St. Patrick, the Father of a Sacred Nation

by James F. Loughlin

1. Whilst darkness and desolation were covering the rest of the earth—whilst Huns and Saxons, Goths and Vandals, Moors and Saracens were carrying despair and death into all corners of Europe, Asia and Africa—whilst one by one the bright lights of ancient Christendom—Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage—were being extinguished—Ireland, exempted by a special grace of the Almighty from the universal misery, continued for three centuries to be the unmolested sanctuary of the faith, the asylum of learning, the nursery of saints and missionaries. How wistfully we now look back through all the intervening horrors upon those happy days of the nation’s childhood, when, quite unconscious of the dark future in store for her, she consecrated her virgin heart to the service of God; when churches and monasteries crowned each hill and nestled in each dale; when the air was ever laden with melodious psalmody and the perfume of prayer; when, unable to contain within her generous Celtic breast the fullness of her joy, she sent forth, as a presage of her future apostolic labors, her Columbas to the Isles of the North, her Columbanuses into the heart of Europe, and launched her Brandans upon the western waves to search out new realms for Christ.

The exceptional character of Ireland’s position was fully appreciated by the other nations of Europe. She was looked upon as sacred ground, and her people were recognized as enjoying in a very special manner the friendship of our Saviour. I narrate a thrice-told tale. To her sheltering bosom there flocked from all Christendom studious souls thirsty for knowledge, repentant souls longing for seclusion, virtuous souls in quest of refuge and models; and they found knowledge in her schools, discipline in her cloisters, and the humblest peasants in the land could teach them, by precept and example, the path of Christian perfection. For the Irish at their conversion did not put on religion as an outward garment. The Catholic faith sank deep into their souls, and became the center of their private and public life. It absorbed and assimilated all their thoughts and aspirations. For their faith they lived and studied; in it they reposed their individual happiness and their national glory.

2. But a change was to come over the face of the island. Indeed, these centuries of happy tranquillity were intended to be only a period of preparation, only an introduction to its history. A Christian nation can no more than a Christian individual hope to follow Christ by any other way than that of the Cross; and as well the nation as the individual must employ such periods of peace and quiet in preparation for the struggle which is certain, sooner or later, to supervene. That fateful day at length arrived for Ireland. I can fancy, my brethren, a scene in heaven like unto that which ushered in the sorrows of patient Job. Once more, methinks, “on a certain day when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord,” the foul prince of darkness obtruded his hateful presence upon that blessed company. Then spoke our Divine Lord: “Hast thou considered my chosen people, that there are none like them in the earth, simple and upright men, and fearing God and avoiding evil?” But Satan, answering, said: “Doth Erin fear God in vain? Hast not thou made a fence for her and her house and all her substance round about, blessed the works of her hand, and her possession hath increased on the earth? But stretch forth thy hand, and touch all that she hath, and her bone and her flesh, and then shalt thou see that she will bless thee to Thy face.” The Almighty, willing to glorify His elect and the power of His grace, took up the challenge so impudently cast before Him, and gave permission to Satan to wreak his fury on the devoted nation, making, however, the same reservation in her favor which He had made in the case of His servant Job, that the Evil One must spare its life. A conflict thereupon ensued which stands unparalleled in the annals of the human race. Never were the engines of infernal warfare brought to bear upon the children of men with such preternatural skill, with such overwhelming force, with such fiendish cunning, with such stubborn persistence, yet never did the infernal serpent sustain so thorough, so crushing a defeat. Wars and famines; invasions, conquests, confiscations; the cruel steel of a ferocious soldiery; the brutal whip of an implanted band of robbers; the haughty insolence of a State-fed heretical clergy, and the canting hypocrisy of swarms of professional proselytizers; the ingenious machinery of an infamous legislation—in fact, what evils that can afflict a nation were not made use of in the attempt to eradicate the faith from the breasts of the Irish? Yet every new onslaught of the enemy issued in a fresh triumph for Catholic Ireland. Satan wrested from her everything but that which was the sole aim of all his efforts—her Faith.

No doubt, my friends, the subject of Ireland’s unutterable woes has often forced itself upon your minds, and at the remembrance of her sufferings the tear has sprung to your eye, and your cheeks have burned and your breast heaved with just indignation at the inhuman wretches who, age after age, have lent themselves to Satan to be the instruments of his cruelty. But have you never looked beyond the physical miseries of each day and hour? Or have the wails of Erin’s exiles, the dying moans of her outcast children, as they famish by the wayside, and the bitter torments of her legions of martyrs so stunned your soul as to make you incapable of appreciating the moral grandeur of the scene? Oh, then, you have never conceived thoughts worthy of Ireland! You have seen nothing but her humiliations; you have not discovered the Divine glory which shines through them. You have seen the wretched work of man, but not the all-shaping, merciful hand of God. My mission, brethren, is one, not of hatred, but of charity; hence you must not expect to hear from me either a pathetic narration of Ireland’s wrongs or a vehement invective against her oppressors. Indeed, whilst I am very far from wishing to extenuate the infamy of those who have outraged and devastated the land of our fathers, yet, instead of fostering rancor against them, I feel more disposed to bless their infatuated malice, which, under the supreme control of Providence, has so chastened and sanctified the nation as to make it the model of Christendom. If Ireland, like the other nations, had “rested on her lees, and had not been poured from vessel to vessel nor gone into captivity” (Jer. 48:11), she, too, would have been a profane nation, with her measure of worldly greatness and with worldly ambitions and aspirations; but she would not have attained that noble station in the Church to which she was predestined, and for which a long series of trials was the indispensable preparation. Who does not sympathize with St. Patrick under the lash of his captors? But Patrick’s bondage was necessary for Ireland; and, brethren, Ireland’s bondage was necessary for the world. She was led into captivity, not only that the world might have a brilliant illustration of the heroism of Christian patience and resignation, but, especially, that it might have what it sorely needed, a nation of Apostles.

3. Yes, my friends, after withstanding for ages the open violence and the insidious wiles of Satan, Ireland was advanced to the highest station in the Church. “God,” says St. Paul, “has placed in His Church, first of all, the Apostles;” and by an unparalleled grace the Irish people were raised in mass to this sublime office. Other nations have, indeed, given birth to illustrious apostles. Spain may well be proud of St. Francis Xavier, Britain of St. Boniface and Italy of St. Augustine. But Ireland has done still more: she has not sent forth isolated missionaries; she has gone forth herself to the extreme ends of the earth. Oh, how often in these latter days has not that stern but salutary voice of God resounded through the island: “Go forth out of thy country and from thy kindred and out of thy father’s house;” and even though that high decree came disguised in the harsh tones of a bailiff, with what filial acquiescence in the Divine Will have not millions of her children bidden a sad farewell to their native land, their humble hearth and their dearest kindred, and gone forth to penetrate the wilds of America, the jungles of India and the sands of Australia! Truly, “there are no speeches nor languages where their voices are not heard; their sound is gone forth into all the earth.” With unflagging zeal and superhuman endurance they have planted the faith under every star of heaven, making the desert and the wilderness bloom with all the beauty of Carmel and Saron. Oh! island of the saints, how sublime is thy destiny! Everything pertaining to thee is extraordinary and supernatural. Thou seemest to belong to a different world from this, thou art so unlike the other nations of the earth. Thou hast been trampled on by every passer-by. Thy haughty invaders have disdained to call thee a nation. They have wished to sweep thee, with thy language and thy institutions and thy religion, from the face of the earth. Yet, lo! that which men despised and rejected, the same has become the corner-stone of the edifice of God. The more they trampled on thee, the more deeply didst thou cast thy roots; the more they shook thy aged trunk, the more rapidly didst thou shoot forth thy far-spreading branches.

What is there in nature more beautiful to behold than a majestic forest tree in the spring-time, as it decks itself with the luxuriance of its foliage and blushes in the pride of its variegated blossoms? How you wish it could remain ever thus undisturbed! But that ought not to be; for then it would live and die in selfish barrenness. To be of immortal usefulness it must, first, be shorn of its beauty; the fierce equinoctial blasts must wrench its seeds from it, and spread them broadcast over the earth, and cover them from the wrath of winter with the leaves torn from its moaning branches. Thieving birds must carry away its fruits to scatter them on a distant soil. If, then, you return to view that noble plant after wind and storms have worked their will upon it, you will hardly recognize in the dreary, naked wood the object of your admiration a few months ago. But wait a little. The winter will soon be past, and you will find that the harm has not been serious, much less irreparable. It will bud and blossom again in a glorious resurrection; and behold! far and near a thousand saplings are springing up, each reproducing the vigor of the parent stock. In like manner, whilst nations which have enjoyed serene prosperity have, so far as the sacred cause of Revelation is concerned, lived and died sluggish and inactive, Ireland, rudely shaken by every wind of heaven, has, without losing much at home, multiplied herself in every quarter of the globe. Why, then, ought we not to bless the whirlwind which has scattered our noble race? The tears of the exile were necessary to the propagation of the faith; and whilst we sympathize sincerely with the suffering individuals, we must never lose sight of the Divine purpose which their sufferings are predestined to effect.

In the prosecution of this analogy between the life of St. Patrick and the history of his people, we discover another point of resemblance well worthy of consideration. St. Patrick was sent into captivity that he might become familiar with the language and customs of the people whom he was chosen to evangelize. So, too, the Irish, having been selected by the Lord for the important work of evangelizing a great part of the world, were subjected to the sway of that nation whose wonderful enterprise has made her language the most generally spoken by the human species. How little did the English dream, when they were planting their proud banner on every remote corner of the globe, on every island, on every coast, that Providence was making use of their ambition for the advantage of a nation which they despised and of a religion which they detested? Yet such the event proves to have been the case. England’s discoveries and conquests simply paved the way for the Irish and their holy religion. England forced the Irish to drop the language of their fathers, and adopt that of their oppressors. She was but too glad to offer them her ships, and induce them to establish themselves in her colonies. But, my friends, England has lost, and is losing, her hold upon her colonial possessions; whereas the Irish and their blessed faith remain, and will remain, please God, till the end of time.

But let us bring this discourse to a conclusion. I have endeavored to show how far-reaching and enduring St. Patrick’s work has been. He is become, in very deed, the father of a great nation, whose distinctive trait is its inviolable fidelity to God. Like their apostle, the Irish people were great and holy in the days of their prosperity; their greatness and holiness were enhanced during the long ages of their trials; and they have arrived at the summit of spiritual glory now that God has scattered them far and wide to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Be mindful, therefore, of your mission, Irishmen and children of Irishmen, and at the same time appreciate the formidable responsibility which that mission lays upon you. No doubt, our great race will achieve its sublime destiny, notwithstanding the frailties of individuals; for though there may be weak and unworthy brethren amongst us—though there may be Irishmen who are drunkards, and Irishmen who are dishonest, and Irishmen who by other vices dishonor their country and scandalize the unbeliever—yet the mass of our people are, in practice and principle, “true to the faith.” But it is well for us to remember that it was for no trivial purpose we or our fathers were transplanted into this fertile region. Divine Providence has placed us here, as on a mountain top, that men may have full scope to observe us, and may value our faith by the works of righteousness which it engenders within us. And, my friends, this great American nation into which we are incorporated deserves well of us; for when the old world had cast us off, it received us with open arms and welcomed us to an equal share in the blessings which the Lord of nature lavishes upon it. But it is our privilege, as well as our duty, to make a grateful return for this hospitable reception; for whilst America possesses in abundance gold and silver, food and raiment, yet, in a higher sense, she is sadly destitute. She lacks that better food which fills the soul, and this food she must receive from our hands. Faith perfected almost to vision, supernatural love of God, unsullied chastity—these are the spiritual riches with which the half-clad, half-starved emigrant comes laden to these shores, and they are an ample remuneration for the many kindnesses which he receives.