St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland
March 17, 2025
“Patrick, a native of that part of Britain now called Scotland, was born about the middle of the 4th Century. The Romans having left this Island naked and defenseless, it’s inhabitants were an easy prey to their troublesome neighbors the Irish, who made several incursions, and carried off considerable booty. Our Saint was sixteen years old, when he fell into the hands of those plunderers; and was carried into Ireland, where the hardships of slavery were to prepare him for the labors of an Apostle; and the experience he had of the spiritual necessities of that people was to inspire him with the charitable design of carrying the Light of the Gospel amongst them. After he had spent five or six years in that Ireland, he found means to make his escape, and return to his own country. He stayed there about four months, and in that time had frequent visions relating to the place of his late captivity, which he took as so many Divine admonitions for endeavoring the conversion of the Island he had left.
“Some time afterwards he accompanied his parents to Armorica, which now makes part of France, and is called Britany. Here they were set on by Barbarians, who murdered his father and mother, and sold him to some of the Picts, a savage people, that then inhabited this Island; but recovered his liberty after two months Service. About the Year 400 he was taken a third time by pirates who infested the British Coast. They carried him to Bourdeaux, and sold him.” (St. Patrick Bishop, Apostle of Ireland by Rev. Charles Fell and Bishop Richard Challoner 1750)
***
From “The Confessio” of St. Patrick
“My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae. His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and did not keep his commandments. We would not listen to our priests, who advised us about how we could be saved. The Lord brought his strong anger upon us, and scattered us among many nations even to the ends of the earth. It was among foreigners that it was seen how little I was.
“It was there that the Lord opened up my awareness of my lack of faith. Even though it came about late, I recognised my failings. So I turned with all my heart to the Lord my God, and he looked down on my lowliness and had mercy on my youthful ignorance. He guarded me before I knew him, and before I came to wisdom and could distinguish between good and evil. He protected me and consoled me as a father does for his son.”
Prayer to St. Patrick
O God, Who didst deign to send blessed Patrick, Thy Confessor and Bishop, to preach Thy glory to the nations; grant, through his merits and intercession, that what Thou commandest us to do, we may by Thy mercy be able to accomplish. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
***
From “Resurrection Miracles Performed by St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland:”
It has been said that St. Patrick (c. 389-c. 461) performed a thousand miracles. And why not? Many more (40,000) were prudently attributed to St. Vincent Ferrer, the Dominican missionary and “Angel of Judgment.”
Moreover, the author knows of no saint for whom there are claimed so many resurrection miracles during one apostolic lifetime as for St. Patrick; there were as many as 39 of these wonders. Thirty-three are mentioned in one specific report:
“For the blind and the lame, the deaf and the dumb, the palsied, the lunatic, the leprous, the epileptic, all who labored under any disease, did he in the Name of the Holy Trinity restore unto the power of their limbs and unto entire health; and in these good deeds was he daily practiced. Thirty and three dead men, some of whom had been many years buried, did this great reviver raise from the dead, as above we have more fully recorded.”
….
St. Patrick was a great missionary bishop who converted a whole land from paganism, overturning the religion of the druids. He consecrated 350 bishops, erected 700 churches, and ordained 5,000 priests. In less than 30 years the greater part of Ireland was Catholic; St. Patrick so consolidated it in the Christian faith that during the Protestant Revolt Ireland was almost unique in its preservation of the Faith. Even today, people speak of “the faith of the Irish.”
It is hard, indeed impossible, to comprehend such a vast and enduring transformation without the visible support of God through great works and wonders. But that is what Christ promised to His Apostles, and it has been historically demonstrated in the well-attested lives of His great missionary saints.
St. Patrick himself has personally attested to some of these signs and wonders: “And let those who will, laugh and scorn–I shall not be silent; nor shall I hide the signs and wonders which the Lord has shown me many years before they came to pass, as He knows everything even before the times of the world.” This seems to apply in particular to his prophetic dream-visions.
In his Letters (as in his Confessions and his Letter to Coroticus), Patrick wrote such things as: “I was not worthy… that He should bestow on me so great grace toward that nation.” And: “I baptized in the Lord so many thousands of persons.” And: “that many people through me should be regenerated to God.” Patrick also wrote: “that I might imitate, in some degree, those whom the Lord long ago foretold would herald His Gospel, for a witness to all nations before the end of the world.” St. Patrick indicated that the Holy Spirit was within him, and he compared himself with St. Paul in a reference to the “unspeakable groanings” of the Holy Spirit.
Further, the ancient author quotes from a reputed “epistle” (letter) of St. Patrick to a friend in a country beyond the sea:
“The Lord hath given to me, though humble, the power of working miracles among a barbarous people, such as are not recorded to have been worked by the great Apostles; inasmuch as, in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I have raised from the dead bodies that have been buried many years; but I beseech you, let no one believe that for these or the like works I am to be at all equaled with the Apostles, or with any perfect man, since I am humble, and a sinner, and worthy only to be despised.”
