Who Was St. Patrick?

This Monday we celebrate St Patrick’s Day. Who was St. Patrick? I’ll bet most of you would have different things to say about this man. Do you really know the story?

My husband Jim said in his family growing up, his Dublin-born mother, Mary, would never let the kids leave the house without wearing green on that day. He told me she loved St. Patrick and even had a statue of him that was approximately three feet tall.

We all probably remember wearing green to school on March 17 or we’d get pinched. Well, here are some things about St. Patrick you may not know.

St Patrick was never really a saint. He wasn’t canonized by the Catholic Church. His real name was Maewyn Succat, born in Kilpatrick, Scotland (is that where Patrick comes from?).

History records that at age sixteen, St. Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and spent several years as a slave in Ireland. While there, he learned some of their various customs and beliefs of the Druids he was around. St. Patrick escaped Ireland, but had a dream where he believed God was calling him back to the Druids and it was these people he eventually evangelized. He used some of their symbols–one being the clover the Druids believed to be sacred–to evangelize them and especially the shamrock which symbolizes the symbol of the Trinity.

Of course now, the celebration of this missionary is very secular. The Chicago River made green on March 17. A lot eating and drinking and dance in honor of this man. What I’d like to emphasize today is St. Patrick’s evangelism of a people in Ireland.

Sixteen hundred years ago, this man evangelized a people where thousands of people came to faith in Christ through the gospel.

In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents (Luke 15: 7,10).

We do have something to celebrate, don’t we? So while you make that corned beef and cabbage, and enjoy the soda bread along with the other fixings, rejoice for your own salvation. And of course, in honor of that man, Maewyn Succat–St. Patrick–wear green!

Enjoy the music!