Saint Patrick

Everything you know about Patrick is wrong.

He didn’t drive the snakes out of Ireland.  Romans wrote 100 years before Patrick was born about the lack of snakes in Ireland. 

There’s no proof he used the leaves of a shamrock to illustrate the Trinity.

He probably didn’t even write St Patrick’s Breastplate.

He wasn’t even Irish!

 

Patrick was a British Roman citizen, but as a teenager, Irish raiders captured and enslaved him in Ireland for six years!  His faith grew a lot there.  He managed to escape and get back home, but soon he had a dream where God called him back to Ireland as a missionary.

 

Patrick’s writing at this time drips with the Scriptural call to missions.  “The nations will come to you from the ends of the earth.  I have put you as a light among the nations.  Go into all the world, disciple the nations.”  Patrick was one of the first to suceed in taking this to mean, go beyond the Roman Empire and teach the barbarians to follow Christ.  And he was really good at it.  Patrick converted thousands, planted churches, ordained priests, and set up monasteries.

 

Suffering bears fruit.  After 6 years of slavery, and because of that hardship, Patrick went from a rebellious teenager to a devout follower of Jesus.  He learned the Celtic language of his captors.  He knew how they lived.  God had honed him into the perfect missionary.  And Patrick bore fruit for decades.  Almost single handedly, he brought Christianity to Ireland.  Suffering bears fruit.

 

Loving your enemies bears fruit.  Most of us if we were in Patrick’s shoes as a slave, if we escaped and got home, would never think to set foot in Ireland again.  But he genuinely came to love this people.  He wanted to bless them and do them good, by giving them the gospel.  As he experienced the blessing of the Gospel, he saw how badly they needed it, and did something about it.  Patrick died on Mar 17, in the late 400s.  Thank God this week for St Patrick.