Sermon for the Feast of St. Patrick
“The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light”
There are, I suppose three great saints of the western imagination whose commemorations have become the occasions of popular secular celebrations. There is St. Nicholas, transmogrified into Santa Claus, whose spirit dominates the season of Christmas, for better or worse. There is St. Valentine, the patron saint of romance in the bleak mid-winter who keeps the florists, the chocalatiers, the lingerie makers, and Hallmark Cards in business and, then, there is St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland and green beer whose commemoration lightens Lent and makes March almost bearable, the herald of Spring and the promise of green amid the white of winter and the mud of March. Of the three, Patrick has the greater claim to being an historical figure, all legends and myths notwithstanding.
A figure of the late 4th and mid 5th centuries, he belongs to a remarkable moment in the story of Christianity, the story of Celtic Christianity. He is the bearer of the great light of Christ to the Irish, lighting the paschal fire on Tara’s hill to drive away the pagan darkness of the Druids. We forget how powerful conversion is, especially the conversion of entire peoples and lands to a whole new way of thinking and living. And yet, that is the crucial thing about the story of St. Patrick. We forget, too, that the story of Celtic Christianity is bigger than the Celtic peoples; it contributes to the shaping of Europe and beyond.
Thomas Cahill in his intriguing work, How the Irish Saved Civilisation, juxtaposes the image of a silver cauldron and a silver chalice to capture the transformation of a culture in its conversion to Christianity; the one, beautifully carved and deliberately broken, symbolic of the culture of pagan human sacrifice; the other beautifully engraved and whole, inscribed with the names of the apostolic fellowship. The one, dated a century or two before Christ, is known as the Gundestrop Cauldron and depicts animal and human sacrifice; the other, late seventh or early eighth century AD is known as the Ardagh Chalice and is symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice and our participation in his sacrifice sacramentally. There is, I suppose, all the difference between a cauldron and a chalice; in this case, the juxtaposition captures the transformation of a culture.
