St. Patrick's Day

Patrick, Saint

fl. 5th century,, Britain and Ireland; feast day March 17,patron saint and national apostle of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Epistola, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians.

Life

He was born in Britain of a Romanized family. At the age of 16 he was torn by Irish raiders from the villa of his father, Calpurnius, a deacon and minor local official, and carried into slavery in Ireland, where, during six bleak years spent as a herdsman, he turned with fervor to his faith. Hearing at last in a dream that the ship in which he was to escape was ready, he fled his master and found passage to Britain. There he came near to starvation and suffered a second brief captivity before he was reunited with his family. Thereafter, he may have paid a short visit to the Continent.

The best known passage in the Confessio, his spiritual autobiography, tells of a dream, after his return to Britain, in which one Victoricus delivered him a letter headed "The Voice of the Irish." As he read it he seemed to hear a certain company of Irish beseeching him to walk once more among them. "Deeply moved," he says, "I could read no more." Nevertheless, because of the shortcomings of his education he was reluctant for a long time to respond to the call. Even on the eve of re-embarkation for Ireland he was beset by doubts of his fitness for the task. Once in the field, however, his hesitations vanished. Utterly confident in the Lord, he journeyed far and wide, baptizing and confirming with untiring zeal. In diplomatic fashion he brought gifts to a kinglet here and a lawgiver there but accepted none from any. On at least one occasion he was cast into chains. On another, he addressed with lyrical pathos a last farewell to his converts who had been slain or kidnapped by the soldiers of Coroticus.

Careful to deal fairly with the heathen, (the non-Catholic) he nevertheless lived in constant danger of martyrdom. The evocation of such incidents of what he called his "laborious episcopate" was his reply to a charge, to his great grief endorsed by his ecclesiastical superiors in Britain, that he had originally sought office for the sake of office. In point of fact, he was a most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped "idols and unclean things" had become "the people of God." (He in fact led them to be Catholic and to worship saints, the virgin mary, the cross and many artifacts.)

The phenomenal success of Patrick's mission is not, however, the full measure of his personality. Since his writings have come to be better understood, it is increasingly recognized that, despite their occasional incoherence, they mirror a truth and a simplicity of the rarest quality. No diarist has ever bared his inmost soul to the same degree as did the patron saint of Ireland. As D.A. Binchy, the most austerely critical of Patrician (i.e., of Patrick) (1 : a member of one of the original citizen families of ancient Rome 2 a : a person of high birth : ARISTOCRAT b : a person of breeding and cultivation)
scholars, has put it, "The moral and spiritual greatness of the man shines through every stumbling sentence of his 'rustic' Latin."

It is not possible to say with any assurance when Patrick was born. There are, however, a number of pointers to his missionary career having lain within the second half of the 5th century. In the Coroticus letter, his mention of the Franks as still heathen indicates that the letter must have been written between 451, the date generally accepted as that of the Franks' irruption into Gaul as far as the Somme River, and 496, when they were baptized en masse. Patrick, who speaks of himself as having evangelized heathen Ireland, is not to be confused with Palladius, sent by Pope Celestine in 431 as "first bishop to the Irish believers in Christ."

The most interesting facts about St. Patrick are: he wasn't born in Ireland but in Britain; he was captured and spent part of his teen years as a slave in Ireland; his explanation of the Holy Trinity by using a clover; the defeat of the Druids; the name Patrick wasn't the name he was born with but given to him much later in life by Pope Celestine. It is said that St. Patrick's real name is Maewyn Succat.

St. Patrick was born in Kilpatrick, Scotland, in the year 387. His parents Calphurnius and Conchessa belonged to a Roman family of high rank. In his sixteenth year, Patrick was carried off into captivity by Irish marauders and was sold as a slave to a chieftain named Milchu in Dalaradia, a territory of the present county of Antrim in Ireland, where for six years he tended his master's sheep flocks. He acquired a perfect knowledge of the Celtic tongue in which he would one day announce the tidings of Redemption, and, as his master Milchu was a druidical high priest, he became familiar with all the details of Druidism.

He relates in his "Confessio" that during his captivity while tending the flocks he prayed many times in the day: "the love of God", he added, "and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me."

After six years he fled from his cruel master. He relates in his "Confessio" that he had to travel about 200 miles He found a ship ready to set sail and after some rebuffs was allowed on board. In a few days he was among his friends once more in Britain, but now his heart was set on devoting himself to the service of God in the sacred ministry.

A couple of months after his escape he visited the St. Martin's monastery at Tours, and later the the island sanctuary of Lerins. Patrick placed himself under the guidance of a bishop, St. Germain. A few years later Patrick was promoted to the priesthood. He engaged in various missionary works. He was chosen to accompany St. Germain to Britain to combat the erroneous teachings of Pelagius. He was privileged was his privilege to be associated with the representative of Rome in the triumphs that ensued over heresy and Paganism, and in the many remarkable events of the expedition, such as the miraculous calming of the tempest at sea, the visit to the relics at St. Alban's shrine, and the Alleluia victory. He stayed in Britain for eighteen years

During those years, Patrick's thoughts turned towards Ireland. He would often speak of his experiences in Ireland with his mentor St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre. The bishop recommended Patrick to the pope and traveled to Rome. It was only shortly before his death that Pope Celestine entrusted Patrick with the mission of bringing Christianity to Ireland and on that occasion bestowed on him many relics and other spiritual gifts, and gave him the name "Patercius" or "Patritius". This name is derived from two Latin words pater civium meaning the father of his people.

It was probably in the summer months of the year 433, that Patrick and his companions landed at the mouth of the Vantry River close by Wicklow Head. The Druids were at once in arms against him. There are many legends of miracles and magical fights between him and the druids. For example:

-St. Patrick continued his journey over land towards Slemish. He had not proceeded far when a chieftain, named Dichu, appeared on the scene to prevent his further advance. He drew his sword to kill the saint, but his arm became rigid as a statue and continued so until he declared himself obedient to Patrick. Overcome by the saint's meekness and miracles, Dichu asked for instruction and made a gift of a large sabhall (barn). This was the first sanctuary dedicated by St. Patrick.

-The druids by their incantations overspread the hill and surrounding plain with a cloud of worse then Egyptian darkness. Patrick defied them to remove that cloud, and when all their efforts were made in vain, at his prayer the sun sent forth its rays and the brightest sunshine lit up the scene.

-By demoniac power the Arch-Druid Lochru was lifted up high in the air, but when Patrick knelt in prayer the druid from his flight was dashed to pieces upon a rock.

He was able to easily spread the word of Christianity because of his knowledge of the Celtic language. It took him several years to destroy paganism in Ireland. He conquered one kingdom after another. He survived several death threats. He tells us in his "Confessio" that no fewer than twelve times he and his companions were seized and carried off as captives, and on one occasion in particular he was loaded with chains, and his death was decreed. It is on account of the many hardships which he endured that he is also honored as a martyr.

St. Patrick died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, on the 17 March, 460 A.D. This is why  St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on the seventeenth of March. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland.

Holy days of obligation

in the Roman Catholic Church, religious feast days on which Catholics must attend mass and refrain from unnecessary work. Although all Sundays are sanctified in this way, the term holy days usually refers to other feasts that must be observed in the same manner as Sunday. The number of such days has varied greatly, since bishops had the right to institute new feasts for their dioceses until the 17th century. Pope Urban VIII then limited the number of holy days throughout the church to 36. In 1918, considering the difficulty of observing religious feasts that are not civil holidays, canon law designated 10 holy days (not our Creator's Holy Days): Christmas, Circumcision (New Year's Day), Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Assumption, SS. Peter and Paul, All Saints, the Immaculate Conception, and St. Joseph. With papal permission the number has been reduced or other changes made in some countries. Thus Epiphany, Corpus Christi, SS. Peter and Paul, and St. Joseph are not kept in the United States. Scotland and Ireland keep all 10 holy days, except that Ireland celebrates St. Patrick's Day instead of St. Joseph's.
Today Irishmen wear shamrocks, the national flower of Ireland, in their lapels on St. Patrick's Day, March 17.