His Own Prayer
St. Patrick (c. 389-c.461)
Prayer of Saint Patrick – In his own words
“I give unceasing thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the day of my testing. Today I can offer him sacrifice with confidence, giving myself as a living victim to Christ, my Lord, who kept me safe through all my trials. 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 for ever, 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 whom the Lord had 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.
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 the 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 prophecy 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 whole world.”
Source: From the writings “Confession” of Saint Patrick, bishop Edited from “The Liturgy of the Hours” Catholic Book Publishing Company, New York 1976.
Other sources: Butler’s Lives of the Saints The Catholic Press, Inc. Chicago, IL 1954.
Saint Patrick (c. 389-c.461) was born in a village in Scotland in the fourth century about the year 389. At sixteen he was captured by barbarians from his father’s estate and sold as a slave in Ireland where he tended flocks and herds. Spending much time in prayer, he developed a close union with God. After six months he was advised by God in a dream to return to Scotland. He escaped, returned to Scotland and there entered the seminary. He was later ordained a priest.
He was made a bishop by Pope Celestine and sent to preach the Gospel to the people of Ireland. At that time the inhabitants were all pagans and barbarians who still worshipped idols and were considered enemies of both the Romans and the Britton’s. Before he began his preaching, he spent forty days and nights fasting and praying on a barren rock mountain, praying for the people he would encounter. That mountain, to this day, is a pilgrimage site visited by thousands each year. St. Patrick tirelessly preached the Gospel throughout all of Ireland. Before he had finished, he converted the entire country. He baptized kings and peasants alike, confirmed the faithful. He dispensed the sacraments, ordained priests and established monasteries and schools all across the land. His amazing works and great faith demonstrated his deep love of God and his total consecration to the work of the Church. The salvation of all souls was his supernatural end.
St. Patrick’s forty year mission to Ireland was blessed with many astounding miracles. Through the sanctity of his life, his perfect charity, deep humility and his absolute union with God, he was able to restore sight to the many blind, He cured the sick, and was known to raise nine persons from the dead. His feast day is marked by the church calendar on March 17. He died and was buried in Ireland at Down in 491