Saint Patrick

[from the “The Liturgical Year” by Dom Prosper Guéranger]

The Saint we have to honour today is the Apostle of that faithful people, whose martyrdom has lasted three hundred years: it is the great Saint Patrick, he that gave Erin the Faith. There shone most brightly in this saint that gift of the Apostolate, which Christ has left to His Church, and which is to remain with her to the end of time. The ambassadors or missioners, sent by our Lord to preach His Gospel, are of two classes. There are some who have been entrusted with a small tract of the Gentile world; they had to sow the divine seed there, and it yielded fruit, more or less according to the dispositions of the people that received it: there are others, again, whose mission is like a rapid conquest, that subdues a whole nation, and brings it into subjection to the Gospel. Saint Patrick belongs to this second class; and in him we recognize one of the most successful instruments of God’s mercy to mankind.

And then, what solidity there is in this great Saint’s work! When is it that Ireland receives the Faith? In the 5th century, when Britain was almost wholly buried in paganism; when the race of the Franks had not as yet heard the name of the true God; when Germany had no knowledge of Christ’s having come upon the earth; when the countries of Northern Europe deeply slumbered in infidelity—yes, it was before these several nations had awakened to the Gospel that Ireland was converted. The Faith, brought to her by her glorious Apostle, took deep root and flourished and fructified in this Isle, more lovely even by grace than she is by nature. Her Saints are scarcely to be numbered and went about doing good in almost every country of Europe; her children gave, and are still giving, to other countries the Faith that she herself received from her beloved Patron. And when the 16th century came with its Protestantism; when the apostasy of Germany was imitated by England, Scotland, and the whole North of Europe, Ireland stood firm and staunch: no persecution, however cleverly however cruelly carried on against her, has been able to detach her from the Faith taught her by Saint Patrick.

Let us honor the admirable Apostle, chosen by God to sow the seed of his word in this privileged land; and let us listen to the simple account of his labors and virtues, thus given in the Lessons of his Feast.
Patrick, called the Apostle of Ireland, was born in Great Britain. His father’s name was Calphurnius. Conchessa, his mother, is said to have been a relation of Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours. He was several times taken captive by the barbarians, when he was a boy, and was put to tend their flocks. Even in that tender age, he gave signs of the great sanctity he was afterwards to attain. Full of the spirit of faith, and of the fear and love of God, he used to rise at the earliest dawn of day, and, in spite of snow, frost, or rain, go to offer up his prayers to God. It was his custom to pray a hundred times during the day, and a hundred during the night. After his third deliverance from slavery, he entered the ecclesiastical state, and applied himself, for a considerable time, to the study of the Sacred Scriptures. Having made several most fatiguing journeys through Gaul, Italy, and the Island of the Mediterranean, he was called by God to labor for the salvation of the people of Ireland. Pope Saint Celestine gave him power to preach the Gospel, and consecrated him Bishop. Whereupon, he set out for Ireland.
It would be difficult to relate how much this Apostolic man had to suffer in the mission thus entrusted to him: he had to bear with extraordinary trials, fatigues, and adversaries. But, by the mercy of God, that land, which heretofore had worshipped idols, so well repaid the labor wherewith Patrick had preached the Gospel, that it was afterwards called the Island of Saints. He administered holy Baptism to many thousands: he ordained several Bishops, and frequently conferred Holy Orders, in their several degrees; he drew up rules for virgins and widows, who wished to lead a life of continency. By the authority of the Roman Pontiff, he appointed Armagh the Metropolitan See of the whole Island, and enriched that church with the Saints’ Relics, which he had brought from Rome. God honored him with heavenly visions, with the gift of prophecy and miracles; all which caused the name of the Saint to be held in veneration in almost every part of the world.
Besides his daily solicitude for the churches, his vigorous spirit kept up an uninterrupted prayer. For it is said, that he was wont to recite every day the whole Psaltery, together with the Canticles and the Hymns, and two hundred prayers: that he every day knelt down three hundred times to adore God; and that at each Canonical hour of the day, he signed himself a hundred times with the sign of the Cross. He divided the night into three parts: the first was spent in the recitation of a hundred Psalms, during which he genuflected two hundred times: the second was spent in reciting the remaining fifty Psalms, which he did standing in cold water, and his heart, eyes, and hands lifted up to Heaven; the third he gave to a little sleep, which he took laid upon a bare stone. Being a man of extraordinary humility, he imitated the Apostles, and practiced manual labor. At length, being worn out by his incessant fatigues in the cause of the Church, powerful in word and work, having reached an extreme old age, he slept in the Lord, after being refreshed with the holy Mysteries. He was buried at Down, in Ulster, in the 5th century of the Christian era.
Saint Patrick, pray for us!