A Saint Patrick’s Day Legacy for Everyone

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV)

My husband comes from an Irish Catholic family, and we have developed quite a fondness for Ireland. In fact, the two of us are headed to the Emerald Isle for the first time this summer.

Not only does my mother-in-law trace both of her parents’ lineage to Ireland, but my husband’s maternal grandfather and one of my maternal great-grandmothers were born on Saint Patrick’s Day. As a result of this lucky coincidence, the patron saint of Ireland is one of our family’s favorite saints, and we love to celebrate his feast day with our daughters every March. Last year, we took them to a Saint Patrick’s Day festival featuring traditional Irish dancing.

Over the years, I’ve learned that Saint Patrick’s legacy is about so much more than wearing green and gold, eating corned beef and cabbage or Dubliner cheese, making Irish soda bread, drinking Guinness beer, and listening to Celtic music. Saint Patrick’s Day is not as much a celebration of Irish culture and heritage as it is a remembrance of Patrick’s escape from captivity and Ireland’s subsequent rebirth from the darkness of Druid paganism into the new life of Christianity.

According to Biography.com, in the early fifth century, Patrick was captured by Irish pirates and then sold into slavery in Ireland when he was sixteen. There, he tended sheep under his master, Milchu, a high Druid priest, for six years.

Patrick saw his captivity as a test of his Roman Catholic faith and remained in constant prayer throughout his servitude. After receiving a vision of Irish children reaching out to him, Patrick became determined to convert pagan Ireland to Christianity. He later had a dream of escaping slavery and persuaded a group of sailors to let him board their ship, which landed in France three days later. Four weeks later, Patrick reunited with his family. He then entered the priesthood and was ordained as a deacon. Fifteen years later, Patrick was ordained as a bishop and finally returned to Ireland, with the pope’s blessing, to spread the gospel of Christ.

There are legends, of course, about Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland and using the three leaves of the shamrock to illustrate the concept of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the three distinct parts of one God. All we really know to be true is that the Roman-born Patrick, originally named Maewyn Succat, according to legend, brought Christianity to the Emerald Isle and performed many baptisms during his ministry there. Through Patrick, pagan Ireland was reborn into the Christian faith and new life in Christ.

As the Druids, who were known to offer human sacrifices to the gods they worshiped, became Christians, the life-giving (and life-saving) gospel of Jesus Christ spread throughout the island and then to neighboring Scotland through Irish missionaries. A few of their nature-oriented pagan rituals were even combined with church rituals in order to ease the cultural transition, much like Greek and Roman traditions combined with Judaism in the early Christian church.

Over 1,500 years later, Roman Catholicism, which slowly but surely replaced Celtic polytheism as the dominant religion in both Ireland and Scotland, endures today in many Scottish, Irish, and Scottish- and Irish-American families. (Some of my ancestors on my mother’s side are actually Scotch-Irish, meaning they hail from Scotland and Ulster, the Protestant region of Ireland.)

There should be more to our celebration of Ireland and its culture on March 17, of course, than leprechauns and rainbows and four-leaf clovers. Saint Patrick’s Day should be our annual remembrance of Ireland’s rich heritage of Christian faith that goes all the way back to Patrick’s willingness to return to the very island where he had been enslaved as a teenager.

Even those of us who are not Catholic can appreciate the slave-turned-bishop’s noble (and highly successful) mission to carry the message of Christ’s love, mercy, and hope to all of the pagan children of Ireland.  It seems fitting that Saint Patrick’s Day falls just before the start of spring and is marked by the wearing of the color green, because it symbolizes Ireland’s rebirth to “a living hope through the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead,” in the words of another saint, the apostle Peter.

Whether we’re Catholic or Protestant, Irish or Scottish or Scotch-Irish, or none of the above, on Saint Patrick’s Day and every day, our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is our inheritance kept in heaven. March 17 is just an annual reminder of that eternal truth in Ireland and beyond.

Father, thank you for the legacy of Saint Patrick and his willingness to return to the place of his captivity in order to share your message of love and everlasting life with the Irish people. Thank you for showing your mercy to and through Patrick. Thank you for saving him from slavery and for saving Ireland and Scotland and all of humanity from the darkness of sin and paganism. Amen.

Scripture for Reflection

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7 ESV)

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4 ESV)

Reach for More

How can you celebrate Saint Patrick’s Christian legacy with your family this spring? Ask God to help you think of ways to shift the holiday’s focus from frivolity to faith and to remember Ireland’s rebirth into Christianity this year.

Lauren Flake is a wife, mom to two girls, watercolor artist, seventh-generation Texan, and early-onset Alzheimer’s daughter. She is the author and co-illustrator of two award-winning children’s books for grieving preschoolers, Where Did My Sweet Grandma Go? and Where Did My Sweet Grandpa Go?, and the editor of Love of Dixie magazine. She loves green tea, dark chocolate, and collecting all things turquoise.

Photograph © Adrian Moran, used with permission