How Will You Commemorate St Patrick's Feast Day?

Hopefully, it will not be a day of drunken debauchery in the name of Ireland. Rather, should we not reclaim this day, "celebrating" the Feast Day of a great Saint of the Church, by learning of this man and the level of devotion and piety that he lived? Surprisingly few men today could bear even one of St. Patrick's pious practices for more than a day, let alone a lifetime.

Looking out my office window on March 17, it's quite depressing to see the throngs of people attired in green colored clothing and their green "Mardi Gras" beads descending upon a particular city neighborhood, once occupied by primarily Irish families, to celebrate this secularized feast day by parading and drinking plenty of green beer - and most people, I am certain, have no idea who St Patrick is or what he did.

To assist us in better understanding the "Apostle of Ireland", we are posting a short article on Saint Patrick from Dom Guerenger's "The Liturgical Year" which was generously provided by Mark S.

St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland
Bishop and Confessor

Patrick, called the apostle of Ireland, was born in Great Britain. His father’s name was Calphunius. Conchessa, his mother, is said to have been a relation of St. Martin, bishop of Tours. He was several times taken captive by the barbarians, when he was a boy, and was put to tend their flocks. Even in that tender age, he gave signs of the great sanctity he was afterwards to attain. Full of the spirit of faith, and of the fear and love of God, he used to rise at the earliest dawn of day, and, in spite of snow, frost or rain, go to offer up his prayers to God. It was his custom to pray a hundred times during the day, and a hundred during the night. After his third deliverance from slavery, he entered the ecclesiastical state and applied himself, for a considerable time, to the study of the Sacred Scriptures. Having made several most fatiguing journeys through Gaul, Italy, and the islands of the Mediterranean, he was called by God to labour for the salvation of the people of Ireland. Pope Saint Celestine gave him power to preach the Gospel, and consecrated him bishop. Whereupon, he set out for Ireland

It would be difficult to relate how much this apostolic man had to suffer in the mission thus entrusted to him: he had to bear with extraordinary trials, fatigues, and adversaries. But, by the mercy of God, that land, which heretofore had worshipped idols, so well repaid the labour wherewith Patrick had preached the Gospel, that it was afterwards called the island of saints. He administered holy Baptism to many thousands: he ordained several bishops, and frequently conferred Holy Orders in their several degrees; he drew up rules for virgins and widows, who wished to lead a life of continency. By the authority of the Roman Pontiff, he appointed Armaugh the metropolitan See of the whole island, and enriched that church with the saints’ relics, which he had brought from Rome. God honoured him with heavenly visions, with the gift of prophecy and miracles; all which caused the name of the saint to be held in veneration in almost every part of the world.

Besides his daily solicitude for the churches, his vigorous spirit kept up an uninterrupted prayer. For it is said that he was wont to recite every day the whole psalter, together with the canticles and the hymns, and two hundred prayers: that he every day knelt down three hundred times to adore God; and that at each canonical hour of the day, he signed himself a hundred times with the sign of the cross. He divided the night in to three parts: the first was spent in the recitation of a hundred psalms, during which he genuflected two hundred times: the second was spend in reciting the remaining fifty psalms, which he did standing in cold water, and his heart, eyes, and hands lifted up to heaven; the third he gave to a little sleep, which he took laid upon a bare stone. Being a many of extraordinary humility, he imitated the apostles and practiced manual labour. At length, being worn out by his incessant fatigues in the cause of the Church, powerful in word and work, having reached an extreme old age he slept in the Lord, after being refreshed with the holy mysteries. He was buried at Down, in Ulster, in the fifth century of the Christian era.

From “The Liturgical Year” by Dom Prosper Gueranger O.S.B.