Saint Patrick Speaks!
Monologues
Heroes Of The Faith Speak
Seven Monologues
At one time nearly 100 years ago the nation of Ireland suffered a severe potato blight. Famine killed hundreds of thousands of people. And many millions of Irishmen emigrated to the United States. These colorful people brought with them March 17, Saint Patrick's Day. Who is this Patrick? When did he live? What was his life? Today, by special arrangement, we have Patrick with us to tell his own story. But before he comes, a little Irish music to get you in the mood.
(A tape of Irish music is played. After two minutes, Patrick himself enters to walk up the center aisle.)
Welcome! Welcome, my friends! The Lord is with you!
By the stars of Killarney, if you ain't a handsome lot! Top o' the morning to ya!
Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Sucant, it is! Except I changed me name to Patrick. But then I be getting ahead of meself.
I've come to tell you me story, I have. A tale of privilege, of slavery, of trial and adventure, grace and forgiveness. It's a story guaranteed to bring a smile to yer face, a tear to yer eye, and faith in yer heart.
Born I was in 389 A.D., near the English border ... close to Dunbarton, not far from the Severn Estuary. Me father was a wealthy farmer, Mum a homemaker. Father's name was Calpurnius. Aye! And a mature Christian he was, elected a deacon in our local church.
Yes, ours were a Christian home. I can shut me eyes and recall to mind the love between me parents. I remember grace at supper, home-cooked meals, church services three and four times a week, farm chores, sunsets, rosy cheeks, and warm beds. Looking back, it's sad I took it all for granted. I thought everyone lived like that. I even thought being a Christian was something you were born with -- like red hair or blue eyes.
When I were sixteen, alarm spread across the coast land: "The pirates are back!" The worst sort of brigands, they were. And on another raid! Mostly they stole chickens and lambs. But there be some rape and murder as well.
This time they came to my farm and they stole me! One minute I was hiding out in the haystack, the next I was bound, kicking and screaming, and thrown into the hold of a ship. Crossed the Irish Sea, we did. And there they did sell me off as a slave to an Irish chieftain in Mayo near Antrim.
Aye, a slave I was for six fretful years! A shepherd mostly.
At that time the Irish were a pagan lot. Druids by religion. Superstitious. Fearful. Thirsty for blood. Why, fighting were the way of life for the Irish. Whiskey was their sacrament. Their neighbors' blood their entertainment.
No sooner had I arrived than I was ordered to bring six lambs to the Ulster chieftain's tribal banquet. A raiding party had just returned victorious and the male lot was feasting success. The poor captured rival chief was bound in a wicker basket and roasted alive over an open fire. All these years have passed and I can still hear his shrieks of pain. It haunts me whole life.
I sat behind a tree shivering in terror, crying me eyes out. A soldier punched me and glowered, "Take care and be a good servant, laddie, and see such do not be happening to you now."
For six years I lived in such misery. Six long years. Lonely I was. Big tormented. And I clung to the faith me parents had taught me. The belief of Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners, hope of the lost. I said 100 prayers by day and almost as many by night.
An interesting thing, suffering. It can make you or break you. Why, put a potato and an egg in a pot o' boiling water and the potato will grow soft, the egg will hard boil. Put persons into suffering and some will grow hard whilst others will soften. In my pot of boiling sufferings I grew soft in God's hands. I grew teachable, eager to hear his words, faithful, caring. I tell you, those six years, pain-filled as they were, they be the making of me.
A poet said:
A tree that never had to fight for air and sun and light,
That stood out in the open plain and always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king, but lived and died a grubby thing.
A man who never had to toil with mind or hand 'mid life's turmoil,
Who never had to earn his share of sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man, but lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease --
The stronger the wind, the tougher the trees,
The farther the sky, the greater the length,
The rougher the storms, the stronger and the greater the strength.
Through winds, fears, rough seas, and snows,
In trees, as man, good timber grows.
Aye, many a mortal owes the grandeur of his life to his sufferings. For the Bible says, "Suffering doth produce endurance, and endurance -- character, and character -- hope" (Romans 5:3).
Spring it was, of my twenty-second year, my sixth in captivity, that I made good my escape. In the night God gave me a dream. He told me to go to a shore where a ship would be waiting for me. I did! And it was! I crossed the Irish Sea again, and returned to my home. For months I wrestled to put the ugly past behind me mind, to forget Ireland ever existed. But the terror, the butchery, life treated so cheaply -- it bound me tight as a fist.
I traveled to Gaul, present day France, and off Cannes in the Mediterranean Sea, joined the island monastery of Lerins. After some years I moved to Auxerre where Saint Germanus mentored me in the faith.
If you go taking a magnet and a piece o' iron and rub themselves together, you be having two of the same magnets. And that's how Christian disciples be made. Jesus rubbed up against Peter. Paul, his Timothy. And Germanus, me. Through the gospel, he tutored me how to forgive my Irish tormentors, how to start a new life.
Such progress I made that in 417 A.D., at the age of 28, I was ordained a deacon. The word "deacon" from the Greek being diaconos or "slave." Transformed from the slave o' the Irish Druids to the slave o' Jesus Christ I was!
At my ordination I shucked off me Anglo name Sucant and took the Christian name Patrick, meaning "fatherly." Such was my new life --Ênew friends, new town, new name, new service.
About then, while meditating in scripture, I, Patrick, had a vision of God the Lord Christ. The Irish pagans were in misery beckoning to me. "We beseech you to come and walk among us once more."
I was thunderstruck! Me? Return to the Irish lowlifes who'd enslaved me, robbed me of my youth, spoiled some of the best years of my life? How could I ever forgive the bums, love them, walk among them again? Why, my life belonged here in Gaul in the quiet serenity of the monastery!
Many months waking and sleeping I wrestled with the call. It was my own Garden of Gethsemane. Then came the day I knelt as Jesus before God and prayed, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done." I would journey to Ireland, cross the Irish Sea again as a slave -- the slave of Jesus Christ! I would offer the Ulstermen the gospel.
Actually, I began to be excited as the mission took hold of me. In France there be many Christians. What with a church in every village it were hard to find a being who'd not heard the gospel. And the Spirit kept whispering in my heart, "Why should these people hear the gospel again and again when the Irish haven't even heard it once?"
If you be aworking picking grapes in the vineyard on the front row where there's many a worker and the grapes be few and the workers bicker among themselves and shove one another to get at the few grapes, but on the second row and third row of the vineyard there be few if any pickers, yet many grapes ripe for the picking, wouldn't it make good sense to leave for the back rows? So I began to see Ireland as the unpicked grapes of the good Lord's vineyard. And I was to go there and harvest the fruit.
When I shared my vision with the brothers and sisters of the church, they were immediately perturbed. One: I, Patrick, was an uneducated man. If you read my testimony, called Confessions, which I wrote when I were 61, you see it be wrote in crude Latin. I guess it'd muster a "C" in one of your schoolboy grammar classes. So the elders worried about sending a poorly-educated man such as I to the mission field.
A second concern the elders had was with the Irish themselves. Never before had the gospel been taken outside the Greek- and the Latin-speaking world. The Irish spoke the Gallic language. How could one learn it? Could the Bible be translated? Could anyone relate to Druid pagans? A missionary would likely be killed. And such would be a waste of time and life.
For fourteen years I remained in the monastery of Auxerre praying, fasting, studying, sharing the vision for Ireland. I took comfort in Paul's conversion and it being full fourteen years of quiet preparation before he ventured forth on his first mission journey. God, you see, is a very patient and thorough preparer. He will first build you, then he will take you to where you may build others.
Came the welcome day the church was set to try for Ireland. Palladius was to be the leader, me the assistant. But whilst we be packing, Palladius took ill and perished. So, suddenly I was in charge. Me the backup, the unlettered man. But we must carve our lives from the wood we're given. So I journeyed west to Ireland alone. The year was 432 A.D. I was a 42-year-old man.
Disembarking from my ship, I went straight to the Irish chieftain at Tara, King Laoghaire. And to him I boldly spoke, "The way you're living is not how life's supposed to be. Are you happy in your drinking, killing, and thievery? These Druid gods cannot give life meaning. I tell you, there's no hope in yer Stonehenges, in yer rites of butchery. It's but a religion of fear, of spells and witchery that leads to despair! I offer you good news! I offer you your Creator! You be made in his image, after his likeness good. But sin has eaten yer heart up and left you cold, ruthless, and unfit. So God has come to us personally in Christ Jesus. 'This is who I am,' God says. 'This is what I'm like, what I want!' Then Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins on the cross. But God raised him from the dead proving neither sin nor death is stronger than God's love. Now he invites you to come to him and be made over, forgiven fer all yer trespasses, to lead a life of love."
Do you know what happened? King Laoghaire ran me off with snarled curses. And his Druid priests mounted a determined resistance with every spell and curse of their demon charm books! Suddenly, I was very thankful for those fourteen years of thorough preparation, for being schooled in spiritual warfare. In Isaiah God promises, "No weapons formed against you shall prosper." 1 John teaches, "He who be in you is greater than he who is in this world, the Devil himself." And Ephesians 6 warns us to armor up so as to be able to stand against the Devil. I had sewn for me this tunic in the shape of a shield or breastplate. And inside it I wrote out my confidence in the Lord so to cover my heart from evil.
"I bind unto myself today the strong name of Trinity ... I bind this day to me forever, by the power of faith, Christ's incarnation ... Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me ..."
After prayer and fasting forty days on a mountain, I trudged back to King Laoghaire. He was drunk at a banquet. The candles flickered dimly, and a tiny sparrow flew in from the night, flitted about, and made his escape out of another window. Red-eyed and weary, Laoghaire stood and said, "My life is like that sparrow. I flew in from the dark of who knows where, I circle the banquet hall of life, snare a crumb or two of bread, and shall leave in death to go who knows where? Whence? Wither? Why?" he moaned.
I rose to preach the gospel. And this time the king wanted to learn more. Many hours of discussion took place over the next weeks. And Laoghaire was close to believing, but he was having trouble understanding the Trinity. "How can God be one person yet three, Father, Son, and Spirit?"ÊI explained the matter time and again, yet the king's head was as thick as a turtle's hide! Finally, in exasperation, I plucked a shamrock. "How many plants do I have here?" "One," the king said. "But it has three leaves -- the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit!" I exclaimed. And the king understood. And he believed and was baptized.
My good friend Laoghaire began to travel with me as I proclaimed Christ in Ulster. He'd stand beside me to give moral support as I preached. Now, I, Patrick used to emphasize my sermon points by stamping my shepherd's crock whilst I labored with words. And once I accidentally drove it through the meat of Laoghaire's foot. He winced in pain, but never cried out, thinkin' he was that it was all a part of the Christian ritual.
Some of ya be wondering why I dress as I do. Ya see, the Irish could not read. So I had to show them a picture.
My long shirt of Irish linen is the sort all Ireland wore, a reminder that Christ became one of us. My tunic in the shape of a shield or breastplate is a reminder of the protection God gives us from all evil.
This staff? I was once a shepherd slave tending sheep. Now I am the servant of Christ tending his flocks of people.
This hat so like a crown? I wore it to remind the Irish there was reward in serving the Lord. The Holy Book says God gives crowns in heaven to those who win souls, who pastor, suffer, look to his return, and keep themselves pure.
And what of this green stole I wear about me neck? Aye! Ireland's a beautiful land. It be twenty shades of green every direction a person look. But there's more to this yoke than green! For if you but look you'll see it has the look of serpents all entwined in Trinity.
The Druid Satan worshipers charmed a poisonous snake to bite and kill me and Laoghaire. And when one tried, I killed it! And like Jesus in Mark the fifth chapter who cast the demons into swine and then drowned them in the sea, I cast the Druid demons into the snakes of Ireland and they slithered into the sea to drown! That's why there are no snakes in Ireland even to this day!
Back in France many prayers were offered for our Irish mission. And the Lord gave grace to the Irish people so that many believed.
We bound the converts into communities of monastic churches. Little villages of quiet work, common meals, Bible study, and disciplined faith. 1 Thessalonians 1 tells of Paul, Timothy, and Silas living the faith before the Greeks and how the Thessalonians began to copy their lifestyle. This is what we did in our churches, we modeled in our behavior Christ's love. People watched us, liked what they saw, and wanted in from the Druid cold.
The church became the place we taught reading and Bible. There we gave the people the education I never quite had. In the book of Ecclesiastes it is said, if a sword is dull, you have to exert more strength. But with a sharp sword a man succeeds more easily. So knowledge helps a man succeed.
For the next 31 years I set about sharpening the Irish Christian converts so they could succeed. I did preach to them, organize them into monastic churches, and give them a vision to help others. I was Christ's magnet. They were my iron.
We built a cathedral to worship Christ in Armagh of Ulster. It was my administrative center. And a fine place it was!
Sad, but in the 1,600 years that separate my life from today there isn't much physical evidence left of my life. I never married. I have no descendants. There's not even a marked grave over my remains. And in the 1600s Oliver Cromwell's Puritan reformers burned my cathedrals and monasteries. All's left I built is a four-sided bell I used to call the faithful to worship, a stone chair at the Rock of Cashel, and my Confessions, along with a letter I wrote to a soldier.
Sometimes I get distressed about these things. It's only natural for us to want to leave our mark on the world. You're thinking it's a pity with so little to show for 72 years of life. But think again! I have no grave, to be sure! But neither does Jesus or Moses or David or Paul! I have no wife, but then in Christ, I am in the marriage of all eternity! And I have no descendants. Yet the Irish be my children!
Aye! I remember it well. March 17, 461 A.D., it was. My seventy-second year. I died and was carried by angels to heaven.
It's said I, Patrick, was the apostle to the Irish, that when I came I found Ireland all pagan. But when I left, I left it all Christian. 'Tis true. I baptized over 120,000 people into the faith and founded over 300 churches. And for the 200 years after my death, educated Irish missionaries left Ireland to carry the gospel across the known world.
My friends, if you want to leave yer mark on the world, don't write it in stone or steel and glass. Write it on the hearts of people. Offer them Jesus Christ! "For the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of the Lord abideth forever."
A man came up to me recently. An attorney. Fifty-three years old. Rich. But bored with his life, looking for more, wanting to put something back. He asked if he could come to Ireland with me and help in the work. I told him, "Go find your own Ireland!" For there's aplenty of towns and neighborhoods, families and nations needing to be harvested for Christ. And if you but listen, God will call you to your part of his vineyard.
Another man said to me, "Patrick, I want to be just like you!" But I said, "One's enough of anyone I ever met. Be yourself! When you stand before the Lord, he won't ask you why you weren't me or Moses or Paul. He'll ask you why you weren't you!"
Yes, I'm Patrick. A Welshman. Once enslaved against my will. Scarred by torture. Uneducated. Single. Childless. The church's second choice for the mission. A late starter for Ireland at 42. But Jesus Christ plus Patrick was enough. And Jesus Christ plus you shall be enough as well.
I told you me story was certain to bring a smile to yer lips, a tear to yer eyes. But what about faith to yer heart? Have you received Jesus as your Savior? It's easy enough. You but turn from yerself and sin to Jesus, believe in him, receive his spirit, and live to obey him. Then be finding your way to a good church for encouragement and a real education. From there God'll show you your vineyard.
So ... I must be a leaving ya now. But afore I do, I've a blessing to you.
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
(Saint Patrick exits.)
(A tape of Irish music is played. After two minutes, Patrick himself enters to walk up the center aisle.)
Welcome! Welcome, my friends! The Lord is with you!
By the stars of Killarney, if you ain't a handsome lot! Top o' the morning to ya!
Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Sucant, it is! Except I changed me name to Patrick. But then I be getting ahead of meself.
I've come to tell you me story, I have. A tale of privilege, of slavery, of trial and adventure, grace and forgiveness. It's a story guaranteed to bring a smile to yer face, a tear to yer eye, and faith in yer heart.
Born I was in 389 A.D., near the English border ... close to Dunbarton, not far from the Severn Estuary. Me father was a wealthy farmer, Mum a homemaker. Father's name was Calpurnius. Aye! And a mature Christian he was, elected a deacon in our local church.
Yes, ours were a Christian home. I can shut me eyes and recall to mind the love between me parents. I remember grace at supper, home-cooked meals, church services three and four times a week, farm chores, sunsets, rosy cheeks, and warm beds. Looking back, it's sad I took it all for granted. I thought everyone lived like that. I even thought being a Christian was something you were born with -- like red hair or blue eyes.
When I were sixteen, alarm spread across the coast land: "The pirates are back!" The worst sort of brigands, they were. And on another raid! Mostly they stole chickens and lambs. But there be some rape and murder as well.
This time they came to my farm and they stole me! One minute I was hiding out in the haystack, the next I was bound, kicking and screaming, and thrown into the hold of a ship. Crossed the Irish Sea, we did. And there they did sell me off as a slave to an Irish chieftain in Mayo near Antrim.
Aye, a slave I was for six fretful years! A shepherd mostly.
At that time the Irish were a pagan lot. Druids by religion. Superstitious. Fearful. Thirsty for blood. Why, fighting were the way of life for the Irish. Whiskey was their sacrament. Their neighbors' blood their entertainment.
No sooner had I arrived than I was ordered to bring six lambs to the Ulster chieftain's tribal banquet. A raiding party had just returned victorious and the male lot was feasting success. The poor captured rival chief was bound in a wicker basket and roasted alive over an open fire. All these years have passed and I can still hear his shrieks of pain. It haunts me whole life.
I sat behind a tree shivering in terror, crying me eyes out. A soldier punched me and glowered, "Take care and be a good servant, laddie, and see such do not be happening to you now."
For six years I lived in such misery. Six long years. Lonely I was. Big tormented. And I clung to the faith me parents had taught me. The belief of Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners, hope of the lost. I said 100 prayers by day and almost as many by night.
An interesting thing, suffering. It can make you or break you. Why, put a potato and an egg in a pot o' boiling water and the potato will grow soft, the egg will hard boil. Put persons into suffering and some will grow hard whilst others will soften. In my pot of boiling sufferings I grew soft in God's hands. I grew teachable, eager to hear his words, faithful, caring. I tell you, those six years, pain-filled as they were, they be the making of me.
A poet said:
A tree that never had to fight for air and sun and light,
That stood out in the open plain and always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king, but lived and died a grubby thing.
A man who never had to toil with mind or hand 'mid life's turmoil,
Who never had to earn his share of sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man, but lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease --
The stronger the wind, the tougher the trees,
The farther the sky, the greater the length,
The rougher the storms, the stronger and the greater the strength.
Through winds, fears, rough seas, and snows,
In trees, as man, good timber grows.
Aye, many a mortal owes the grandeur of his life to his sufferings. For the Bible says, "Suffering doth produce endurance, and endurance -- character, and character -- hope" (Romans 5:3).
Spring it was, of my twenty-second year, my sixth in captivity, that I made good my escape. In the night God gave me a dream. He told me to go to a shore where a ship would be waiting for me. I did! And it was! I crossed the Irish Sea again, and returned to my home. For months I wrestled to put the ugly past behind me mind, to forget Ireland ever existed. But the terror, the butchery, life treated so cheaply -- it bound me tight as a fist.
I traveled to Gaul, present day France, and off Cannes in the Mediterranean Sea, joined the island monastery of Lerins. After some years I moved to Auxerre where Saint Germanus mentored me in the faith.
If you go taking a magnet and a piece o' iron and rub themselves together, you be having two of the same magnets. And that's how Christian disciples be made. Jesus rubbed up against Peter. Paul, his Timothy. And Germanus, me. Through the gospel, he tutored me how to forgive my Irish tormentors, how to start a new life.
Such progress I made that in 417 A.D., at the age of 28, I was ordained a deacon. The word "deacon" from the Greek being diaconos or "slave." Transformed from the slave o' the Irish Druids to the slave o' Jesus Christ I was!
At my ordination I shucked off me Anglo name Sucant and took the Christian name Patrick, meaning "fatherly." Such was my new life --Ênew friends, new town, new name, new service.
About then, while meditating in scripture, I, Patrick, had a vision of God the Lord Christ. The Irish pagans were in misery beckoning to me. "We beseech you to come and walk among us once more."
I was thunderstruck! Me? Return to the Irish lowlifes who'd enslaved me, robbed me of my youth, spoiled some of the best years of my life? How could I ever forgive the bums, love them, walk among them again? Why, my life belonged here in Gaul in the quiet serenity of the monastery!
Many months waking and sleeping I wrestled with the call. It was my own Garden of Gethsemane. Then came the day I knelt as Jesus before God and prayed, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done." I would journey to Ireland, cross the Irish Sea again as a slave -- the slave of Jesus Christ! I would offer the Ulstermen the gospel.
Actually, I began to be excited as the mission took hold of me. In France there be many Christians. What with a church in every village it were hard to find a being who'd not heard the gospel. And the Spirit kept whispering in my heart, "Why should these people hear the gospel again and again when the Irish haven't even heard it once?"
If you be aworking picking grapes in the vineyard on the front row where there's many a worker and the grapes be few and the workers bicker among themselves and shove one another to get at the few grapes, but on the second row and third row of the vineyard there be few if any pickers, yet many grapes ripe for the picking, wouldn't it make good sense to leave for the back rows? So I began to see Ireland as the unpicked grapes of the good Lord's vineyard. And I was to go there and harvest the fruit.
When I shared my vision with the brothers and sisters of the church, they were immediately perturbed. One: I, Patrick, was an uneducated man. If you read my testimony, called Confessions, which I wrote when I were 61, you see it be wrote in crude Latin. I guess it'd muster a "C" in one of your schoolboy grammar classes. So the elders worried about sending a poorly-educated man such as I to the mission field.
A second concern the elders had was with the Irish themselves. Never before had the gospel been taken outside the Greek- and the Latin-speaking world. The Irish spoke the Gallic language. How could one learn it? Could the Bible be translated? Could anyone relate to Druid pagans? A missionary would likely be killed. And such would be a waste of time and life.
For fourteen years I remained in the monastery of Auxerre praying, fasting, studying, sharing the vision for Ireland. I took comfort in Paul's conversion and it being full fourteen years of quiet preparation before he ventured forth on his first mission journey. God, you see, is a very patient and thorough preparer. He will first build you, then he will take you to where you may build others.
Came the welcome day the church was set to try for Ireland. Palladius was to be the leader, me the assistant. But whilst we be packing, Palladius took ill and perished. So, suddenly I was in charge. Me the backup, the unlettered man. But we must carve our lives from the wood we're given. So I journeyed west to Ireland alone. The year was 432 A.D. I was a 42-year-old man.
Disembarking from my ship, I went straight to the Irish chieftain at Tara, King Laoghaire. And to him I boldly spoke, "The way you're living is not how life's supposed to be. Are you happy in your drinking, killing, and thievery? These Druid gods cannot give life meaning. I tell you, there's no hope in yer Stonehenges, in yer rites of butchery. It's but a religion of fear, of spells and witchery that leads to despair! I offer you good news! I offer you your Creator! You be made in his image, after his likeness good. But sin has eaten yer heart up and left you cold, ruthless, and unfit. So God has come to us personally in Christ Jesus. 'This is who I am,' God says. 'This is what I'm like, what I want!' Then Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins on the cross. But God raised him from the dead proving neither sin nor death is stronger than God's love. Now he invites you to come to him and be made over, forgiven fer all yer trespasses, to lead a life of love."
Do you know what happened? King Laoghaire ran me off with snarled curses. And his Druid priests mounted a determined resistance with every spell and curse of their demon charm books! Suddenly, I was very thankful for those fourteen years of thorough preparation, for being schooled in spiritual warfare. In Isaiah God promises, "No weapons formed against you shall prosper." 1 John teaches, "He who be in you is greater than he who is in this world, the Devil himself." And Ephesians 6 warns us to armor up so as to be able to stand against the Devil. I had sewn for me this tunic in the shape of a shield or breastplate. And inside it I wrote out my confidence in the Lord so to cover my heart from evil.
"I bind unto myself today the strong name of Trinity ... I bind this day to me forever, by the power of faith, Christ's incarnation ... Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me ..."
After prayer and fasting forty days on a mountain, I trudged back to King Laoghaire. He was drunk at a banquet. The candles flickered dimly, and a tiny sparrow flew in from the night, flitted about, and made his escape out of another window. Red-eyed and weary, Laoghaire stood and said, "My life is like that sparrow. I flew in from the dark of who knows where, I circle the banquet hall of life, snare a crumb or two of bread, and shall leave in death to go who knows where? Whence? Wither? Why?" he moaned.
I rose to preach the gospel. And this time the king wanted to learn more. Many hours of discussion took place over the next weeks. And Laoghaire was close to believing, but he was having trouble understanding the Trinity. "How can God be one person yet three, Father, Son, and Spirit?"ÊI explained the matter time and again, yet the king's head was as thick as a turtle's hide! Finally, in exasperation, I plucked a shamrock. "How many plants do I have here?" "One," the king said. "But it has three leaves -- the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit!" I exclaimed. And the king understood. And he believed and was baptized.
My good friend Laoghaire began to travel with me as I proclaimed Christ in Ulster. He'd stand beside me to give moral support as I preached. Now, I, Patrick used to emphasize my sermon points by stamping my shepherd's crock whilst I labored with words. And once I accidentally drove it through the meat of Laoghaire's foot. He winced in pain, but never cried out, thinkin' he was that it was all a part of the Christian ritual.
Some of ya be wondering why I dress as I do. Ya see, the Irish could not read. So I had to show them a picture.
My long shirt of Irish linen is the sort all Ireland wore, a reminder that Christ became one of us. My tunic in the shape of a shield or breastplate is a reminder of the protection God gives us from all evil.
This staff? I was once a shepherd slave tending sheep. Now I am the servant of Christ tending his flocks of people.
This hat so like a crown? I wore it to remind the Irish there was reward in serving the Lord. The Holy Book says God gives crowns in heaven to those who win souls, who pastor, suffer, look to his return, and keep themselves pure.
And what of this green stole I wear about me neck? Aye! Ireland's a beautiful land. It be twenty shades of green every direction a person look. But there's more to this yoke than green! For if you but look you'll see it has the look of serpents all entwined in Trinity.
The Druid Satan worshipers charmed a poisonous snake to bite and kill me and Laoghaire. And when one tried, I killed it! And like Jesus in Mark the fifth chapter who cast the demons into swine and then drowned them in the sea, I cast the Druid demons into the snakes of Ireland and they slithered into the sea to drown! That's why there are no snakes in Ireland even to this day!
Back in France many prayers were offered for our Irish mission. And the Lord gave grace to the Irish people so that many believed.
We bound the converts into communities of monastic churches. Little villages of quiet work, common meals, Bible study, and disciplined faith. 1 Thessalonians 1 tells of Paul, Timothy, and Silas living the faith before the Greeks and how the Thessalonians began to copy their lifestyle. This is what we did in our churches, we modeled in our behavior Christ's love. People watched us, liked what they saw, and wanted in from the Druid cold.
The church became the place we taught reading and Bible. There we gave the people the education I never quite had. In the book of Ecclesiastes it is said, if a sword is dull, you have to exert more strength. But with a sharp sword a man succeeds more easily. So knowledge helps a man succeed.
For the next 31 years I set about sharpening the Irish Christian converts so they could succeed. I did preach to them, organize them into monastic churches, and give them a vision to help others. I was Christ's magnet. They were my iron.
We built a cathedral to worship Christ in Armagh of Ulster. It was my administrative center. And a fine place it was!
Sad, but in the 1,600 years that separate my life from today there isn't much physical evidence left of my life. I never married. I have no descendants. There's not even a marked grave over my remains. And in the 1600s Oliver Cromwell's Puritan reformers burned my cathedrals and monasteries. All's left I built is a four-sided bell I used to call the faithful to worship, a stone chair at the Rock of Cashel, and my Confessions, along with a letter I wrote to a soldier.
Sometimes I get distressed about these things. It's only natural for us to want to leave our mark on the world. You're thinking it's a pity with so little to show for 72 years of life. But think again! I have no grave, to be sure! But neither does Jesus or Moses or David or Paul! I have no wife, but then in Christ, I am in the marriage of all eternity! And I have no descendants. Yet the Irish be my children!
Aye! I remember it well. March 17, 461 A.D., it was. My seventy-second year. I died and was carried by angels to heaven.
It's said I, Patrick, was the apostle to the Irish, that when I came I found Ireland all pagan. But when I left, I left it all Christian. 'Tis true. I baptized over 120,000 people into the faith and founded over 300 churches. And for the 200 years after my death, educated Irish missionaries left Ireland to carry the gospel across the known world.
My friends, if you want to leave yer mark on the world, don't write it in stone or steel and glass. Write it on the hearts of people. Offer them Jesus Christ! "For the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of the Lord abideth forever."
A man came up to me recently. An attorney. Fifty-three years old. Rich. But bored with his life, looking for more, wanting to put something back. He asked if he could come to Ireland with me and help in the work. I told him, "Go find your own Ireland!" For there's aplenty of towns and neighborhoods, families and nations needing to be harvested for Christ. And if you but listen, God will call you to your part of his vineyard.
Another man said to me, "Patrick, I want to be just like you!" But I said, "One's enough of anyone I ever met. Be yourself! When you stand before the Lord, he won't ask you why you weren't me or Moses or Paul. He'll ask you why you weren't you!"
Yes, I'm Patrick. A Welshman. Once enslaved against my will. Scarred by torture. Uneducated. Single. Childless. The church's second choice for the mission. A late starter for Ireland at 42. But Jesus Christ plus Patrick was enough. And Jesus Christ plus you shall be enough as well.
I told you me story was certain to bring a smile to yer lips, a tear to yer eyes. But what about faith to yer heart? Have you received Jesus as your Savior? It's easy enough. You but turn from yerself and sin to Jesus, believe in him, receive his spirit, and live to obey him. Then be finding your way to a good church for encouragement and a real education. From there God'll show you your vineyard.
So ... I must be a leaving ya now. But afore I do, I've a blessing to you.
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
(Saint Patrick exits.)
