St. Patrick was held in captivity until age 20

    On March 17, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, a global day in memory of the Catholic saint. Like St. Nicholas and St. Valentine, the entire secular world shares in our love of St. Patrick. While many have turned this day into a celebration of Irish heritage, with many festivities blending revelry and cultural pride, the Catholic Church has always held that it is first and foremost a religious holiday.
    Rather than just a day of commercialism and dying rivers green or drinking green beer, St. Patrick’s Day commemorates a Christian missionary recognized as the patron saint of Ireland.
 He was born at Kilpatrick in Scotland around 387. His parents were Romans living in Britain in charge of the colonies.
    As a teenage boy, around the age of 14, St. Patrick was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland was a pagan land of Druids, and he learned the language and the practices of the people who held him captive.
    St. Patrick’s captivity lasted until he was about 20. It was during this time, according to his letters, that he turned to God: “The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul rose, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same.” He escaped captivity after a dream in which God told him to leave Ireland by going to the coast, where he met sailors who returned him to Britain and reunited him with his family.
    St. Patrick became a priest and was later ordained bishop and was sent to preach the Gospel to Ireland.
    It is also said that St. Patrick had a dream in which the people of Ireland were calling out to him to return to them, though the time and origin of the dream are unknown. He returned to Ireland in 433, with one legend attesting that he met a chieftain of one of the Irish tribes who attempted to kill him. The chieftain was converted, however, when his arm was paralyzed until he became friendly toward St. Patrick.
    Preaching the Gospel, St. Patrick converted many in Ireland and began building churches all over the country. For 40 years, he preached and converted all of Ireland, working miracles and writing of his love for God and his mission in his Confessions. The prayer known today as “St. Patrick’s Breast-Plate” is supposed to have been composed by him in preparation for his victory over paganism. Using the shamrock, a symbol associated closely with him, he explained the Trinity to the chieftains during Easter week at Tara. After years of impoverished living, traveling and enduring suffering, St. Patrick died March 17 around the year 461 in Saul, where he built the first Irish church.
    A humble, pious and gentle man, St. Patrick reminds me of Jesus in many ways – St. Patrick’s early years as a shepherd, his being lost from his parents, his desire to preach the Gospel and convert many to Catholicism. His devotion to God and complete trust in him, evidenced by his following the dreams given to him by God, are examples that we are made to witness and follow.
    Heather Bozant can be reached at [email protected].