Dear St. Patrick...

And the prayer of St. Patrick

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Dear St. Patrick,

This past weekend, all over the world, those of Irish ancestry have celebrated your life and work (after a fashion). Today, your feast day, the celebration goes on. Confident as I am that, as St. Paul said, ‘we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,’ I feel certain that you yearly witness (with humor) the rivers dyed green, the way ‘everyone is Irish’ on St. Patricks’ Day, the parties, marches and commemorative events.

I like to think that you are touched by the ongoing use of the shamrock to illustrate the Trinitarian nature of God. I am certain you are moved (and a little embarrassed) at the way you are revered by those who understood your ministry, mission and passion for our Lord. Saints typically think they shouldn’t be, and I suspect you are no different.

However, I also assume that you annually witness the remarkable and reckless use of alcohol, the promiscuous behavior, the fights, arrests and other various and sundry examples of debauchery committed in your name. Although I have no authority over any of this, and I don’t by any means think I have a right to stand in judgment over anyone, I must say that I offer my apologies from our enlightened and endarkened modern age in which so many celebrate you and so few have any idea what you did.

My DNA testing, and what I know of my family history, suggests that I have a bit of Irish in my chromosomes. (Although not as much as my Irish beauty wife, born Jan Mahon.) Thinking about this, and about the march of the ages, I wonder if maybe one of my many ancestors received the Gospel from you, as you went from a place of relative safety back to the land where you had once been a slave. It may be that you delivered my very family (or part of it) from an eons long dark tradition of capricious and cruel gods, and from centuries of cruel blood-feuds, raids, slavery and butchery and into the light of the Redeemer. Thank you for that!

And thank you for the example you set. Even now, composing this, I see you. I imagine you hearing, in a dream, the voices of another group of lost souls. It’s easy to see how important it was for you to go to old-school pagans and preach. How very modern of me to think so! And to simultaneously forget that you went to old Ireland in love to offer hope, not in anger to offer condemnation. That you went to offer deliverance not to embarrass or punish.

Whether you drove out the snakes is another matter altogether, but I am sympathetic to the idea…

The thing is, if anything our modern idolatries, our modern paganism, our murders and rapes, our globe-encircling and earth shattering wars, our slavery and sexual violence, our greed, addiction and abuse are even less excusable than those of the past. Indeed we have spent centuries bathed in the light of Christ whether we liked it or not. And yet, for all that, you would have us love and minister and preach and call others out of their lives of pain and trouble, out of the fear of death into the hope of life.

And now I come round. Dear Patrick, you would be in all that celebrate you today! In Boston, Chicago, Savannah and New York, in Dublin and in London, in Sydney and Montserrat. You’d be preaching to those who would hear (and those who pretended not to, but listened). You would love even as you told them to flee from sin. You would feed the hungry and encourage the drunk to sober up. You would bind up the wounds from fights and lead men and women away from using one another and into caring for one another.

You would do this as your Master did. For Jesus was your model and sends us all into the whirling, violent, drunken chaos of this world, holy day, holiday or average day.

May we all be missionaries wherever we go. And may we never forgot the courage of a freed slave who returned to those who abused him, and then led them to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, dear blessed St. Patrick.

This is the famous prayer known as The Breastplate of St. Patrick.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/p03.html

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity
Through belief in the threeness
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the creator.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension
Through the strength of his decent for the Judgement of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim
In obedience to the Angels,
In the service of the Archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of Holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun
Brilliance of moon
Splendor of fire
Speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind
Depth of sea
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s host to secure me
against snares of devils
against temptations of vices
against inclinations of nature
against everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and anear,
alone and in a crowd.

A summon today all these powers between me and these evils
Against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of heathenry,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that endangers man’s body and soul.

Christ to protect me today
against poison, against burning,
against drowning, against wounding,
so that there may come abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Thrones,
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the Creator.

Salvation is of the Lord
Salvation is of the Lord
Salvation is of Christ
May thy salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

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