Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Homily – March 17, 2009 – St. Patrick

St. Patrick was born in Roman Britain around the year 385. As a young man he was captured by Irish pirates and sold as a slave in Ireland where he had to tend sheep. Having escaped from slavery, he chose to enter the priesthood, even though he was not well educated, and never became such; but he tirelessly preached the Gospel to the people of Ireland where he converted many to the faith and established the Church firmly there. He died at Down in 461.

Even if much of what we associate with St. Patrick is legend – the driving of snakes out of Ireland, explaining the Most Blessed Trinity using the shamrock, single-handedly converting all of Ireland – the fact remains that Patrick of Ireland considered himself but a lowly instrument in the hands of God – and anything that was accomplished by him was all God's doing rather than his own. God truly exalts the lowly: Patrick is one of the most beloved and popular saints of the Church – and on this day – his day – everyone in the world claims to be Irish – to get in on the blessings that still emanate from him!

It sounds a bit ironic but on this day of "green beer" and merry-making the first reading tells us to "be serious and sober-minded, so that you will be able to pray; and, above all let your love for one another be intense because love covers a multitude of sins, be hospitable to one another without complaining, as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace." This sounds like good old Irish good-heartedness – which no doubt has St. Patrick to thank for its existence!

The faith of Patrick is much like that of Peter in the gospel passage today. Peter said to the Lord: I have tried to catch fish – but am not doing well right now. But I will do as you say and lower the nets again. Patrick knew that he was a weak and sinful man – but he kept lowering the nets of his ministry, at Jesus' and the Spirit's bidding, to the people of Ireland – and God kept filling them up with new and enthusiastic Catholics! May we have the "faith of the Irish today;" a faith based on personal, first-hand experience of "going fishing with Jesus" – our Lord, our Brother and our Friend!

I would like to conclude by reading from the Confession of Saint Patrick (as found in today's Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours):

How did I get this wisdom that was not mine before? I did not know the number of my days, or have knowledge of God. How did so great and salutary a gift come to me, the gift of knowing and loving God, though at the cost of homeland and family? I came to the Irish peoples to preach the Gospel and endure the taunts of unbelievers, putting up with reproaches about my earthly pilgrimage, suffering many persecutions, even bondage, and losing my birthright of freedom, for the benefit of others.

If I am worthy, I am ready also to give up my life, without hesitation and most willingly, for his name. I want to spend myself in that country, even in death, if the Lord should grant me this favor. I am deeply in his debt, for he gave me the great grace that through me many people should be reborn in God, and then made perfect by confirmation and everywhere among them clergy ordained for a people so recently coming to believe, one people gathered by the Lord from the ends of the earth… It is among them that I want to wait for the promise made by him, who assuredly never tells a lie. He makes this promise in the Gospel: They shall come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is our faith: believers are to come from the whole world!

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