As Patrick’s boat pushed west, he felt a strange chill from the memory of the same journey he had made years earlier under very different circumstances. The smells of the sea and the fog clinging to the waves and the cliffs took him back to when he was a lad of sixteen, traveling to Ireland in bonds with the raiding party that had burned his home and taken him as a slave.
Despite the hardships of having ben a slave for six years, tending to the herds of a Druidic high priest Milchu, Patrick had come to have a supernatural love for Ireland. It was in Ireland that Patrick had come to know God personally as he walked the woods and mountains alone with the animals. He had gown up in a Christian home in a British Roman settlement but had never embrace the faith while he lived with his family. He had been a lax student during that time, something he now greatly regretted and was too independently minded to walk so easily in his family’s faith. Alone and seemingly forsaken in Ireland, Patrick sought out God and found Him. Then, through a dream, God led him to escape and eventually return to his family, who welcomed him warmly. Upon his return to Britain, Patrick resumed his studies with more vigor, intending to join the ministry as his father and grandfather had.
Now, as the oars pulled against the dark waves, Patrick began to see God’s hand in it all. Shortly after his return to Britain, Patrick had a dream about Ireland in which he heard “the void of the Irish” calling to him: “We be you, holy youth, come and walk among us again.” Patrick felt this was God’s call to return to Ireland with the Gospel.
Yet he felt unfit for the task, so he journeyed to a monastery in Britain, again leaving his family, and poured himself into being ordained. Roughly twenty years had passed since then. At his first opportunity to return, Patrick was passed up by his church elders to be a missionary to Ireland, and another, a man by the name of Palladius, was chosen. When Palladius was killed a short time later, Patrick was elected to go.
Upon landing, Patrick returned to the village where he had been a slave. His intent was that his first convert would be the man who had been his master, Milchu. But when he arrived there, he found Milchu’s home in ashes. At word of his coming, Milchu had gathered all of his possessions into his home and lit it on fire, killing himself in the flames. Patrick was horror-struck at the madness of this act and determined to act dramatically to release these people from the fear of false gods that would drive a man to do such a thing.
Patrick spent some time preaching to the locals there and finding out what had happened since his departure and who was in power. His years as a slave had served him well, as he still spoke their language fluently and with little accent, making it easy to communicate. In his conversations he learned that the high king of Ireland, King Laeghaire, would be celebrating the Druidic feast of Betine, which coincided with Easter that year, at his courts in Tara. Patrick headed there immediately, intent on making a statement for the power of God over the idols and occult practices that bound these people.
It was tradition that on the eve of the festival, it would be the high king who lighted the first bonfire of the festival. Any who defied this would be put to death. Yet as the king emerged that night to start the festival, Patrick’s bonfire was already glowing brightly for all to see on the hilltop of Slane not far away. As had Elijah before the prophets of Baal, Patrick had uttered a formal challenge to the Druids and their king.
As Laeghaire gave the order for the perpetrators to be found and killed, his two Druidic high priests offered him a word of caution and prophecy: “O king, live forever. This fire, which has been lit in defiance to the royal edict, will blaze forever unless it is put out this night on which it has been lit. The man who lit the fire and the coming kingdom by which it was lit will overcome us all.” But the king would hear none of it. He had twenty-seven chariots prepared, and he, his guests, and his court rode to subdue Patrick.
When the chariots arrived, Patrick was summoned before the king. The king ordered Patrick’s bonfire extinguished, but no matter what his soldiers did, the fire refused to be put out. Patrick gave a bold testimony for Jesus before them and refused to be silent. When Laeghaire commanded his soldiers to execute Patrick to quiet him, confusion descended on them, and they attacked on another. When the two Druid priests then turned their vehemence on Patrick and Jesus’ name, one fell and cracked his head on a rock, while the other somehow fell into the fire and perished. One version even records that when the king himself pulled his sword to slay Patrick, his arm froze in the air as stiff as a statue and stayed that way until he knelt in surrender to Patrick. Though it is unclear how many of the details of this encounter are legend and how many actually happened, Patrick’s victory over Laeghaire and his Druids opened the political doors of Ireland to the Gospel.
Patrick thus had a captive and royal audience to be among the first to be converted during his ministry. Though the king did not become a Christian on this day, his chief bard, his two daughters, and one of his brothers did. Less than two weeks later they were baptized. The brother gave Patrick land and a barn that became the first church, and wealth to use to spread Christianity throughout Ireland. Laeghaire also gave Patrick legal sanction to preach throughout the island.
For the next thirty years Patrick established Christianity throughout Irelend, and though he had other miracles attributed to his ministry, he was not often far from trouble. Ireland was not neatly organized in kingdoms under Laeghaire, so whenever he went into a new area, it was likely that Laeghaire’s sanction would mean very little. Patrick and his followers were imprisoned on several occasions- Patrick once spent two months in prison wondering if his ministry was over- and he saw many of his converts die, as well as being sentenced to death himself more than once. Through it all, though, Patrick remained humble and counted only on God’s protection to free him from any situation. He wrote the following in a chant or prayer, which he titled “The Breastplate” that he taught others to remind them of their purpose and Protector:
Christ shield me today against poison,
against burning, against drowning, against wounding,
so that there may come to me an abundance of reward,
Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Having successfully planted churches and established pastors and priests in every district in Ireland, Patrick died around the age of seventy-two on March 17, A.D. 461.
Story from the Jesus Freaks book.
