The month of March always welcomes spring’s blossoms of new weather, holidays, and festivals. Women’s History Month, March Madness and World Sleep Day are just among the various holidays that rest in between the weeks of March. St. Patrick’s Day is the most celebrated among them. Near and dear to most, the day of leprechauns, pots of gold and wearing green, behold an unknown story filled with kidnapping, priesthood and strange miracles.
Being born in Britain may be one surprising fact about Saint Patrick, but another is that he was captured and enslaved at 16. During his captivity, Saint Patrick found a renowned ambition for his faith as a Christian. He had remained a shepherd for about six years. In his writings, Confessio and Epistola, he described a voice that had beckoned him to bring Christianity to Ireland.
He journeyed around 700 miles of walking from where he was believed to have been, County Mayo, to the Irish coast. In Ireland, St. Patrick pursued more than 15 years of religious training in order to convert the Irish people.
His missions consisted of utilizing Irish culture to teach lessons. Examples would be his use of bonfires, which stayed true to the Irish tradition of honoring their gods. He combined a sacred Irish symbol, the sun, and the cross to develop the Celtic Cross. He also included his own provisions of culture, like the significance of the shamrock.
However, what is most shocking about St. Patrick is that he was never canonized by the Catholic Church, which means that he was never declared a Saint by the Catholic Church. It is believed that the period of his activity may have contributed to the title of Saint and his workings around Ireland.
Some interesting miracles and myths about St. Patrick seem to follow his legacy as people continue to celebrate the holiday. It is said that he initiated the banning of snakes from Ireland while staying 40 days and nights on a mountain named, “The Reek.” Another miracle was his reviving of said 33 men back from the dead, and following that was his prayer of swine to appear for starved sailors.
While St. Patrick’s plethora of miracles and myths seem to grow, the exhilaration of the holiday grows as well, with festivals, dressing up in all green, and the sharing of jovial celebration also to keep the date of March 17 going.
