By Tayleigh Miller on March 1st, 2023
Did you know St. Patrick wasn’t Irish?! He was actually born in Britain to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century. His father was a Christian deacon, but it’s rumored that his father most likely became a Deacon because they needed money, and that their family wasn’t particularly religious. When Patrick was 16, a group of Irish raiders ambushed his family’s estate and kidnapped him. They moved Patrick to some place in Ireland, where he worked as a shepherd outdoors and alone. He was there for six years, lonely and afraid, which helped him become a devout Christian as he turned to his religion for comfort. When he finally escaped, he wrote about how he had heard God’s voice telling him it was time to leave Ireland. Patrick walked nearly 200 miles to Britain where he started formal religious training for the next 15 years. He also experienced a second revelation where he saw an angel in his dream telling him to go back to Ireland. The church sent him back to Ireland after his ordination as a priest at his request. Once there, he ministered to Christians and to began to convert more of the Irish. Patrick had actually started dreaming of converting Irish people to Christianity while he was in captivity so this must have been very fulfilling to him.
Since Patrick was familiar with the Irish language and culture he chose to incorporate traditional rituals into his lessons of Christianity. He did this instead of just eradicating the native Irish beliefs. One way he did this was using bonfires to celebrate Easter because the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. Another way he incorporated the traditional Irish rituals into his lessons was by superimposing a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish. Patrick’s ability to incorporate the traditional rituals into the Christian beliefs instead of getting rid of them, naturally made him the top choice for their national patron Saint. We still celebrate him today, all over the world, on March 17th known as St. Patrick’s Day.