Sermon for the Feast of St. Patrick
“The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light”
The Gospel says nothing about shillelaghs or about shamrocks or even about snakes. It does say something about places on a sea-coast, about the preaching of Christ seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about light to those in places of darkness, about repentance, about discipleship, and about healing and salvation; in short, about all the things that belong to the evangelium – the good news that is the meaning of the word, gospel. Something of that sensibility belongs to the Feast of St. Patrick, the outstanding Apostle to Ireland, the bearer of the light of the Gospel to the pagan darkness of the Gaels.
It was Chesterton’s great quip: “For the great Gaels of Ireland [meaning the gaelic],/Are the men that God made mad./For all their wars are merry,/ And all their songs are sad.” Much of that remains true but through the missionary zeal and pastoral patience and understanding of Patrick, happy songs, the songs that belong to the divine comedy of Christianity are also heard and sung, known and loved. In How the Irish saved Civilisation, the writer, Thomas Cahill, notes that Irish and civilization are words which are “seldom coupled,” but if there is any justice in making such a connection, and I think there is, then much of the credit must go to Patrick.
