CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - On the day when the whole world becomes Irish, I am drawn again to reflection on my own Irish ancestry, my life changing visit to Ireland and my deep love for St. Patrick. His story of conversion and call to missionary work can become an inspiration to those who recognize the times in which we live and the challenges we face. Many speak of the current state of western culture as "post Christian", others "post modern" and still others, "neo-pagan". However, I choose to view it as "Pre-Christian". That was how Patrick viewed the Ireland he came to love. How it all happened is important to recall on this St. Patrick's Day. 

He was raised in a Christian home in Britain toward the end of the fourth century. It was an age much like our own, gripped by a "culture of death" and filled with a spirit of lawlessness. Tragedy struck Patrick at sixteen years old when he was kidnapped by Irish Pirates and taken to the Emerald Isle. He  wrote in his autobiographical work called the Confession: "I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, the least of all the faithful, and utterly despised by many.  My father was Calpornius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a priest, of the village Bannavem Taburniæ; he had a country seat nearby, and there I was taken captive."

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This captivity was the first experience Patrick would have of the land that he would later come to love and for which he would give himself away in tireless missionary service. Upon arrival in this plush, green, breathtaking and beautiful land, he was sold as property to a petty chieftain who put him to work with his herds of swine. Patrick could have become embittered. In fact, the reaction would have been understandable. Instead, he became holy. When he recalled these traumatic events in his marvelous work the Confession, he perceived the tragedy not as a victim but rather as a penitent: "I was then about sixteen years of age. I knew not the true God; and I went into captivity to Ireland with many thousands of persons, according to our deserts, because we departed away from God, and kept not His commandments, and were not obedient to our priests, who used to admonish us for our salvation"

While he was a slave, Patrick recalled his Christian upbringing and turned back to that true God of whom he wrote so eloquently. He became a pilgrim, turning his captivity into a time of spiritual growth. He learned to walk the way of love by following Jesus Christ. He wrote of that time: "Now, after I came to Ireland, tending flocks was my daily occupation; and constantly I use to pray in the daytime. Love of God and the fear of Him increased more and more, and faith grew, and the spirit was moved, so that in one day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and at night nearly as many, so that I use to stay even in the woods and on the mountain to this end. And before daybreak I use to be roused to prayer, in snow, in frost, in rain. And I felt no hurt, nor was there any sluggishness in me- as I now see because the spirit was then fervent within me"

After six years of unjust captivity, during which this pilgrim had become a mystic through real, sustained and constant prayer, Patrick escaped with the help of some friendly traders. He pledged that he would never return to Ireland. However, the God whom Patrick had fallen in love with during captivity had other plans for his life. In the middle of the night the Lord gave Patrick a vision which he recorded for posterity. Because he responded to the invitation contained in that vision, this wonderful man was used by the Living and true God to literally change the history of not only Ireland but the rest of the world:

"And there verily I saw in the night visions, a man whose name was Victorius coming as it were from Ireland with countless letters. And he gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of the letter, which was entitled "The Voice of the Irish"; and while I was reading aloud the beginning of the letter, I thought that at that very moment I heard the voice of those who lived beside the wood of Folcut, which is nigh unto the Western Sea. And thus they cried, as with one mouth: "We beseech thee, O holy youth, to come and walk once more among us." And I was exceedingly broken in heart, and would read no further. And so I awoke. Thanks be to God, that after very many years the Lord granted to them according to their cry"

Through much perseverance Patrick finally returned to Ireland, now an ordained servant of the Church of that true God. His "Confession" tells of his experience of being used to transform that beautiful land into a seedbed of Christianity through his evangelization and missionary work. It also shares the experiences of a humble man who experienced the power of ...