Skip to main content

St. Patrick's Day


St. Patrick is more akin to Martin Luther than a mainstream Catholic saint. Patricus or Patrick was a missionary and reformer who was not beloved by the Roman Catholic Church of Briton. He sought to save souls in Ireland, a place that had been his prison and the place where he found his call to be priest. St. Patrick was humble, kind, loving, and a humorous man; he would never have survived Ireland had he been proud or pompous. He choose to integrate the Irish culture into Christianity and one way he did this was by exploiting the pagan beliefs of the Irish.  For the Irish water was sacred and a portal and dimension to the spiritual world of the fairies. St. Patrick utilized this belief of the pagan Irish to led them to water Baptism and subsequently into Christ's flock!; which is call doorway ministry, where a missionary finds what is sacred and important to pagan people and find something similar in the Bible and uses that to lead the people to Jesus Christ with the familiar.

What is most remarkable, is that St. Patrick was Roman who lived in Briton. He was not a man of faith in his youth, in fact he was quite reveler until the day he was captured by Irish raiders and slave traders. For six years, Particus spent his time on isolated  part of Ireland where he tended the flocks of his pagan masters. There on the edge of despair, Patricus clinged to his Christian faith and found God calling to him; his voice leading Patrick to escape his captors and return home. Patrick motivated by a vision, traversed the country side as runaway slave, by law to be slain. In a vision from Lord he saw a ship that he was told would bare him home to Briton. Patricus found that very ship, but the crew was too craven to take him to Briton and so the young saint prayed there on shores of salvation and the captain changed his mind. Patricus returned home, but was not satisfied. He felt God call him back to Ireland, He heard the voices of the Irish begging him to return. Patricus enrolled in the clergy and rose from priest to bishop before leaving of his own violation and with the vehemence of the other vicars and venerable clerics. To the Church of Rome in Briton, Ireland was barbarous place beyond civilized Roman society and to be avoided, not to seek for Christ. St. Patrick returned to Ireland and won the favor of the king, and common people through his generosity, preaching in Irish tongue rather than Latin, and integrating the culture and customs of the Celts into Christianity.

What is most astounding about St. Patrick is that he returned to the place where he had been enslaved. It was there green rocky hillside that Patricus was imprisoned as shepherd, and it was there that he head the voice of the Almighty calling him. Hell and Heaven in one place and yet while many would never had returned to the place where they had been held captive, St. Patrick with great fervor returned to the land he once sought to escape. As a result the Irish people came to know Christ! In short, this man of great faith changed a nation because he "loved his enemy." (Matthew 5:44).

While the Legends speak of him driving out serpents, the truth is St. Patrick  "drove out the serpentine-pagan beliefs." (Liam Nesson, Patrick 2004). Some may feel caution at Patrick using the Irish culture and traditions in tandem with the Truths of the Gospel; but one must ask what do you think God would prefer? That Patrick had purged all pagan traces and pushed the Irish away from Jesus or that Patrick did as he did and found a way to use the culture and customs of Celtic/Irish people to lead them to Christ and in time they would caste aside their pagan ways. The answer seems clear; for in fact the crosses that stand two men or twelve feet high are not pagan crosses, but in fact testaments to the triumph of Christianity in Ireland and on them all the creatures, symbols, and shapes are the Gospel in pictorial form for the illiterate.

I hope today we can take inspiration and honor the memory of man of faith who made it possible through the Holy Spirit for an entire country to enter the Kingdom of Heaven! Happy St. Patrick's Day! Wear green today not because of the threats of being pinched or because the leprechauns, but rather to remember a godly man who made it his mission to reach the lost souls of Green Island of Ireland!"

Recommendation:

I highly recommend watching this 54min docu/drama of St. Patrick narrated by Liam Nesson:

http://www.amazon.com/Patrick-Liam-Neeson/dp/B000KQF6Z8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426501010&sr=8-2&keywords=Patrick+dvd

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Israel’s Conquest of Canaan: The Nephilim and Giants

  Christianity Today asserts that the conquest of Canaan can be a “stumbling block” for believers. This probably is because of a foolish idea of comparing it to a modern conquest happening in our world. The truth is that God had Israel conquer Canaan because it was ruled by evil giants, “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13:33). These are Anakim or Nephilim, the children of angels and human women, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God (angels) saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These w
Post a Comment
Read more

Dispensationalism

John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) was a man who did two things, he took 70th week of the Book of Daniel and stretched out to the End Times, and he was the father of  Dispensationalism , a belief system that God dispenses different peoples with separate blessings and covenants. According to Darb'ys doctrine of Dispensationalism, God dispenses different covenants. There are total of seven dispensations that divide the history of man: I. Dispensation of Innocence (prior to the Fall, "Do not east of the Fruit of Good and Eve, Eden), II. Dispensation of Conscience ( You must assuage guilt and sin with blood sacrifices.) III. Dispensation of Human Government (Multiply and Subdue the world, example the Tower of Babel Gen 11:1-9, and Genesis 1:28). IV. Dispensation of the Promise (Dwell in Canaan, Jerusalem) V. Dispensation of the Law ("Obey the Law of Moses and the Prophets"). VI. Dispensation of Grace (The Church, Jesus Christ has come and died for our sins an
Post a Comment
Read more

Jesus’ Name in Aramaic

There has been a trend to render Jesus’ name Hebrew, יֵשׁוּעַ , Yeshua. The problem is neither Christ nor his apostles, nor the Jews in 30-33 A.D. spoke Hebrew, they spoke Aramaic. A ramaic is the oldest language on earth and was the language Jesus spoke. In fact, the oldest Old Testament is the Septuagint a Greco translation around 132 B.C.E. (165 Years Before Christ)that was translated from Aramaic. The Masoretic Text, The Hebrew Old Testament most Bibles use, dates from 7th to 10th Century A.D. (Medieval Times).  This translation does not cross reference with the words of Christ in the New Testament which are Aramaic and Koine Greek.  If the Aramaic was what Jesus spoke, then by what name would have been called? Jesus’ name in Aramaic is Isho or Eesho, spelled ܝܫܘܥ . That is the name of our Lord in Aramaic! He would have heard his name in this dialect, “Hail Isho or Eesho!” as well as the Greek, Ἰ ησο ῦ ς , Iesous.  Aramaic is disappearing, only a few people are endeavo
Post a Comment
Read more