Patrick was born in the year 389 in England. That's right; Patrick is actually English not Irish. The son of a Roman official (England was part of the Roman Empire then), he grew up near the coast, and when he was 16 years old he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and sold into slavery in Ireland. Kind of puts getting a pimple or failing your driver's test in perspective, doesn't it? The next time your teenager thinks something insignificant is the end of the world, you can say, "It could be worse. You could have been kidnapped, sold into slavery, and forced to be a solitary shepherd in the wet freezing pastures of ancient Ireland!" In his own "confession" (spiritual autobiography) Patrick writes about those years, "I was chastened exceedingly and humbled every day in hunger and nakedness." That is way worse than being put on the JV team rather than varsity.
As often happens, in the midst of immense stress and heartache, Patrick leaned on God in Jesus Christ more than he ever had before. He became a person of deep prayer (who else was he going to talk to?) and his faith is all that got him through the terrible ordeal. After six years of being a slave, he escaped and eventually made it back to his family's home in England. Surely everyone thought that he'd find some sort of vocation that would afford him a comfortable lifestyle living near his family. But his faith had become so deep that he could think of nothing else but studying for the priesthood. While he was working toward ordination he started having dreams in which the people of Ireland were begging him to bring the gospel to them. His superiors said, "Are you crazy!?" But he didn't hate the Irish for their exploitative and hedonistic ways; he pitied them. He believed they could change. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!" He felt called to be the one who took the gospel to them. This reminds me of hearing about prisoners who have profound spiritual experiences while in the penitentiary and when they are released choose to go back in to lead Bible studies.
In 432, consecrated as the bishop of Ireland (a hopeful move since there weren't really any Christians in Ireland yet), the 43-year-old Patrick set foot on Irish soil for the first time since he'd escaped slavery. He got to work and according to Robert Ellsberg "within ten years he had established... a network of churches and monasteries throughout the country, all in the hands of a native clergy. He personally baptized tens of thousands of the faithful and ordained hundreds of priests. Although he was not all alone in his work of evangelization, his stature as patron of Ireland is well deserved."
May you have a happy St. Patrick's Day. Tip a pint of Guinness (just one) in honor of the old saint, and take this lesson from his life: even the people who hurt you are children of God, although they probably don't know it. Use your energy not to curse them, but to lift them up to God. This will bless the both of you.
