It was by far the worst education course I have ever
endured.It’s not that I wasn't interested in the history of Christianity and it wasn’t that Dr. Smith wasn’t knowledgeable.
There was just something about his teaching style, or lack thereof, that made
sitting through one of his lectures practically unbearable. Still, a measure of
my gratitude is due to Dr. Smith and his History of Christianity course,
because it was through them that I was introduced to the real St. Patrick. As he
talked, I began to see similarities between these Celts and the skater kids I
was attempting to connect with through my position at Youth for Christ. I
noticed parallels between the establishment Patrick was upsetting and the
inadequacies of “church norms.” I realized that the real St. Patrick had
something for me, that maybe he had something to offer youth workers in the twenty-first
century. St Patrick was a cutting edge missionary who brought the good news to
an emotionally volatile people who were by and large written off (I don’t know
about you, but this is a pretty good description of my middle school group). He
would have, to be sure, made a great youth worker.
The Real
St. Patrick
St. Patrick was a remarkable
individual whose intrigue had nothing to do with leprechauns and rainbows. Though
Patrick was ethnically a Celt, culturally he was a Roman whose primary language
was Latin. He grew up in a Christian home with a deacon for a father and a
priest for a grandfather. As a youth Patrick was what some might call a
“lukewarm” Christian; saying of himself, “At the time, I did not recognize the
True God.”1 According to Patrick, it was this rejection of God that
lead to his life being turned upside down when a band of Celtic pirates invaded
the region, captured Patrick, and sold him into slavery. During his years as a
slave, Patrick experienced two major changes.
First, Patrick experienced
the revelation of God through nature and became a devout Christian.
[block quote]
. . . after I reached Ireland I
used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More
and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my
spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers,
and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and
on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy
coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness,
because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.2
[end block quote]
Second, Patrick came to
understand and accept the Celtic culture of his captors. This was the kind of
understanding only possible by one immersed in the culture. It was this deep
understanding of the Celtic world that later allowed him to effectively reach
the “unreachable” with the good news of Christ. After six years of captivity
God told Patrick in a dream to flee from his captors.
The next twenty-five years
or so of Patrick’s life are unknown; but at the age of forty-eight, Patrick had
another dream where an angel named Victor spoke to him. During that dream Patrick
was called to bring the “good news of Christ” to the Celtic world. Patrick returned
to Ireland as a bishop with the mission of bringing the gospel to the Celtic world. Patrick’s twenty-eight
years of ministry to the Celts, and the movement that followed, forever changed
the western world.3
1.
St.
Patrick, The Confession of St. Patrick
(Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library),
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/Patrick/confession.pdf. This first section of his writing is St. Patrick’s own account of his
life and the events that lead up to his mission in Ireland, though that is not its
primary purpose. Patrick’s Confession is a defense of his life and ministry.
2.
Ibid.,
paragraph 16.
3. This is an opening to a hopeful article (perhaps to be published in the Immerse Journal)
