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| Saint Patrick, Great Evangelizer |
St. Patrick
Lived 385 - 461
From the Confessions of Saint Patrick
Through
me
many peoples
have been reborn
in God
I give unceasing thanks to God, who kept me faithful in the day of my testing. Today I can offer Him sacrifice and
confidence, giving myself as a living
victim to Christ, my Lord, who kept
me safe through all my trails.
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| St. Patrick proclaiming Christ to Ireland |
I
can say now: Who am I, Lord, and what
is my calling, that you worked through me with such divine power? You did all this so that today among the Gentiles I might constantly rejoice and glorify Your Name wherever I may be, both in prosperity and in
adversity.
You did it so that, whatever
happened to me, I might accept good and evil equally, always giving thanks to
God. God showed me how to have faith in
Him forever, as one who is never to be doubted.
He answered my prayer in such a way that in the last days, ignorant though I am I might be bold enough to
take up so holy and so wonderful a task, and imitate in some degree those who
the Lord has so long ago foretold as heralds of His Gospel, bearing witness to all nations.
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.
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| St. Patrick Apostle and Patron of Ireland |
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 this
favor.
I am deeply in His debt, for He
gave me that great grace that through me many peoples 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.
As God had prophesied of old through the
prophets. The nations shall come to you from the ends of the earth, and say: “How
false are the idols made by our fathers: they are useless.” In another prophesy he said, I have set you as a light among the nations, to bring salvation to the ends of
the earth.
It is among that people
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 world.
The Confessions of St. Patrick … I Patrick …. http://www.confessio.ie/etexts/confessio_english#01
