Saint Patrick

• St. Patrick was born in Roman Britain sometime in the late 300s, and was the son of a Christian Roman official. When he was a teenager, he was captured and enslaved by marauding Irish pirates. They took him to Ireland, where they forced him to tend sheep for a local, pagan chieftain. It was in the long, slow hours of the day with the sheep that he began to hear the gentle voice of God. He began to pray like he never had when he was a boy. When he was 20 years old, he was told by God in a dream to flee to a certain point on the coast. When he arrived, a ship was there which he used to make his escape from Ireland.

• A few years after returning home, Patrick had a vision that he was being called back to Ireland by God to serve the Irish clanspeople. This prompted him to became a monk and a priest, and he spent many years in study, prayer, and missionary work in Europe. But, again, God granted him a vision in which Irish children cried out: “Oh holy youth, come back to Erin, and walk among us again.” St. Patrick was eventually commissioned by Pope St. Celestine I to carry the Gospel to Ireland. Beginning around 433, Patrick began his missionary work among the Irish.

• St. Patrick had to face the pagan druids of Ireland who opposed his preaching of the Gospel. On the night before Easter, the druids had a festival in which they would light a fire to their gods. According to their law, no other lights could be kindled on that night. St. Patrick, in defiance of their false gods, lit the Easter fire to celebrate Easter Mass. Miraculously, the druids and their soldiers were unable to put out the fire or harm Patrick, but they brought him before their chieftain -- whom Patrick also converted. After converting their chieftain, he preached all over Ireland, eventually leading to the mass conversion of the entire country.

• God spoke to St. Patrick through the disasters of his youth and the loneliness of his captivity. By being open to God in these terrible moments, he discovered the love of God and reached great sanctity. But not only that, he brought a whole nation to the Gospel once he allowed the Gospel to change him.

• Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and patron saint of healing snake bites. 

Saint Patrick, Pray for Us!