For the Orthodox, Great Lent started last Sunday evening after Vespers, for the Catholics it started on Ash Wednesday, three day ago. As always happens during lent, the Irish Catholics get a pass for one day. I don’t know if this is granted by the Pope or not, but I would like to think that the Almighty would not want the Irish to have to fast on St Patrick’s Day.

So, this lecture is a serve yourself, lots to read, very time consuming but i hope worth it.  Get two cups of coffee!

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St Patrick, named Patricius, born of means to a Roman family in Britain in the 400’s AD, was abducted by Irish marauders, sold into slavery in Ireland: Cardinal Moran continues the story:

In his sixteenth year, Patrick was carried off into captivity by Irish marauders and was sold as a slave to a chieftan named Milchu in Dalriada, a territory of the present county of Antrim in Ireland, where for six years he tended his master’s flocks in the valley of the Braid and on the slopes of Slemish, near the modern town of Ballymena. He relates in his “Confessio” that during his captivity while tending the flocks he prayed many times in the day: “the love of God“, he added,

and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me.

In the ways of a benign Providence the six years of Patrick’s captivity became a remote preparation for his future apostolate. He acquired a perfect knowledge of the Celtic tongue in which he would one day announce the glad tidings of Redemption, and, as his master Milchu was a druidical high priest, he became familiar with all the details of Druidism from whose bondage he was destined to liberate the Irish race.

Admonished by an angel he after six years fled from his cruel master and bent his steps towards the west. He relates in his “Confessio” that he had to travel about 200 miles; and his journey was probably towards Killala Bay and onwards thence to Westport. He found a ship ready to set sail and after some rebuffs was allowed on board. In a few days he was among his friends once more in Britain, but now his heart was set on devoting himself to the service of God in the sacred ministry. We meet with him at St. Martin’s monastery at Tours, and again at the island sanctuary of Lérins which was just then acquiring widespread renown for learning and piety; and wherever lessons of heroic perfection in the exercise of Christian life could be acquired, thither the fervent Patrick was sure to bend his steps. No sooner had St. Germain entered on his great mission at Auxerre than Patrick put himself under his guidance, and it was at that great bishop’s hands that Ireland’s future apostle was a few years later promoted to the priesthood. It is the tradition in the territory of the Morini that Patrick under St. Germain’s guidance for some years was engaged in missionary work among them. When Germain commissioned by the Holy See proceeded to Britain to combat the erroneous teachings of Pelagius, he chose Patrick to be one of his missionary companions and thus it was his privilege to be associated with the representative of Rome in the triumphs that ensued over heresy and Paganism, and in the many remarkable events of the expedition, such as the miraculous calming of the tempest at sea, the visit to the relics at St. Alban’s shrine, and the Alleluia victory. Amid all these scenes, however, Patrick’s thoughts turned towards Ireland, and from time to time he was favoured with visions of the children from Focluth, by the Western sea, who cried to him: “O holy youth, come back to Erin, and walk once more amongst us.”

Some have argued, and i will agree with them, that the Catholic church that St Patrick founded was more a Gaelic Orthodox Church than a Catholic one.   That is a debate for a later time. I would like to offer these two links as required reading:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11554a.htm

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http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Mar1997/feature1.asp

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The Cardinal Continues:

Writings of St. Patrick

The “Confessio” and the “Epistola ad Coroticum” are recognized by all modern critical writers as of unquestionable genuineness. The best edition, with text, translation, and critical notes, is by Rev. Dr. White for the Royal Irish Academy, in 1905. The 34 canons of a synod held before the year 460 by St. Patrick, Auxilius, and Isserninus, though rejected by Todd and Haddan, have been placed by Professor Bury beyond the reach of controversy. Another series of 31 ecclesiastical canons entitled “Synodus secunda Patritii”, though unquestionably of Irish origin and dating before the close of the seventh century, is generally considered to be of a later date than St. Patrick. Two tracts (in P.L., LIII), entitled “De abusionibus saeculi”, and “De Tribus habitaculis”, were composed by St. Patrick in Irish and translated into Latin at a later period. Passages from them are assigned to St. Patrick in the “Collectio Hibernensis Canonum”, which is of unquestionable authority and dates from the year 700 (Wasserschleben, 2nd ed., 1885). This “Collectio Hibernensis” also assigns to St. Patrick the famous synodical decree: “Si quae quaestiones in hac insula oriantur, ad Sedem Apostolicam referantur.” (If any difficulties arise in this island, let them be referred to the Apostolic See). The beautiful prayer, known as “Faeth Fiada”, or the “Lorica of St. Patrick” (St. Patrick’s Breast-Plate), first edited by Petrie in his “History of Tara”, is now universally accepted as genuine. The “Dicta Sancti Patritii”, or brief sayings of the saint, preserved in the “Book of Armagh”, are accurately edited by Fr. Hogan, S.J., in “Documenta de S. Patritio” (Brussels, 1884). The old Irish text of “The Rule of Patrick” has been edited by O’Keeffe, and a translation by Archbishop Healy in the appendix to his Life of St. Patrick (Dublin, 1905). It is a tract of venerable antiquity, and embodies the teaching of the saint.

“The Confessio” of St Patrick

St Patrick’s Letter To Coroticus (Epistola ad Coroticum)