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Once again we are gathered together to celebrate the Feast of our national Patron, St Patrick. It is a day in which we are particularly conscious of our religious roots. Today we link ourselves in celebration and prayer with Irish men and women all over the world. We thank God for sending us his messenger, Patrick, to bring us the Good News of the Christian Faith. A Christian has been described as "someone to whom God has entrusted people". It is a description which Patrick himself embodied completely. Today we remember, celebrate and acknowledge a debt to this man whose destiny was to be inextricably bound up with the Irish people. In his Confession Patrick prays "may God never allow me to be separated from his people which he has won in the ends of the earth!"
The picture of Patrick that emerges from his own writings is an appealing and immensely human one. A decline in belief and practice had set in by his early teens. It took the trauma of his kidnapping and a six-year spell on Slemish to bring about serious reflection on his religion and an earnest and determined attempt to pray again. What must have seemed a disastrous episode in Patrick's life proved, in fact, to be an occasion for personal conversion? God's style is never cramped by adversity. Patrick's life, thereafter, was radically redirected. From then on his point of reference was God.
The call of conversion was followed by the call of mission. Neither the entreaties of his family nor the prospect of danger deflected him from his course. His single-mindedness was remarkable. A people had been entrusted to him. He would preach and embody the good news of God's constant care and concern for his people. His humility matched his single-mindedness. Patrick sees the hand of God in all his work. "I beg you not to ascribe to my ignorant self whatever good I have achieved, but perceive that truly it was by God's own gift". As in the case of Jeremiah God has a disconcerting was of accomplishing his work through the weak and foolish. Disconcerting but consoling. Our story is in there somewhere, too!
The growth and spread of the faith in Ireland was extraordinary. The people were eager to listen and respond. As in the case of Paul and Barnabas in the second reading and the 72 disciples in the Gospel success depends on the quality of the people's listening and their response God's word is fruitful whenever it is received. Towards the end of his life Patrick could look back on a rich harvest. He was instrumental in the building up of a pobal Dé– a people of God. His writings constantly reflect this notion of the Church as the people of God. But the spread and rooting of the faith was not a one-man effort. The rich heritage that is ours today is due in no small part to the faithfulness of successive generations who handed on the faith.
Patrick sowed the seed. Succeeding generations saw that it took a firm hold. Our present task is to strengthen that faith, to seek new ways to express it meaningfully and to make it active in the vicissitudes of everyday existence.
Patrick should be our model on how to nurture our faith. His relationship with Christ was subject to the laws of any relationship – knowing and communicating. Personal prayer was a lesson Patrick learnt on windswept Slemish. His writing often takes the form of prayer. He became a man of prayer.
Do we take time out to create our own desert places, our own Slemishes, our own space and time to develop our relationship with Christ in prayer? Patrick obviously frequently read and reflected on the Gospels. By doing so he entered into the mind and personality of Christ himself and so developed God's view of people and the world. The call to action followed. Maybe, we could do with a well-thumbed copy of the Gospels with equally fruitful results. May St Patrick inspire us all and give us a share in his zeal.
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