Maybe the first time he really prayed and poured out his heart to God was alone on a cold mountaintop, with only sheep for company. He missed his home, his family, and his friends and had lost everything, including his freedom.
How many times do we have to lose it all to fall to our knees and open our hearts to the Lord?
When he started praying, he prayed without ceasing. So began his relationship with the Lord. With every step he took to deepen that relationship, he became more holy. We do not know for sure that he wrote the Breastplate of Saint Patrick, but it has been attributed to him. The middle part of the Breastplate invokes Christ thus:
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me;
Christ to comfort and restore me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
This is a man who felt the presence of God upon him with every step that he took.
Just as Joseph had to spend time in prison in Egypt, Patrick still served as a slave in Ireland. Six years after he was abducted, he had his first mystical experience: he heard a voice telling him it was time to go home and later that a ship was ready.
Patrick’s relationship had grown so deep he recognized the voice of God and obeyed it. He then walked 200 miles to the coast between Ireland and England. That walk of faith was the first of many he would make.
His journey back home was full of adventures including one when he was captured and held prisoner. Once again, he heard a voice telling him the captivity would last two months. At the end of 60 days, he was free once again.
The dreams continued. Upon his return, he had several dreams of an Irish friend showing him the voices of the Irish people, calling him to come back to them. Patrick knew he was being called to witness for Christ in a land of pagans who knew nothing of Him. He would preach to a corner of the earth which had never before heard the name Jesus.
His confession notes another dream calling him to his vocation:
And so I awoke and remembered the Apostle's words: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we know not how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for utterance.” And again: “The Lord our advocate intercedes for us.”
Patrick’s talents as a missionary weren’t easily discernable. God had begun his preparation with the six years of suffering in which Patrick found his faith, developed it, and built up his body and soul for future challenges. By worldly standards, however, Patrick was dumb. He knew it and was embarrassed by it, writing in his confession:
A young man, almost a beardless boy, I was taken captive before I knew what I should desire and what I should shun. So, consequently, today I feel ashamed and I am mightily afraid to expose my ignorance, because, [not] eloquent, with a small vocabulary, I am unable to explain as the spirit is eager to do and as the soul and the mind indicate.
But had it been given to me as to others, in gratitude I should not have kept silent, and if it should appear that I put myself before others, with my ignorance and my slower speech, in truth, it is written: “The tongue of the stammerers shall speak rapidly and distinctly.” How much harder must we try to attain it, we of whom it is said: “You are an epistle of Christ in greeting to the ends of the earth…written on your hearts, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.” And again, the Spirit witnessed that the rustic life was created by the Most High.
When God called a prodigal to minister to the pagans, He once again chose “the least of these” to become the greatest.
We often feel inadequate and unworthy of the mighty tasks with which God presents us. Patrick reminds us that God spends a lifetime preparing us for those moments and is with us every step of the way. He will fill in our gaps and conquer our shortcomings.
For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:25-31)
Mary Biever is a homeschooling mother of two who publishes encouragement articles and runs Encouragement Workshops For Today's Families.
This article was adapted from one of her columns.
