Rev. Jason Poling is the Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.
Over on the Midnight Sun blog the illustrious Owl Meat Gravy has offered a critique of some conventional understandings of St. Patrick. Although I'm a recovering political science major, I don't buy his imperial reading of the Saint -- "St. Patrick's missionary' work was a Roman-supported campaign, an act of political domination by Romano-Britons, probably with all the attendant brutality that comes with conversion at the point of a sword" -- because I think that picture better fits the practices of a later era when derivative hagiographies of Patrick (quite possibly conflating his life with that of another Christian leader, Palladius) were produced.
The institutional memory of Patrick, it seems, highlights his success in making disciples of Jesus especially among the women of Ireland. Patrick's own narrative (preserved in one of two extant works) recounts his kidnapping from Britain, six years of adolescence and young adulthood spent as a slave in Ireland, and a successful escape by boat prompted by a supernatural nudge toward the dock. But it doesn't stop there: Like the apostle Paul, who had a vision of a beckoning Macedonian, Patrick has a vision of an Irishman bearing a letter pleading with Patrick to come to Ireland.
A call to return to the place where he was enslaved, that's no slouch as a plot turn (ineffective as it was in the third Matrix movie). And Patrick's influence as an evangelist is rightly celebrated by those who celebrate that sort of thing.
But more significant, I think, and of more lasting importance, was Patrick's firm stand against the Arian heresy that Jesus was and is not fully God. During Patrick's time the Church came to agree on some vitally important theological tenets that survive in the great Creeds of the Christian Church and are still held today (at least on paper) by all Christian traditions. Although it is merely attributed to him, having been composed centuries later, the hymn known as "St. Patrick's Breastplate" reflects the robust Trinitarian orthodoxy for which St. Patrick stood so firmly. Join me in enjoying a pint while you meditate on these words:
St. Patrick's Breastplate
trans. C. F. Alexander, 1889
I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
I bind this day to me forever,
by power of faith, Christ's Incarnation;
his baptism in the Jordan river;
his death on cross for my salvation;
his bursting from the spiced tomb;
his riding up he heavenly way;
his coming at the day of doom:
I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself the power
of the great love of cherubim;
the sweet "Well done" in judgment hour;
the service of the seraphim;
confessors' faith, apostles' word,
the patriarchs' prayers, the prophets' scrolls;
all good deeds done unto the Lord,
and purity of virgin souls.
I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven,
the glorious sun's life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
around the old eternal rocks.
I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay,
his ear to hearken to my need;
the wisdom of my God to teach,
his hand to guide, his shield to ward;
the word of God to give me speech,
his heavenly host to be my guard.
Against the demon snares of sin,
the vice that gives temptation force,
the natural lusts that war within,
the hostile men that mar my course;
of few or many, far or nigh,
in every place, and in all hours
against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.
Against all Satan's spells and wiles,
against false words of heresy,
against the knowledge that defiles
against the heart's idolatry,
against the wizard's evil craft,
against the death-wound and the burning
the choking wave and poisoned shaft,
protect me, Christ, till thy returning.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the Name,
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
Of whom all nature hath creation,
eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.