March 17th is not all about 4 leaf clovers, leprechauns and green beer. This is a day to honor and pray to St. Patrick.
1,500 years ago, Saint Patrick was an influential saint who brought Christianity to the little country of Ireland.
Saint Patrick in the Early Years
He was born around 415 AD in the British Isles, and while he was still young he was captured by Irish raiders and sold as a slave.
After a few years of slavery and near the age of 20 he escape to Europe, became a monk and was ordained; he then returned to Ireland to preach the Gospel.
Saint Patrick Later in Life
During the next thirty years of his missionary he covered the Island with churches and monasteries. Although a small country, Ireland has played a large role in saving and bringing Christianity throughout the world.
St. Patrick has a few works attributed to him, one being his humbly written autobiography called Confessions.
Even after his death in 461, he remains the great bishop for Irishmen and their father in the Faith.
“I am greatly God’s debtor, because he granted me so much grace, that through me many people would be reborn in God, and soon after confirmed, and that clergy would be ordained everywhere for them, the masses lately come to belief, whom the Lord drew from the ends of the earth, just as he once promised through his prophets: “To you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Our fathers have inherited naught hut lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.” And again: “I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the uttermost ends of the earth.”
Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of
Ireland; against snakes & snake bites