ST. PATRICK'S ARRIVAL IN IRELAND.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20498, 17 March 1932, Page 4

ST. PATRICK'S ARRIVAL IN IRELAND.

"DECENTLY we celebrated the Centenary of Michael Faraday, the man who invented electricity. There was a great amount of honour paid to this wonderful man, and justly so. Cities were illuminated, public buildings floodlighted, and the Press gave ample space to this great benefactor of modern civilisation. This year, we are celebrating the fifteenth Centenary of a man who has brought light into the world, and whose missionary work has been more fruitful of good than any invention we may think of. St. Patrick, coming to Ireland in 432, marks one of the greatest epochs of history. - It was St. Patrick who won Ireland for Christ, and it was the spiritual sons of St. Patrick who preached Christianity | throughout England, Scotland, and many | countries of Europe. - Paganism. : To appreciate the work of St. Patrick we must remember that Ireland in 432 was a thoroughly pagan nation,- advanced in its own civilisation to /an ' extraordinary degree, famed for its i laws, and its national games. The arts, | too, were patronised by royalty, especially music, painting, and poetry. The Druids, or pa'gan priests, held sway at court, and although the nation was 1 civilised to a gfreat extent, it was steeped in idol worship. Slavery. No wonder St. Palladius failed to convert the Irish, for "it was to St. Patrick, and not to St. Palladius, that God gave the conversion of the Irish." It was in his youth that Patrick was prepared by God for his great mission. Snapped from his parents at the age of sixteen, sold as a 1 slave to a swinefarmer in County Antrim, . where he spent six years tending the herds on the mountain-side, in snow, front, and rain, "praying twice a hundred times in the day, and nearly a hundred times by night"—such was the novitiate that God gave, one of His greatest Apostles. .And Patrick was found valiant enough for the task, for in his "Confessions" we find no complaint, "and I did not receive any hurt, for there was no sluggishness in me." Birthplace. Where he . was born is still a matter for disputation. Wo know he was the son of a Roman soldier, Calphurnas, who was a Frenchman, but who' may have been, stationed with .the .outposts of the Roman Army in Northern England. His mother, Concessa, .was a sister of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours; It was to France that Patrick went when hs escaped, and then we find him back in Britain mth his kinsfolk. It I was in Britain he had the vision, and heard the children of'the Western Sea ! calling to him, "Come, holy youth, aijd { walk once more in our midst." This appeal decided Patrick to go and spend j himself in the conversion of the Irish, whom he had learned to love even in his captivity. There is very little known about the '>r- ar * s P6nt in preparing for his Mission. We know lie spent eight years with the monks in the Monastery of Lenns, where he became a great master of the spiritual! life, a factor Which went a long way in making his an "Island of Saints." Beceives His Mission. , The failure of Palladius to convert the Irish in 431 brought the priest-slave :"!*® at Borne, where ability had become known to 'jpOpc-? Celcstine by his learned disputation ; thei Council of Aries. > Consecrated bishop'by the same Pope in J 482» he'received _ his mission.to preach Christ to the Irish". The news of St. Patrick's sup cess m Ireland became n" great source .of joy . to-, Bomo and Seeundinius, Ausilius, and Isserninus wfere&isp^tched r «° h ? lp ? atrick - Strang® . to- say. Patrick did not fare withstlieye t envoys of Borne, whom, he-look&I'upon' !as sent to , watch him. •TUfarwas the great trial of his life, ancl.it* 1 became i so. acute that at an advanced age ibc I journeyed himself to Rome, whence he returned "Approved" by"Pope Leo Lin, "the Catholic Faith, and clothed-with the new dignity of Metropolitan; (Annals of Ulster.) u s,\'i s His long missionary life in Ireland of 60 years jyas full of fruit. He'travelled all over the country, and. thfe're is scarcely a county or district J.v :ijeland where we do not find p traces of"his visit. The holy wells that He?blesspj are very numerous. The*" veneration of the Irish peasantry ipr,th(se wellß is sometimes looked upon as?superstitious, but it is. to be remembered that St. Patrick changed Ireland 'from being thoroughly pagan to be .thoroughly: Christian. Spring wells were, loofced upon as supernatural, bubbling up as they do from the bowels <j£-the earth, 1 They were therefore worshipped, and" held in high esteem by-the , pagan •Irisli; who believed that 'they had marvellous healing powers. : Patrick blessed these wells, and ordered that Christian prayers should be said-' around them, so that by the pow.er of. Christian faith and prayer many supernatural cures were effected. Christ 4id like-

wiso when he sanctified the • synagogue by His presence and profiling, thus building up the new faith onl what war good in the old. . 1 The Laws. Although the laws of IroJajui "*afcthe beginning of Patrick's Missiotf..' -wijsapagan, he succeeded in making ■ thoroughly "Christian before he aie3l ■ The "Brehan Lawswere among, the greatest codes of aystematised laws that any country could boast of at that time. Mr Gammon de Valera and his Party are endeavouring to bring back the principles of these laws into the Constitutions of the new Irish Parliament. There must have Veen something wonderful: in them when we come to think that from 439' to 1600 Ireland knew no other-Jaws. • And Ireland was at" her best in these days, when she was known to'thf world as the "Island of Saints and scholars.'' But St. Patrick was essentially a man of prayer "and lively faith. "He did not believe in saying his prayers in cushioned chairs oV.-otf. padded kneelers. "We find him going to his waist in frosty water to say his prayers, or fasting on. Croagh Patrick for the forty days of Lent.

Croagh Patrick. Croafgh Patrick is one of the holiest parti bf holy old Irelaid. The writer had the privilege of a few years ago of joining in a pilgrimage to this saintly spot—Croagh Patrick, of the "Hick,"

(SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR THE rKESS.) [By the Ket. Father Timo.nev, B.A.]

as it is called by the neighbours of Westport, in County Mayo. Ho started fx - om the foot of this mountain at seven o'clock in the morning 011 the last 'Sun day of July—"domhnaic dernair." It had been raining for two days, and floods of mud and boulders were teaming down the mountain side. He passed by old men and women who told ' him that it was the worst they had 'seen for sixty years. However, he reached the chapel on the summit at 11.30, in time to celebrate the 12 o'clock Mass. There were over 60,000 who made the pilgrimage that day, all fasting, drenched to the skin, mostly barefooted, for those who started off with boots had none by the time they finished—softened like paper with the rain and mud, they were torn to shreds by the sharp granite rocks. Sacli is tlie faith that St. Patrick left in Ireland, andi such is the reverence that his children have for this holy mountain, where he battled with God regarding the salvation of his people. Like Jacob of old, he wrestled with God until he had obtained all his requests for the Irish people, among them the gift of perseverance in the faith, and that .no heresy should spang from Irish • soil. Strange to say," his prayers have; been' answered in •the' full, for although the oldest daughters of th 6 Church, Spain, and Prance, have caused anxiety, Ireland is still faithful, > aqd. heresy has never yet sprungjfrom her soil.. It was on this mountain, according to tradition, that God promised to give St. Patrick the privilege of sitting in judgment over the Irish race'oji the Last Day, just as the Apostles sit in judgment over the 12 tribes of Israel. At Tara. St. Patrick was a man of superb courage and daring. Imagine what strength of character was needed to

face the Kings and Princes lirsjH assembled at Tara, amid all ft jflgffl and religious ceremony of T*?sPt This he did; after he had ire- by lighting the > P asc ft,Wp Slane despite the King's anyone who would light" n Sal? the High King had kindled would, be burned alive, rr^ Patrick chose to obey and King of Kings by lighting the Paschal fire on Holy SatmdavwlSl ing.. God prospers the brave *£l JEffiS St. Patrick was on trial on not lawyers and Druids, but overunJlSn black magic of the ; "Tripartite;'*; an old Iri lates how; God,,,permitted . to his discomfiture, to ■upon the ground, and .to. fili'to/- 1 with dense darkness, j&ut failed to expel either the-inowwailS ness, each of which totally at St. Patricks prayer, ThelS®!®# or high king, proposedtri.i JMBK but the sooth-sayer declined that this element was favojagUuraaK opponent, as he used it in amfffiß Baptism.; The magician st 'fmrMfP ccpted the test of fire contest for ever, as and Christianity in Ireland, forJa§*| called dowii from heaven *■"- JDrnid, ■ and* Ifeftour Apostlef victor on the field. PractijeiHrmlE® Court were converted courage Jind bravery were We are told by the \nnala ofthat he lived to the ripe ago of/JagflH retired to a monastery at fl.-i Down, leaving the PrimatiansSfflw Armagh to his successor, St Beftflffii He is buried in DownpattiSck. toraHl with St. Brigid and St. CritjaH Although his resting plaee crated by the Danes, and later Deputy Grey under Henry mortal remains were tenderly carvraHK' by the simple Irish peasantry we find the three 'bodies bonedjajnEl grave, for as Aubrey "In Down three Saint»j||^y e jj|| Patrick, Brigid. and ColffiakOb." Jll