the late 4th century, to Roman parents stationed in somewhere in England. Patrick’s father was both a local government official and a Christian deacon. Patrick, however, has written in his “Confession” that while he was growing up, he wasn’t religious at all.

Around the age of 14, Patrick was captured by pirates, taken to
Ireland and sold into slavery. He was sold to a Druid (a pagan priest and magician) and set to the task of being a shepherd.

Imagine! He’s a young boy, kidnapped and sold to a foreign land. He doesn’t know the language, doesn’t know the culture, even the food is strange! He doesn’t recognize anyone and he’s been taught that these people are barbarians, not even human but some kind of wild animals… No wonder, that in the lonely fields with the sheep, afraid and homesick, missing his family, he would turn to God in prayer. In his “Confession”, Patrick writes;

”Every day, I had to tend sheep. Many times a day, I prayed. The love of God and awe of him came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. My spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers and almost another hundred in the night, this even when I was staying in the woods on the mountains. I felt no harm…”

Patrick lived among the Irish pagans, in captivity for 6 years. Somehow, even though it seems he spent much of his time alone among the sheep, he learned the Celtic language and about the ways of the Druids, which according to the legends handed down to us would greatly influence him throughout the rest of his life. These years in captivity were to be the cornerstone on which the rest of St. Patrick’s life was built on… I think that in some form or fashion, Patrick fell in love with
Ireland, fell in love with the people and their culture, even if he could never accept his slavery.

When Patrick was about 20 years old, an angel came to him in a dream and said; “Thy ship is ready!”… Patrick escaped from his S
lave-master and fled over 200 miles over mountains, through forests and bogs to the sea, where he found a ship’s captain willing to take him back to England, willing to take him back home.

After many incredible adventures that I do not have the time to tell, it seems that Patrick did, finally, make it back to his family. But Patrick’s sleep was disturbed by a dream. In this dream, Victoricus, a man Patrick had known in Ireland, comes to him with a handful of letters. Patrick takes one of the letters and sees the title; “The Voice of the Irish.” Instantly, he hears a multitude of voices crying; “Holy boy, we beg you to come and walk among us once more.” Patrick writes that he was so moved, he woke up, he didn’t get to finish reading the letter. Night after night he has this same dream. Night after night he awakes shaken to the core, with tears in his eyes, until finally, he decides that he must study to become a priest so that he can be prepared to go back to Ireland to preach the Gospel. His family must have thought he had lost his mind! Why would Patrick want to go back to people who were known to commit human sacrifice and cannibalism? Why would he want to go back to a people who practiced slavery? Why would he want to live among such barbaric, wild animals?

The answer is; Patrick did not see them as wild animals. He saw them as human beings. He loathed the practices of human sacrifice and slavery, but he saw great beauty in their culture and their religion, enough that he believed they could be brought out of violence and into peace. We know this because the Voice that came to Patrick in the dream was the voice of the Irish, not of God. His
own love for the Irish manifested itself in this dream, so that the Irish themselves came to him and begged him to come and walk with them – to share with them. There is a tone of equality and equanimity there. Patrick was no colonizer, no domineering patriarch or over-lord. He was a friend, a brother, someone who loved them and believed in them. And Patrick was the First.

Historian Thomas
Cahill says, "I know that St. Paul is referred to as the first missionary, but Paul never got out of the Greco-Roman world, nor did any of the apostles. Here we are, five centuries after Jesus, who had urged his disciples to preach to all nations. They just didn't do that. And the reason they didn't is because they did not consider the barbarians to be human." Patrick was the First, he is the Apostle to Ireland, the Apostle to the Excluded.

Patrick took 15 years to study as a priest and may have even been ordained bishop. He has done quite well for himself. It is at this point, mid-life that most people would rest on their laurels and write the memoirs of an interesting life. But not Patrick, this is when his life is just beginning.

He goes back to
Ireland to take the Gospel to the Irish. What is amazing to me is that he seems to have gone AlONE! I looked at numerous biographies, not one of them mentions even one companion traveling or working with Patrick. So, when Patrick gets to Ireland, he begins to teach and to empower the Natives of Ireland to become their own Church, their own clergy, their own religious authorities.

legend tells us, and I can believe the spirit of the stories, legend tells us that when Patrick began teaching the Irish, he had no wish to change their essence of their beliefs or their culture. He used the Celtic things around him to bring them to understanding, he incorporated the practices they already used into his teachings. For example, he is said to have used the shamrock to illustrate the Trinity. He is also said to have taken the Druid solar wheel to create the Celtic cross. Finally, he is also said to have used accepted the use of Druidic bonfires to celebrate the Saturday-night vigil before sunrise on Easter Sunday.

Because Patrick incorporated some Druidic practices into his teachings, because he taught and empowered a Native clergy, who built their own churches and monasteries –
Ireland gave birth to a beautiful Celtic Christian tradition, very different from Roman Christian tradition. Roman Christian tradition preferred the spirit to the flesh because the world is fallen, it had many rules; do not taste, do not touch! Roman Christian tradition subjugated women and preferred that they be avoided altogether, whenever possible…  Celtic Christian tradition celebrates women as equals and competent authorities, it celebrates nature as good (just as God said), more than spiritual ideal living in our heads, it is sensual, incarnational and REAl. You can hear it in the birdsong of morning, you can smell it in the clean floral air after a rainfall, you can feel it under your feet when you walk barefoot over the grass. God is there, in the beauty of it all! Every step is home.

Did I say that Celtic Christian tradition celebrated women as equals, as competent to hold authority? I did… Patrick was one of the only voices in ancient Christian history to speak well of women. And he must have practiced what he preached, because we find women in positions of authority in the church of Ireland. Indeed, when Patrick passed away, we find that St. Brigid was his successor as Primatial Bishop of Ireland. What a legacy!

According to historian Thomas Cahill, when Patrick died, after 30 years of service, this is what we find; the Irish had abolished slavery, they had abolished human sacrifice, Christianity had been established far and wide throughout Ireland, men and women were working together as equals to see that the Gospel was lived out and social justice became the norm in society, and nature was still celebrated as good and holy (just as both God and the Druids would have had it). Patrick was right when he took the chance on love, the Irish turned out not to be so barbaric after all, they weren’t wild animals. They, too, were God’s children.

We are still in the season of lent. A good question to ask yourself might be; Who am I afraid of? Who do I see as a wild animal? Who do I know that needs the love of God?