Apostle to the Irish - The Real Saint Patrick

Lat year on St Patrick's Day this was Chuck Colson's Breakpoint. I thought I would share it with you all on the St Patrick's Day.

Oh - and Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

If you ask people who Saint Patrick was, you're likely to hear that he
was an Irishman who chased the snakes out of Ireland.

It may surprise you to learn that the real Saint Patrick was not
actually Irish-yet his robust faith changed the Emerald Isle forever.

Patrick was born in Roman Britain to a middle-class family in about A.D.
390. When Patrick was a teenager, marauding Irish raiders attacked his
home. Patrick was captured, taken to Ireland, and sold to an Irish king,
who put him to work as a shepherd.

In his excellent book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill
describes the life Patrick lived. Cahill writes, "The work of such
slave-shepherds was bitterly isolated, months at a time spent alone in
the hills."

Patrick had been raised in a Christian home, but he didn't really
believe in God. But now-hungry, lonely, frightened, and bitterly
cold-Patrick began seeking out a relationship with his Heavenly Father.
As he wrote in his Confessions, "I would pray constantly during the
daylight hours" and "the love of God . . . surrounded me more and more."

Six years after his capture, God spoke to Patrick in a dream, saying,
"Your hungers are rewarded. You are going home. Look-your ship is
ready."

What a startling command! If he obeyed, Patrick would become a fugitive
slave, constantly in danger of capture and punishment. But he did
obey-and God protected him. The young slave walked nearly two hundred
miles to the Irish coast. There he boarded a waiting ship and traveled
back to Britain and his family.

But, as you might expect, Patrick was a different person now, and the
restless young man could not settle back into his old life. Eventually,
Patrick recognized that God was calling him to enter a monastery. In
time, he was ordained as a priest, then as a bishop.

Finally-thirty years after God had led Patrick away from Ireland-he
called him back to the Emerald Isle as a missionary.

The Irish of the fifth century were a pagan, violent, and barbaric
people. Human sacrifice was commonplace. Patrick understood the danger
and wrote: "I am ready to be murdered, betrayed, enslaved-whatever may
come my way."

Cahill notes that Patrick's love for the Irish "shines through his
writings . . . He [worried] constantly for his people, not just for
their spiritual but for their physical welfare."

Through Patrick, God converted thousands. Cahill writes, "Only this
former slave had the right instincts to impart to the Irish a New Story,
one that made sense of all their old stories and brought them a peace
they had never known before." Because of Patrick, a warrior people "lay
down the swords of battle, flung away the knives of sacrifice, and cast
away the chains of slavery."

As it is with many Christian holidays, Saint Patrick's Day has lost much
of its original meaning. Instead of settling for parades, cardboard
leprechauns, and "the wearing of the green," we ought to recover our
Christian heritage, celebrate the great evangelist, and teach our kids
about this Christian hero.

Saint Patrick didn't chase the snakes out of Ireland, as many believe.
Instead, the Lord used him to bring into Ireland a sturdy faith in the
one true God-and to forever transform the Irish people.

Chuck Colson's Breakpoint: March 17, 2004