I arise today Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism, Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial, Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension, Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
~~~~First two verses of St. Patrick's Lorica, c. 377 AD
When one hears the word "saint" a particular type of person comes to mind, at least for most of us. Ancient art depicts these holy men and women with a "martyred saint" piety, a look of great suffering on their faces. Indeed, many Christians, some now revered as saints, others not even known to us today, did suffer great tribulations. Saint Patrick was no stranger to hardship, but he made a conscious choice to overcome all that, and do a service for God.
The Irish of the time were not known as the nicest of people. They were druidic pagans who engaged in human sacrifices, and were the at-that-time-world's most successful slave traders. Patrick knew this. He knew them, their culture, the kind of people they were, having spent the last six long years of his boyhood with them as a slave. The strength of character he must have had to willfully, indeed joyfully go back after having escaped to home and freedom, had to be great. What drove him?
Patrick showed himself to be strong in his determination to do the right thing, to do the will of God. He did things his own way, however, and not the way men dictated to him. For this reason, he often faced judgement and negativity from his peers in the church east of Ireland. Yet he didn't back down from what he thought was right. The very techniques he used to convert the pagan Irish were unique. To become Christian at the time, one had to become Roman, to take up Roman culture, dress, and so on. But Patrick didn't try to change the identity of the people. He showed them a better way, and allowed God to change their hearts. This caused him more than a little headache in dealing with the Roman church, but it made a difference in the lives of the Irish.
He showed his strength of character in standing up to the Irish themselves on the issue of slavery. Having served as a slave himself, Patrick developed a strong hatred of slavery. He knew the suffering of bond men and women, and even after becoming once again a free man, he suffered along with them. For that reason, he denounced the institution as immoral, and inhuman. In so doing, he became the first human being known in history to speak out against slavery. His message was strong, and apparently well received, for not long after he died, the Irish stopped the slave trade altogether. Through the love of Christ, he managed to show the Irish the sanctity of life, and by the time he went to his eternal reward, human sacrifices had become abominable in Ireland.
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