“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.
Isaiah’s great prophecy about light arising in the darkness and in the land of the shadow of death is recalled by St. Matthew and is explicitly associated with the preaching of Christ and the calling of the disciples, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, and then, in succession, James and John the sons of Zebedee. It implies the spread of the word of God as signaled in the reading from The Acts of the Apostles, “the word of God grew and multiplied,” and as illustrated in the figures of Barnabas and Saul, and others, through whom that word will spread at first through preaching in “the synagogues of the Jews” and then as passed along the Roman roads.
The missionary impulse is a crucial feature of the Christian Faith. And it always means a conflict with other patterns and ways of thinking both ancient and new. The very being of our Churches where the Word is preached and the Sacraments are celebrated is a rebuke to the carelessness and the thoughtlessness of our current culture; to its hostility and indifference to God. It is a reminder, too, of how the Christian Gospel is profoundly counter-culture precisely because it orients us to God and not to the world and not to the vain imaginations of our hearts and souls. As the Lesson and the Gospel indicate, there is a change, a conversion of spirit, a new awakening, the beginnings of new growth and life.
Chesterton observed that the 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.” There is, I suppose, some truth in such a view, especially in the maudlin sentimentality that arises from too much green beer! But I like the idea of the sad songs, too, for in a way that is about our longing for something more and greater than the despairing illusions of our rather anxious world and day. It is possible – just possible – that The Feast of St. Patrick can recall us to the happy songs of our spiritual and social communion with God, to the delights of the Chalice over and against the Cauldrons of death and despair. And if so, then it can be said of us that “the people which sat in darkness have seen a great light; To them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is arisen.” And then, too, there can be the happy songs of “joy and triumph everlasting.”
This feast brings us this week to the spring equinox when the light of day will equal the darkness of night. Yet even more, it points us to the spiritual triumph of light over darkness and death through the paschal festival, Easter, the great triumph of the light of Christ over all the forms of human darkness and evil. For that is what we truly celebrate in commemorating St. Patrick; he is one of our Lenten saints who points us to Holy Week and Easter and who reminds us of the nature of conversion. He reminds us, too, of Christ “walking by the sea of Galilee” and calling us to repentance. We are all called to be missionaries; to respond to the call of Christ and to follow him in each of our lives.
One of the happy songs, it seems to me, is called St. Patrick’s Breastplate. “I bind unto myself to-day/ the strong name of the Trinity,” it begins, and at one point recalls us to the nature of our being with Christ and in Christ.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
Such are the songs of those who are mad about Christ and whose songs change our sadness into joy, the joy of our being with Christ and to the merry wars of Christian life.
“The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light”
Fr. David Curry
St. Patrick, 2014