Introduction:
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh go léir! A very happy & blessed St. Patrick’s Day to all of you this holyday evening.
It’s a joy to be with all of you in Slane, my home parish to honour St. Patrick. Tá failte roimh go léir go dtí an tAifreann ar tráthnóna La Fheile Phadraig. It’s good to gather on this St. Patrick’s evening, my first time possibly at home for Mass on St. Patrick’s Day in probably over forty years.
The theme of this annual St. Patrick’s Day gathering is ‘Light the Fire’ inviting us to carry the light of faith into the next generation. Many of you are visitors to Slane, I welcome you all here this evening. I thank the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal for their invitation to join you and who are in many respects the torch carriers for this event.
In the National Synthesis returned to Rome after the synodal conversations and colloquiums across this island, the issue of evangelisation, adult faith formation featured strongly and so in the shadow of the hill where St. Patrick offered that very first catechetical lesson, focused on the Trinity, let us call to mind our sins taking a moment to acknowledge our past, recognise our present and anticipate our future …
Homily:
Glóir don Athair, agus don Mhac,
agus don Spiorad Naomh;
mar a bhí at dtús, mar atá anois,
agus mar a bheas go brách, trí shaol na saol.
Áiméan.
It’s the one prayer, the ‘Glory Be’, that unities all our Christian faith’s. I suggest it’s the prayer that best encapsulates St. Patrick lighting the Paschal Fire on the hill above and taking up a shamrock, to explain the Doctrine of the Trinity. Three persons, one God; three leaves, one stem.
The composer Liam Lawton, a priest of my own diocese, Kildare & Leighlin, composed the beautiful hymn: ‘Holy Ground’ on the occasion of my own episcopal ordination, ten years ago, this August. We have just stood and prayed vespers on that holy ground up above and here we are gathered on more holy ground, this time our chapel, our séipéal. Not every church is called a chapel, St. Patrick’s here is always known as a chapel. There is a research thesis somewhere there, I don’t have the answer but maybe historians or researchers in the future will.
The hill above gives definition to the village. As I drive down the hill at Fennor, the hill of Slane is very clearly in my focus. Part of me always feels not enough has been made of Patrick and his connection here. In the place of Brigid where an additional Bank Holiday has just been celebrated last month in her honour, as we prepare to celebrate the 1500th anniversary of her death next year, the official Bank Holiday to honour Patrick was introduced in 1903, 120 years ahead of the one to honour St. Brigid. 1903 was the year of the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in Ireland in Waterford. In nine years’ time, in 2032, we will be honouring the 1600th anniversary of Patrick’s coming to Ireland in 432AD. It is said that Brigid and Patrick are both buried at Downpatrick. And while we always hope our deceased rest in peace, we might also disturb them a little to wonder what message might they have for the Ireland of today, if they were to return once again?
And of course with Patrick as with many of our Irish Saints we have to distil the many legends, stories and traditions that embellish their lives. While Patrick has left behind some writings, there are many things associated with the saint that have little authenticity. How many accounts dare to suggest Patrick lit the fire on Tara Hill. He didn’t, he couldn’t, King Laoghaire was there. It was very much lit in Slane and here the focus is on two elements, the fire and the shamrock, two things we know are associated with the holy ground above.
The Fire is of course symbolic of the undimmed light of Christ, what we do at the great Easter Vigils in all our parishes is an imitiation of St. Patrick on the hill, reminding us our flame still flickers, despite the attempts by many to quench it. Fire is very powerful, it can destroy but it can also refertilise. A single flame-point illuminates darkness, focuses or mesmerises the eye. I think of the late Fr. Joe Dooley and the two plaques he had erected on either side of the main door in the millennium year 2000 asking ‘Who will carry the light?’ We could ask the same question this St. Patrick’s evening.
And then the shamrock. The Irish word for shamrock is seamróg which is the dimunitive of the Irish word for clover – seamair, meaning simply little clover or young clover. Many will wear clover today, thinking it’s shamrock, but we know the clover can be four leafed. The shamrock always only has three unblemished green leaves and its that which offered Patrick a catechetical tool, literally at his feet. Sometimes we miss the images around us; sometimes we miss what is staring us in the face. Patrick didn’t and we shouldn’t either.
Back to that prayer, I suggest best captures Patrick lighting the fire and using the shamrock as that evangelising tool:
Glóir don Athair, agus don Mhac,
agus don Spiorad Naomh;
mar a bhí at dtús, mar atá anois,
agus mar a bheas go brách, trí shaol na saol.
Áiméan.
The parables of the darnel and the mustard seed feature in this evening’s gospel. Matthews text begins as gaeilge: “Chuir sé parabal eile os a gcomhair”[1] (He put another parable before them). St. Patrick would have been very familiar with Matthew’s text. Saint Patrick’s world of the fifth century was an adventurous time to live, coming between the Roman Empire and the birth of the Middle Ages. As the old order of the Empire passed on, a new Europe was born, a Europe rich for evangelisation, for the sowing of the good seed (“an síol maith”[2]). Patrick sowed it, Brigid sowed it, Erc sowed it and many more. Many more women and men, priests, religious and lay have responded to the missionary call and have been drawn to other continents to follow the steps of Patrick where the seed they have sown is still being harvested today. We only have to flick through the pages of the Far East Magazine (the Columban Fathers & Sisters) or the Africa Magazine (the Kiltegan Fathers) to see their story so well told.
Patrick, unlike so many of our saints has left behind us two important testimonies: the Confessio and his Letter to Coroticus and His Soldiers. Both of them begin with an acknowledgement that he is a sinner. His Confessio begins: “I Patrick, am a sinner, the most uncultured and smallest among all the faithful, indeed many people consider me to be worthless”[3]. He begins the ‘Letter to Coroticus and His Soldiers’ in a similar vein: “I, Patrick, an unlearned sinner who dwells in Ireland, profess that I am a Bishop. I am sure that it is God who has made me what I am”[4]. Patrick may have been down playing his own worthiness, but he certainly was scarred by a sin he had committed in his youth, a sin that would come back to bite him in later years.
Maybe we sometimes find it hard to comprehend that our faith was brought to us by a sinner who became a saint. It’s not easy to accept that the messenger can be flawed. Pope Francis reminds us “the saints were not supermen, nor were they born perfect. They are like us, like each of us … they spent their lives serving others, they endured suffering and adversity without hatred and responded to evil with good, spreading joy and peace. This is the life of a Saint”[5]. And I suggest this is the life of our St. Patrick and we are also encouraged, as sinners, to hand on the faith, sometimes we may be “briste agus bruite” broken and crushed, but our faith remains always intact for others, a faith is centred on Father, Son and Spirit:
Glóir don Athair, agus don Mhac,
agus don Spiorad Naomh;
mar a bhí at dtús, mar atá anois,
agus mar a bheas go brách, trí shaol na saol.
Áiméan.
[1] Mt.13:24
[2] Mt.13:24
[3] St. Patrick, ‘Confessio’, ¶1
[4] St. Patrick, ‘Letter to Coroticus and His Soldiers’, ¶1
[5] Pope Francis, Angelus Address, St. Peter’s Square, 1st November 2013