Saint Patrick is well known as the patron saint of Ireland. Although he was not a born Irish, he has become an integral part of the Irish heritage, mostly through his service across Ireland of the 5th century. For over 20 years he traveled throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries across the country. He also set up schools and churches, developed a native clergy and fostered the growth of monasticism.
Patrick was born on the west coast of Wales. When he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland. At this time Ireland's High King was Niall Of The Nine Hostages. Patrick was put to work for six years herding sheep and pigs on Slemish mountain in County Antrim. Patrick came to believe that this was a punishment for his lack of faith. During these six years of slavery Patrick somehow discovered his faith in God, and, while he was a shepherd, Patrick spent much of his time praying. "I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time."
Then one night a voice spoke to Patrick in his sleep: "Soon you will go to your own country." God spoke to him again. "See, your ship is ready." That night he fled, in the sureness that God was leading him. After a 200-mile trek he saw the ship, making ready to sail. Finding the captain, he requested passage. His family would repay the fare, Patrick promised. The surly captain refused. As Patrick slowly retraced his steps along the beach, he prayed again. "You led me to this ship, O Lord. I know you won't fail me now." Suddenly he heard feet in the sand behind him. A sailor called. "The captain says we'll take you after all. But hurry! The tide is in."
Eventually he returned to his family. There he received his call to missionary work in Ireland in three separate dreams - the most notable was one in which the voice of the Irish called, "Holy youth, come again and walk among us."
" One night I saw a vision of a man called Victor. who appeared to have come from Ireland with an unlimited number of letters. He gave me one of them and I read the opening words which were - 'The voice of the Irish'. As I read the beginning of the letter I seemed at the same moment to hear the voice of those who were by the wood of Foclut which is near the Western Sea. They called with one voice- 'We ask you, come and walk once more among us'. I was broken-hearted and could read no more, and so I woke up."
Patrick interpreted the dream as a call from God to become a missionary to the pagan Irish. The efforts of Patrick's parents to induce him to stay in Britain were unsuccessful. Patrick eventually returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop and baptised many thousands of people.
It was not an easy task. Patrick tells how his life was at risk, and how he was sometimes imprisoned by the local pagan chiefs. Patrick also writes of his longing for home and friends. "How I would have loved to go to my country and my parents, and also to Gaul in order to visit the brethren and to see the faces of the saints of my Lord! God knows that I much desired it; but I am bound by the Spirit." Patrick knew his duty, and remained in Ireland.
Patrick was the last person to think that he deserved any glory for himself. "I ought unceasingly to give thanks to God who often pardoned my folly and my carelessness, and on more than one occasion spared His great wrath on me, who was chosen to be His helper and who was slow to do as was shown me and as the Spirit suggested."
Patrick believed that when "every nation" had heard the gospel, Christ would then return, and it seems he believed that he was the person to bring this message of Christianity to the land that represented this "final hurdle" of God’s plan.
He began his missionary work in Ulster, built his first Church at Saul, two miles from Downpatrick, and from there journeyed across the land. Patrick's own writings, and the writings of his contemporaries, show him to have been a missionary of extraordinary zeal, energy, and courage, careless of his own safety in his fervor to `spread the nets for God'. In his own writings, he mentions this `Divine impatience' as well as describing himself as one of the Irish. For 29 years, Patrick labored among his beloved Irish, converting and baptizing them by the thousands until his death on March 17, 461 AD.
One of Patick's biographers, Muirchu, wrote that an angel had instructed Patrick that when he died two untamed oxen would pull his body to a place for burial under God's direction. The oxen took Patrick to Downpatrick where he was buried. When the Normans came to Downpatrick, they moved his body to its current site, beside Down Cathedral, where tradition has it that he is buried with St Brigid and St Columbcille.
He was recognized as a saint in the 17th century by the extension of his feast day to the universal Church calendar.
Patrick's mission in Ireland lasted for almost 30 years. According to tradition, he died on March 17, AD 461. That day has been commemorated as St. Patrick's Day ever since. The day's spirit is to celebrate the success of Patrick's mission in Ireland. Although it is a Catholic Holy Day, St. Patrick's Day has evolved into more of a secular holiday. And the Irish have exported it as part of their national tradition everywhere they have travelled. The Catholic feast day for this most loved of Irish saints has become a holiday in celebration of the Irish and Irish culture.
