Saint Padrig of Ireland
Saint Patrick’s Day is a far better-known saintly feast day in America than many others I’ve covered here. It hardly needs saying that it is also commemorated in the Orthodox Church, and I did make a deliberate point of wearing my nice green button-down shirt to church today. The seventeenth of March is indeed the commemoration of Saint Padrig, the Bishop of Armagh.
Saint Padrig was born in the late fourth century, around the year 385, to a Romano-British family living in a settlement called Bannavem Taburniæ. There are numerous and sundry claimants for this site of Saint Padrig’s birth, which is the subject of a good deal of scholarly dispute. Some of the likely contenders, though, are the broadly-dispersed modern towns of: Ravenglass in Cumbria; Norton in Northampton; Auld Kilpatrick in Dunbarton; and Banwen in Glamorgan. His father was a Christian deacon and low-ranking Roman guard named Calpurnius; his mother Concessa, a Gallo-Roman, may have been a kinswoman of Saint Martin of Tours. His baptismal name, Maewyn Succot, was wholly Brythonic. He was not a particularly observant Christian in his early life, however.
When he was sixteen years old, he was kidnaped by Pictish pirates who brought him down Watling Street to the coast, shipped him to the Irish kingdom of Dál Riata, and sold him into slavery. He was bought by a wealthy landowner who owned a sheepfold in Antrim, and Padrig was sent to guard the flocks from predators as they grazed on the slopes of Mount Slemish. He spent six cold and hungry years in this servile occupation, and while he served he gained a knowledge of the Gælic tongue which would come to serve him in good stead as a missionary. One night, an angel of God appeared to Padrig, and told him of a ship on the coast which would bear him back to Britain. Padrig fled his master and walked on foot two hundred miles from Slemish to the coast near Dublin, where he found the ship just as the angel had told him, and stowed away on it.
During his captivity, Padrig – who by his own admission had not been particularly pious – increasingly believed in Christ and turned increasingly to prayer for deliverance. As he was leaving Ireland, he had another vision in which all the Irish people clamoured to him and begged him to return, to give them the Gospel of Christ. Padrig did not heed this vision right away, though. Although he believed and trusted in God, the various accounts of him including his own Confessions demonstrate that he could often be a stiff-necked, stubborn and argumentative servant – much like the Prophet Jonah. His ship home to Britain seems to have had a rough landing, and his ship-mates found themselves alone in a deserted stretch of land; food soon became a problem. Saint Padrig prayed to God, and of a sudden the crew and passengers came across a herd of wild pigs, some of which they slew and ate. The crew no longer thought of him as a mere stowaway, and came to respect him. They did arrive at a settlement, and from there Padrig made his way home.
An angelic vision and the recurring ‘Voice of the Irish’ pleading with him to return came again to him several years after he had come home. For this reason, some years after reuniting with his family, Saint Padrig sought out the great Gallo-Roman bishop Germain of Auxerre, to study under him. Saint Germain tutored the British youth in Latin, Gallic and Frankish, taught him the Scriptures and especially the Psalms, and acquainted him with other matters of sæcular knowledge. While in Gaul, Saint Padrig studied primarily at Auxerre. However, he also paid at least one visit to l’Abbaye de Marmoutier in Tours – possibly as part of a family obligation. It was Saint Germain who consecrated Padrig a priest, and he was later given the omophor and sent to Ireland. Even his attainment of this was not without trouble. In his Confessions he speaks of a certain sin he committed in secret when he was fifteen years old, which he then confided to a friend, believing himself to be unworthy of taking orders. At the time, this friend of his gave him encouragement, assured him of God’s forgiveness and encouraged him to seek the omophor. However, this friend later turned against him and publicly denounced him for his youthful transgression, which had been told to him in confidence. Although it did not ultimately hinder Saint Padrig’s becoming a bishop, he still grieved long after for the friend that he had lost.
Saint Padrig was a boy of sixteen when he first came to Ireland, and a young man of twenty-two when he first left. He did not answer the ‘Voice of the Irish’ and return there, until he was already a middle-aged bishop of forty-six. He had come to Ireland to relieve the frustrated missionary efforts of Saint Palladius, who retired from his see in 431 possibly under political pressure from the King of Leinster, and went to preach the Gospel among the Picts. Saint Padrig picked up where Palladius left off, and began preaching, teaching and healing among the Gælic people of Ireland.
The fact that he had a command of the Irish tongue aided him in his task, but his efforts were often opposed by local kings and lords, or by the pagan druids. His position outside the œconomy of kinship and patronage in præ-Christian Ireland rendered his position politically-precarious. They would often seek to discredit him in public with the fact that he was a Brythonic foreigner, or that he had once been a slave. He was attacked with stones and clubs and staves more than once, and cast into prisons and left to die by more than one petty lordling whom he’d managed to offend, but he always eluded a fruitless death and continued to teach the Gospel. Many times, a well-placed gift or a significant act of mercy was what turned the key for him to freedom. He made it a point never to accept payment for the Holy Mysteries, and indeed his harsh criticisms of the practice of simony made him a few powerful enemies within the Church.
There are a number of folktales that surround Saint Padrig. His clearing Ireland of snakes is very likely one such pious fiction. The traditional tale that he used a sprig of green clover – thereafter one of the most iconic symbols of the Irish nation, three leaves from a single stem – to illustrate the nature of the Holy Trinity, may or may not be true, but it does illustrate about Saint Padrig that he took pains to speak profound truths to simple folk, and was not given to academic abstractions.
By the time of his blessed repose, Saint Padrig had founded a great number of churches and monasteries throughout Ireland, and had established a permanent see of the Church in the county of Armagh. His relics were thought to have been found by Saint Colum Cille, the founder of Iona, and interred at Down Cathedral. Holy father Padrig, enlightener of the Irish people, pray unto Christ our God for us!
Holy Bishop Patrick,
Faithful shepherd of Christ’s royal flock,
You filled Ireland with the radiance of the Gospel:
The mighty strength of the Trinity!
Now that you stand before the Saviour,
Pray that He may preserve us in faith and love!
Down Cathedral, Downpatrick, Northern Ireland
No comments:
Post a Comment