Sullivan UMC—J. Michael Smith

The Real Story of St. Patrick

It’s not about the politicians marching in a parade pandering for votes.  It’s not about the drunken agitators showing up every year in Champaign Urbana overwhelming the police forces.  It’s not about dumping green dye into the Chicago River.  It’s not about wearing green.  It’s not about boiling corned beef and cabbage.  Okay—those things are all real.  But they are no more related to the real St. Patrick than the Easter bunny is related to the newly risen Christ. Nor is it about a fellow who liberated Ireland from all its snakes.  (There were no snakes there in the first place.)

The guy at the heart of it all was Patrick, who lived from 389 to 461. Patrick grew up on the west coast of England as the son of a government bureaucrat.  He was living a rather comfortable life when a band of Irish raiders kidnapped him and took him back to Ireland as a slave.  Patrick was only 16.

He was sold to an Irish king who sent him into the remote mountains to tend sheep. Hungry and nearly naked, Patrick was miserable.  Instead of falling into a mental breakdown, instead of becoming cruel and violent like his captors, Patrick remembered the good things from his past—and he began to recall his Christian upbringing—and he began to focus on gratitude.  His time in the wilderness became a time of growing strong in his faith.

When an opportunity arose—he escaped.  Taking a passing ship out of Ireland, he went to Gaul (France) where he became a priest.  While there, he had a series of dreams in which he heard Irish voices calling to him, “We beseech thee to come and walk once more among us.”  By this time he was a bishop.

He headed back to Ireland in 422 and became a wandering bishop among the heathen for 30 years.  While there, he established churches and monasteries and led multitudes of people into the Christian faith.  He did not do it alone—but established a network of priests, preachers, and other leaders to organize the church to spread the faith.  

Patrick is an example of someone who did not return evil for evil, but rather took the hatred done to him and transformed it in his own soul into grace and kindness—and returned the fruits of the Holy Spirit to the land that had once been so violent and abusive to him.  

Let the church rise up and tell OUR story on this most secular of holidays.  It is a splendid opportunity to share a testimony without being too pious or obnoxious.