What do you think of when you hear the words “Saint Patrick’s Day?”  Ireland?  Clovers?  Green and orange?  Parades and drinking?  Dying the river in downtown Chicago green?  It is amazing to me that such a great man a his message could degenerate into chaos rivaling that of Mardi Gras.  The most common associations with Saint Patrick are the clover and driving the snakes out of Ireland.  Did you know that the snake legend never happened?  If you look at Saint Patrick, you will see that the greatest miracle in his life never made it into the history books–forgiveness.

Saint Patrick was born in Scotland to a Roman family of high rank in the year 387.  Already, his heritage seems at odds with his Irish associations, but we will get to that.  In his sixteenth year, he was kidnapped and made to be a slave for an Irish chieftain named Milchu who was a druidical high priest and a very cruel master.  After six years, he escaped to Britain where he had friends.  He attributed his escape to an angel of God and devoted his life to God and the church.  Saint Patrick studied and worked hard and recieved callings higher and higher in the church as the years went on but always he wanted to return to Ireland.

Eventually, he was allowed to go and preach to the Irish.  Because of his time as a slave, he had a perfect knowledge of the Celtic tongue and a thorough understanding of Druidism.  While he met with much resistance from the Druidic priests, these tools helped him to convert many to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He performed many miracles in Ireland (none of them having anything to do with snakes).  There is one fantastic account of a contest between Saint Patrick and the Druids that is remeniscent of Elijah and the priests of Baal in First Kings (1 Kings 18:17-39).  This contest, however, delt with getting a large, dark storm cloud to disappear.  The story of the three-leaf clover is also true, however, I will deal with that more thoroughly in another post.  He lived in Ireland with the people he loved until his death in 493.

The main point here is that Saint Patrick, after having six years of his life stolen from him and being treated most cruelly by a members of a race that were generally at odds with his own anyway, wanted nothing more out of life than to bring the joy of the gospel to that very people.  He loved the Irish people.  There are numerous accounts of his prayers and all are concerning the welfare of the Irish people.  He dedicated his life to those people.  What a great example of forgiveness.  I am sure it was not easy to forgive the people who caused him such anguish early on in his life.  Perhaps he knew of the scripture in Matthew, where the Saviour taught, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).  Perhaps, like for so many of us, it was difficult for him to ‘mean it’ at first but, with the help of the Saviour, he was finally able to truly forgive.  Perhaps he remembered the Saviour’s own forgiveness, freely offered.  We cannot know.  What we do know is that because of his willingness to follow the Saviour’s admontion to forgive others, an entire county was brought into the light of Christ.