03-17-11

I learned from CNN this morning that it was St Patrick’s Day, so had to do a quick wardrobe change.

And I learned from the Christian radio station that St Patrick was a Christian missionary. I had never given it much thought.

I learned about the patron saint from wikipedia:
Two Latin letters survive which are generally accepted to have been written by Patrick., from which come the only universally accepted details of his life. In or about his sixteenth year, Patrick was carried into captivity by marauders and was sold as a slave to an Irish chieftan. Here, for six years he tended his master's flocks before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop. Legend also credits St. Patrick with teaching the Irish about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by showing people the shamrock, the central symbol for St Patrick’s Day. Saint Patrick's Day is observed on March 17, the date of Patrick's death. It is celebrated both in and outside of Ireland, as both a liturgical and non-liturgical holiday.

"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" – St. Patrick