Sermon for Sunday - March 16, 2014: St. Patrick

Monday, March 17 is St. Patrick's Day.  So, who is he?

"I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Pontitus, a priest, of the settlement of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive.  I was at that time about sixteen years of age."

Saint Patrick was born of Roman parents late in the fourth century and lived late into the fifth.  Around the age of fifteen he was captured by a raiding party and taken from his home in Scotland, along with thousands of others, back to Ireland as a slave to tend sheep.  He found God during his captivity and escaped back to Scotland at the age of twenty by following a dream from God in which he was instructed to leave Ireland.  He was soon reunited with his family.

"In a vision in the night, I saw a man whose name was Victorious coming as if from Ireland with innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of the letter: "The Voice of the Irish"....and they were crying as if with one voice: "We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us."

After this next dream he studied for and was ordained a priest.  Later, after his ordination as a bishop, he was assigned to take the Gospel to the Irish.  He converted thousands of people and entire kingdoms to the faith.  The tale is told that he used a shamrock as a visual aid to explain the Holy Trinity as one.  It is hard to see the shamrock and not think of Saint Patrick. 

"I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that "all that I am," I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God. He himself testifies that this is so. I never would have wanted these harsh words to spill from my mouth; I am not in the habit of speaking so sharply. Yet now I am driven by the zeal of God, Christ's truth has aroused me. I speak out too for love of my neighbors who are my only sons; for them I gave up my home country, my parents and even pushing my own life to the brink of death. If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me."

He died after forty years of preaching Christianity in Ireland.  And here's the rub:  The Irish remember a Scot as a saint!  As well they should.  He endured hardship and poverty throughout his travels, and his life, in order to bring the Gospel to Ireland.

"Behold over and over again I would briefly set out the words of my confession. I testify in truthfulness and gladness of heart before God and his holy angels that I never had any reason, except the Gospel and his promises, ever to have returned to that nation from which I had previously escaped with difficulty.  But I entreat those who believe in and fear God, whoever deigns to examine or receive this document composed by the obviously unlearned sinner Patrick in Ireland, that nobody shall ever ascribe to my ignorance any trivial thing that I achieved or may have expounded that was pleasing to God, but accept and truly believe that it would have been the gift of God. And this is my confession before I die."