OUR SAINT AND . HERO

New Zealand Tablet, 1 April 1920, Page 17

OUR SAINT AND . HERO

bvim : •. -v AND ANOTHER hqtaw ' - • '■=./. (By T. , ,P.-••.• Cummins -H W A £: •• 1., tell a, taleand no ; lying; tale, with mine own jyes it was v clear to me,' with mine f own ears ; I myself heard it, The. thing I speak I -speak , aloud. A- rJi & . There are few records in the wide range of history, sacred and profane, that command such attention , f and have evoked more inquiry and contention as the life and labors of the apostle of the Irish nation. ' In the realm -of Irish history, I venture to assert, he is the outstanding figure, by reason of hits personality, mentality, and genius. The marks he impressed upon his adopted race, through his missionary labors and the revision of the Brehon Laws, have made Catholicity in Ireland not only a spiritual but an intrinsic national asset.-' His mission and successes flame into a volcanic awesomeness not surpassed by the acts of the chosen Twelve, and . resembling in many respects the wonderful works of Christ, his Lord arid Master, Who indeed promised as much, did He not, when Ho said at the Last Supper, “. . , . he that believeth in Me, the works that I do, he also .shall do,; and greater than these shall he do.” In the history of civilisation, which, when carefully analysed, is in, great part the history of - God’s Church, Patrick fills a niche beside which the shrines of Constantine and Charlemagne loom not more glorious. He was the Moses of the West, the servant of God, and the Thaumaturgus of the Gael. Ecclesiastic and lawgiver, seer and champion, Patrick is the. greatest heroic personality in the records of the Irish. His labors, spiritual and temporal, redeemed and released a latent force, the full fervor and power of which has not,spent itself- yet- This force, pre-eminently spiritual, assailed the fabric and very foundations of heathenism, purged a great deal, obliterated much, and, for nearly 1500 years across the world, has grappled with every enemy—heathen, infidel, and pseudoChristian the Cross. This great force riot only purged the minds of our forebears and rejuvenated the souls of the people, but set its-seal on the national aspect, becoming in time the major factor in moulding, guarding, and emblazoning the ideal of independence. Patrick is not only a 'saint but a heroic,, figure as points in his personality deserving more consideration at the present day by those of us who can only, recall for the time being a far-away saint. Looking at the saint we must not ignore the natural man; and, by surveying relatively and studiously the saint and man, and not losing one in the other, we arrive at a correct estimation of his sainthood and a true conception of his heroic qualities. As apostle of the Gael he is the first and most eminent of our holy men, and not by any means a vague wonderworker of a dim and distant age. As purger and collaborator . of the makers of the Brehon Laws, as one who wrote, chanted, and preached in the Gaelic language, as the inspirator of saints, scholars, poets, storytellers, and soldiers, Patrick is the most heroic figure in the story of our race. There is no. hero, ancient or modern, can dim his heroism. The Gallo-Roman, the swineherd, the

priest who “heard the voice of the folk who : were near the wood . bfyHochland nigh to the Western Sea,” is r the greatest of our saints and the noblest of our heroes. .Patrick lives tin e history not only from the facts if of his life and mission, but mainly, I should say, as a force, the . only force that won the soul of a great, people and .has never vacated the/citadel.f Therein Patrick is with us to-day, ■ looming larger than ; ever, more powerful, fearless, and restless than when he confronted King Laighairo at Tara, and became the companion of kings, and the friend and adviser of .the Brehons. The mind of Irish Ireland is Catholic. The intense 'earnestness of her teachers, singers,preachers, and heroes .indicates the strength of the spiritforce infused into the national. being by the Gallo-Roman missionary. So intense; is the fervor and vision of the race that, at home the faith of ; Patrick is a bulwark of national solidity, and abroad a beacon of splendor. Down the long centuries this, spirit-force has come, combating armies, invigorating the race, foiling stupendous menaces, scatering hellish conspiracies, permeating- Europe, and overflowing into the marts and desert places of the world. To-day we have it struggling and conquering on foreign fields, and at home bracing the nerves of the people against a mighty combination of hate, savagery, and greed. When Patrick prayed on Crohan Aigh that the faith of Eirinn might never fail, and when he rose up from his knees and looked out over Clew Bay and the great Western Sea, he had won from the Most High the fairest gift the Creator could give to a people. There is no other gem in the crown of Eirinn that sparkles so brilliantly and attracts so powerfully. F ron\ her brow the pearl has never been torn; and to-day millions the earth over salute the Everlasting Throne with the .assurance of the Gaela salutation that voices the flaming soul of a faithful people Cred o! Good people, of course, who can derive more satisfaction and -“consolation from a smart novel or musical comedy than from the lives of great men, will see in Patrick, as in most of the saints, a mere name, or, probably, a national symbol to be passively respected or wrangled over. Yet, it is from such moderns —cultured and uncultured the criticisms and speculations, born of pride and ignorance, stream forth, assailing the personality, labors, miracles, and conquests of the saints. In a world uneasy, visionless, and materialistic, the plain facts of sainthood cannot be focussed, and criticism and speculation incidental to such failure are natural enough. With many of us one must see and read and think to understand, and comprehend to appreciate, and believe to accept. The apostle of Ireland has come in for his share of criticism; his life and mission have been questioned. Even pseudo-Christians of the Luther order have bravely attempted to weave his personality and mission into the warp and woof of their Wittenberg fabric! And a few Irish writers of our day have essayed to join the sceptics and purblind students by sneering at the giant flower that blossomed on Irish soil from the mustard seed as an “exotic bloom!”' Christianity remoulded, rejuvenated, and strengthened the soul and body of Ireland. The seed fell on fertile ground, and good ground and good seed maintain the tree in natural health, vigor, and beauty.

One of our brilliant critics and essayists, Mr. John inton (another of the “Dublin mystics”), pays a dry

:'• ■■ ..... > compliment to Patrick, by the way, but adopts the pre- : cautionary , measure T careful person that he is, of sneering I at , rick s , gift- However, it is good to have the com- . 5 p iment and the sneer, for thereby one is enabled to plumb the writer’s depth. This mystical critic has’said of our- saint: His figure so far from shrinking into insignificance , under the application of the higher criticism stands out all the more impressively and honorably when the story is told as it probably happened:” There is something here approaching a compliment from one such as , John Eglmton. Honest criticism is seldom complimentary; it is usually severely analytical. Compliments are. bits of the stock-in-trade of the hired or inspired reviewer. John Eglinton is a brilliant critic, and, periaP?’ 10 l 1 f s t. enough. Therefore, it is probable, one can I palliate his indiscreetness when he says in The Island of saints that Irish Catholicism is an exotic wholly out of sympathy with the natural aspirations of the Irish race. In writing thus he merely theorises, but bald theories of the kind are the result of narrow observations and superficial thought on the subject, an explanation that is supported by the crude evidence he adduces to inflate his contention. _lt is interesting to note that this mystical Dubliner rejects the Irish language on aesthetic grounds! A weakness, by the way, that supplies the key to the many superficialities that mar the brilliancy of his prose. Catholicity is as essential to the spiritual and national fibre of Ireland as rain to the garden, as water to the mill. Her literature, art, national and natural aspirations,» foreign spiritual conquests; the purity and beauty of her daughters; the vigor, valor, and devotion of her sons all. all would have been blasted had she for a moment bent the neck to the yoke accepted by perfidious Albion and canny Caledonia. Bloody but unbowed, naked, shelterless and hunted, she fought the savages and storms of centuries; friendless, except for her own soul, her saints, and her God, she confronted a terrific world of infamy and hate. Robbed, raped, and reviled, she retained her soul unsullied. Erect she stood bleeding but believing; and the hosts of darkness, after the most hellish onslaughts a people could experience, were vanquished. “They folded their tents like Arabs, and as silently faded away.” Exotic indeed! Nothing that comes from the hand of God is foreign. Catholicism is a natural bloom, in the sense that it flourishes naturally and vigorously in any good soil where the gifts of God are welcomed and respected. And the soul of Ireland has won tenacious of the gifts of God. The great prayer that assailed the Most High from the lonely mountain in Mayo was not breathed in vain. The pearl of great price had been won, and, I believe, won for ever. Nothing' can dim its lustre, but the exotic growths of heresv, unT f ’f ( materialism foreign hemlocks of poison and putrefaction. There ,s little to fear from heresy the victory . aclueved in the night of the Renal Days has • behlf d + tliat U g r°f t ' Ireland’s only descent can be from belief to unbell The half-way, makeshift tenements of heresy and schism are but obstructions in the area of conflict, and already are being blown to atoms bv one or other of the contending forces of faith and infidelity. - As the finale in the spiritual combat saw the banners of the saint crown the hill-crests of the Gael, may we not piously hope that the valor and moral worth of our nammd I timeD ia i° v°". nod with decisive victory in God’s for t]ie oe‘,r1 Ifc p IS to Kmlm s steadfastness in the combat foi the pearl of great price that the fibre of the national being guarded itself, developed, and eventually flamed into action ,U these 4 our own days. Patrick and IVarse! hat a glorious vista of historic pageantry these names envision to the thoughtful Irish mind. Men and women of the Gael look down the long years and behold Patrick and his brethren before the Ard-lli and Ids host at Tara Behold, the battle between saints and druids, the con quest, and the golden age of our Christian era St” forth with your fathers and Brian under the crucifix at Clontarf, and later with them enter into the. awful doom and terrors of the long night of the Penal Days, t the furnace of thraldom leap with them into the sunrise of victory. The soul had conquered, but the iron of the invader still shackled the body. Girded and steadfast march aside into the arena of physical effort Down down the banners go, but the combat never lessens The cause moves on through weal and woe. The soul that .on through saves and invigorates the body. The physical conflict continues, culminating in 1916 in the P «o preme triumph of a crowning failure. The swords of tho invaders were buried in the breasts of our heroes but th« arms that wielded the weapons are withering under the flaming purpose of the people, as grass frizzles up and decays under the colonial sun. Patrick and Pearse! Giants in the worlds of spirit and matter, may we not remember you to-day, not for the beauty that passes ‘ but for the things ye prized, the things that are "bod's’