A Grateful Saint, Patrick

I just can’t do it. Ever since that blessed week in June of ’14, I can’t pass March 17th without a Saint Patrick post. 

Two years ago, it was a bittersweet personal confession about a selfish choice to climb Patrick’s holy mountain alone.  The year before it was 5 Reasons Why Saint Patrick Is My  Homeboy. Then, last year, I added another reason Patrick is a kindred soul.

This one’ll be short and sweet, straight from Patrick’s Confessions. The theme is Patrick’s gratitude.

Now Patrick, in his own words.

Why I Cannot Be Silent

I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and did not keep his commandments. Patrick, who turned with all my heart to the Lord my God, and he looked down on my lowliness and had mercy on my youthful ignorance.

That is why I cannot be silent – nor would it be good to do so – about such great blessings and such a gift that the Lord so kindly bestowed in the land of my captivity. This is how we can repay such blessings, when our lives change and we come to know God. Why we praise and bear witness to his great wonders before every nation under heaven. (Confession 3)

I’ll never stop giving thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the time of my temptation. I can today with confidence offer my soul to Christ my Lord as a living victim. He is the one who defended me in all my difficulties. I can say: Who am I, Lord, or what is my calling, that you have worked with me with such divine presence? This is how I come to praise and magnify your name among the nations all the time, wherever I am, not only in good times but in the difficult times too.

Whatever comes about for me, good or bad, I ought to accept them equally and give thanks to God. He has shown me that I can put my faith in him without wavering and without end. However ignorant I am, he has heard me, so that in these late days I can dare to undertake such a holy and wonderful work. In this way I can imitate somewhat those whom the Lord foretold would announce his gospel in witness to all nations before the end of the world. This is what we see has been fulfilled. Look at us: we are witnesses that the gospel has been preached right out to where there is nobody else there!  (Confession 34)

I Want To Give Thanks To God Without Ceasing

So I want to give thanks to God without ceasing. He frequently forgave my lack of wisdom and my negligence. More than once did not be come very angry with me, the one who was meant to be his helper. I was not quick to accept what he showed me, and so the Spirit prompted me. The Lord was merciful to me a thousand thousand times, because he saw in me that I was ready, but that I did not know what I should do about the state of my life…Indeed, I was not quick to recognise the grace that was in me; I know now what I should have done then. (Confession 46)

Nothing I Have That Is Not His Gift To Me

So I shall make a return to him for all that he has given to me. But what can I say, or what can I promise to my Lord? There is nothing I have that is not his gift to me. But he knows the depths of my heart, my very gut feelings! He knows that it is enough that I desire very much, and am ready for this, that he would grant me to drink of his chalice, just as he was pleased to do for others who loved him. (Confession 57)

Patrick was faithful to God’s call on his life. In the end, the Lord didn’t demand that Patrick drink the cup of the martyr’s death. He supposedly died in 463 AD, at the ripe old age of 120. Which happens to be the age that another of God’s great servants died.

But it’s not how many years Patrick lived that matters most. It’s that Patrick was a grateful saint.

As all God’s saints should be.