St. Patrick's Day...a day late

I was asked yesterday, on Saint Patrick's Day why it was a holiday. I decided to post a quick blog about it, even though it is now over. It allows me to refresh my memory about who he was (Yes, there was a St. Patrick), and also about how it came to be a holiday, so without further ado...

Not a lot of solid details are actually known about St. Patrick. Patrick may have been born in Dunbarton, Scotland, or Cumberland, England, but many scholars place his birthplace in northern Wales, c.390 AD. He called himself both a Roman and a Briton, which leads to some of the debate as to his birthplace. At 16, he and a large number of his father’s slaves and vassals were captured by Irish raiders and sold as slaves in Ireland. Forced to work as a shepherd, he suffered greatly from hunger and cold. After six years, Patrick escaped, probably to France, and later returned to Britain at the age of 22. His captivity had meant spiritual conversion. He may have studied at Lerins, off the French coast; he spent years at Auxerre, France, and was consecrated bishop at the age of 43. After entering the Church, he had a dream vision in which it seemed “all the children of Ireland from their mothers’ wombs were stretching out their hands” to him. He understood the vision to be a call to do mission work in pagan Ireland. His great desire was to proclaim the Good News to the Irish. Despite opposition from those who felt his education had been defective, he was sent to carry out the task. He went to the west and north, where the faith had never been preached, obtained the protection of local kings and made numerous converts; however, little is known about the places where he worked and no link can be made between Patrick and any particular church.
By the eighth century he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.
Upon returning to Ireland Saint Patrick went under the Gaelic second name of Daorbae (meaning - He was enslaved) so, he was known as Patricius Daorbae, during his Irish ministry.

As one of the earliest Christian missionaries traveling abroad to spread the Christian faith, Saint Patrick is important because he serves as a testament to the overall missionary legacy of the Church. His example afforded later Christian missionaries the opportunity to assess the best methods to employ when confronting pagan groups abroad. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Saint Patrick’s missionary efforts in Ireland was that he transcended the boundary between Church hierarchy and prominent Church Fathers in terms of the viability of missionary pursuits. Saint Patrick proved that any Christian could live out the Scriptural commandment to spread the word of God while “exalting and confessing his wonders before all the nations that are under the heavens.” Patrick’s example would inspire later missionaries to undertake great missions to evangelize abroad in later years.
Because of the island’s pagan background, Patrick was emphatic in encouraging widows to remain chaste and young women to consecrate their virginity to Christ. He continually urged his people to greater holiness in Christ.
It is certain that Saint Patrick openly preached the gospel message while among the Picts and Irish peoples, but that method does not alone account for conversions to Christianity. In terms of numbers, Patrick himself suggested that he baptized and converted “many thousands,” to the faith. It is true that Patrick had some success converting the sons and daughters of Irish Kings to Christianity, but actual figures of the numbers of converts among the entirety of the Irish population remain unknown.
One way for Saint Patrick to ensure success for evangelizing opportunities while among the Irish was to live in solidarity with those whom he was trying to convert. Approaching the Irish as an equal while showing no pretense of superiority allowed the Irish to become more receptive of Christian teachings. In fact, Patrick himself avowed in his Confession that he “sold this nobility of his,” to enhance the commonality between himself and his Irish audience.
Although he may not have been as well versed in the teachings of the Church as other missionaries, Saint Patrick did understand the basic tenets of the Christian faith. Yet, Saint Patrick seemed to be haunted by his lack of education, and claimed that evangelizing among the Irish “revealed his lack of learning,” according to his own Confession. Limited education would prove to be an obstacle for Patrick, and considering that every word he spoke had to be translated into a foreign tongue, communicating with the pagans in Ireland became a daunting task.
A complete lack of adequate translators hindered Saint Patrick’s attempts to explain the Gospel message and herald his message of the dogma of Jesus Christ. In fact, later Christian missionaries aware of the challenges faced by Patrick would ensure that a sufficient knowledge of foreign languages was known before embarking on missions abroad. Jesuit missionaries in later years would pay particular attention to the details of languages while traveling in Asia and North America.
Saint Patrick was able to preach and lead significantly by example, so when Bishops in Europe accused Patrick of various unknown charges, his reputation inevitably suffered among the Picts and Irish people. He suffered much opposition from pagan druids, and was criticized in both England and Ireland for the way he conducted his mission.
In a relatively short time however, the island had experienced deeply the Christian spirit, and was prepared to send out missionaries whose efforts were greatly responsible for Christianizing Europe.
Patrick was a man of action, he had a rocklike belief in his vocation, in the cause he had espoused.
One of the few certainly authentic writings is his Confession, above all an act of homage to God for having called Patrick, unworthy sinner, to the apostolate.

St. Patrick is said to be buried at Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, County Down, alongside St. Brigid and St. Columba, although this has never been proven. The Battle for the Body of St. Patrick demonstrates the importance of both him as a spiritual leader, and of his body as an object of veneration, in early Christian Ireland.
March 17, popularly known as St. Patrick's Day, is believed to be his death date, c.460AD, and is the date celebrated as his feast day. (I mentioned to those asking me that I believed St. Patrick was martyred and burned at the stake, which upon review, I can find no record of. So, I apologize for the error on my part. It appears he died of natural causes.)
An interesting note: On March 17, 1776, the day that British forces under General Sir William Howe evacuated Boston during the American Revolutionary War, the password of the day at General George Washington's Continental Army encampment was "Saint Patrick". The date is observed as Evacuation Day, an official holiday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA.

For most of Christianity's first thousand years, canonizations were done on the diocesan or regional level. Relatively soon after the death of people considered to be very holy people, the local Church affirmed that they could be liturgically celebrated as saints. As a result, St. Patrick has never been formally canonized by a Pope; nevertheless, various Christian churches declare that he is a Saint in Heaven. He is still widely venerated in Ireland and elsewhere today.

Ironically, St. Patrick is not associated with the color green. He was actually generally pictured in blue raiment up until about the 20th century. In fact there is an actual colour, "St. Patrick's Blue" which is the background for the Irish Presidential Standard (i.e. the flag of the President of Ireland) and the Coat of arms of Ireland. It also appears in the part of the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom representing Northern Ireland. So how come all the green on St. Patrick's day? The change to Ireland's association with green rather than blue probably began around the 1750's. Green, the colour most widely associated with Ireland, with Irish people, and with St. Patrick's Day in modern times, most likely gained its prominence through the phrase "the wearing of the green" meaning to wear a shamrock on one's clothing. At many times in Irish history, to do so was seen as a sign of Irish nationalism or loyalty to the Roman Catholic faith. So how did St. Patrick become associated with it? Probably from what legend records of him. Pious legend credits Patrick with teaching the Irish converts about the concept of the Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a 3-leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of the Holy Trinity - 'three divine persons in the one God' - as opposed to the Arian belief that was popular in Patrick's time.
Legend also credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island, though all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes; one suggestion is that snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids of that time and place, as shown for instance on coins minted in Gaul, or that it could have referred to beliefs such as Pelagianism, symbolized as “serpents”.

So, there you have it, a short synopsis of St. Patrick, and how this holiday came to be. Although, I do wonder about something. Why is it that a holiday for a saint of notable influence, consists primarily of the consumption of copious amounts of green alcoholic beverages? Just an observation...