By Kat Bergeron
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
St. Patrick is the stuff of truth and myth and legend. Which is what can be difficult to ferret out.
Anyone who knows anything about this patron saint of Ireland, who much of the world honors this Sunday, knows that he chased the snakes out of the Emerald Isle. It doesn't matter that ancient records prove Ireland had no snakes before that.
Anyone who knows anything about this fascinating fifth-century missionary knows that to teach the profound mystery of the Trinity, he reached down and plucked a three-leafed shamrock. It doesn't matter that Patrick himself never acknowledged this intellectual feat.
Anyone who knows anything about Magonus Succatus Patricius knows that, as a teen-ager, he was snatched from Roman Briton and turned into an Irish slave who escaped but returned after a dream told him the pagans wanted to be Christians. It doesn't matter that modern scholars wonder if St. Patrick is several people rolled into one.
"When you are growing up in Ireland, it is crystal clear who St. Patrick is," said the Rev. George Murphy, one of 22 Irish priests and four retired priests in the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi, Miss.
"When we were growing up, St. Patrick was so important to our sense of identity," said Murphy, a native of Dundalk in County Louth. "Who we were was very much a religious as well as a national expression. Historical reality is important, but what is most important is what the person comes to stand for. The shamrock was an important lesson, and, chasing out the snakes, as we say in Ireland, 'That was a decent thing to do.'"
Whatever St. Patrick may or may not be, or whatever he may or may not have done, he is Ireland's spiritual champion, both for Catholics and those who are members of the Church of Ireland. His imagined likeness is found everywhere, even in public places.
St. Patrick's Day is a holiday for all in Ireland. For Catholics, it is a holy day of obligation, which means they must go to church that day. But just about everyone finds time to celebrate, as do the 40 million Americans who claim Irish roots.
"As an Irish-American now, I'm fascinated by the pride that people here take in Irish heritage," said Murphy, who is a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hattiesburg, Miss. "I stand in fascination at how much people will want to express in some fashion, when St. Patrick's Day comes around. I'm all for the way it's celebrated, the joy, the party. That's how life should be celebrated."
America experienced several waves of Irish immigration. The first wave came in the 1700s and often included Anglicans looking for a better life. The second wave was mostly Scotch-Irish of the Presbyterian faith. The third and largest wave, mostly Catholic, came in the mid-1800s, hungry and disheartened by politics in Ireland that caused famine.
All brought with them a love of St. Patrick. They credit this bigger-than-life man with the Irish sense of humor, warmth, understanding and tenacity.
"To the Irish, St. Patrick is the person who gifted us with our faith, which we treasure and travel the world as missionaries to spread it with great joy," said the Rev. Michael Tracey of Our Lady of the Gulf in Bay St. Louis, Mo.
"St. Patrick's Day is much more than shamrocks, green beer, throwing cabbages. It is a holy day in Ireland where we gather to treasure and celebrate our faith religiously, socially and even a good party."
Tracey grew up in the shadow of Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, the famous mountain where St. Patrick spent 40 days of Lent and supposedly banished the snakes. It is a pilgrimage mountain where the faithful retrace his steps on Togher Padraigh, or "The Way of Patrick." The trek is exhausting and rocky.
"Being steeped in such tradition and history bonded one intimately to one's faith and the many sacrifices people made in order to preserve it down through the centuries," Tracey said.
Most histories claim Patrick returned to Ireland in A.D. 432 to convert the natives. He was British by birth, the son of a town councillor-deacon and grandson of a priest. He had escaped his enslavement as a herder after six years and returned to his family a changed young man who began training for the priesthood.
"He converted the whole Irish race from pagans to Catholics," said Monsignor James Hannon, who is retired in Ocean Springs, Miss., and a native of County Galway. "He won the favor of the high priest who said, 'OK, go to it, Pat.' And he did.
"St. Patrick means as much today as he did in times past. That won't change, no matter what 'histories' might be coming out."
© 2002, The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.).
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
