Saint Who?
Saints Who Were Poets
Saint Patrick
Bishop († 461)Feast: March 17
Patrick, patron and apostle of Ireland, was born in Britain. Captured by Irish raiders, he spent six years as a slave. His suffering and humiliation led him to embrace the faith he was nominally raised in, and he became profoundly prayerful. He escaped and returned home, where the spiritual plight of the people in Ireland weighed upon him. He received a dream in which “the voice of the Irish” begged him to return.
Patrick was not well educated and felt himself something of a rustic bumpkin, even after being raised to the episcopate. In his Confessio, a kind of spiritual testament, he wrote, “I blush and fear exceedingly to reveal my lack of education.” Nonetheless he was amazingly successful as a missionary, and went through Ireland like a holy hurricane.
It was dangerous work. “Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity…but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven.” Long tradition has given him credit for a beautiful poem, the Lorica or Breastplate of Saint Patrick. He is said to have sung this hymn of protection as he and his companions passed near hostile druids. His enemies saw only a herd of deer, hence the poem’s other title: the Deer Cry. Patrick died at Saul Monastery in Ireland.
Almighty Father, through the intercession of
Saint Patrick, grant us protection from
all our enemies, earthly and spiritual.
