The Story of St. Patrick May Not Be What You Think
When I get to heaven someday, I want to see Jesus and many that have gone on before me. I want to meet King David, his wife Abigail, and the Apostles Paul and Peter. One of the first people that I want to meet is St. Patrick.
I love St. Patrick. I didn’t know squat about him except the river in Chicago being dyed green. I knew lots of beer is consumed along with corn beef and cabbage, but when I taught church history, I came to learn the story of a humble yet inspiring man.
Patrick was born in Britain about 400 AD and seems to have lived a nominally religious life. In his mid teens, a band of raiders kidnaped him and took him to Ireland and sold him to Milchu, an Irish chieftain and Druid High Priest. He was forced to tend sheep in all kinds of weather, but in the midst of his solitude, Patrick’s heart was wooed by the One True God. He recounts prayers, visions and experiences that drew up to the Savior, Jesus Christ.
“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.”
-Confessions of St. Patrick
After about six years of harsh conditions, Patrick had a dream that told him to flee his slavery. He trekked 200 miles toward the coast and took a boat back to his family in Britain. He devoted himself to years of training to become a priest, but his heart was pulled back to his former captors. He had another dream of an Irishman calling him to come back. So he was sent to pastor the few Christians in Ireland and to bring the love and truth of Jesus to those far from God.
Ireland was wracked by paganism led by the Druids. Amazingly, God redeemed Patrick’s slavery by using it as a training time for understanding the language, religion, and culture of the Irish. Many traditions come to us of Patrick’s ministry. We see a humble man standing in the authority of the Lord Jesus with the Word of God and the power of the Spirit against the occult activity and demonic manifestations of the Druids. God was breaking the power of darkness. Through Patrick’s prayers and pastoral heart, many in Ireland experienced the freedom and forgiveness that the death and resurrection of Christ procured.
So Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Honor a great man, a great missionary, who sacrificed all to gain and glory in Christ. “Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.”