St. Patrick (free post)

An Icon and Two Videos

I recall fondly my visits to Ireland in 1994, 2000, and 2002, to lecture and exhibit. With St. Patrick’s feast day tomorrow, I was put in mind of the time I spent in that stunningly beautiful land, in which one senses the presence of centuries of saints, that the spiritual dimension is always mysteriously close by, and that the island’s ages of history — both somber and otherwise — have never entirely receded into the past. We are familiar with the account that Patrick (who lived in the 400s), who had been a slave of the Irish and escaped, returned years later as an “apostle” with the liberating message of Christ. As a descendent of Vikings, I know that my people raided the Irish and took slaves of them in later times, many of them monks. These Christian slaves, it seems, introduced some of their Viking captors to the faith, two or three hundred years before Norway was “officially” Christianized in 1030. Misfortune has played a role, in other words, in spreading the gospel from one people to another.

Below is an icon I made in 2006, based on a motif I saw elsewhere and liked. The text comes from the hymn known as St. Patrick’s Lorica (a protecting garment — a “breastplate”). I have posted two videos below the icon, and the first is of this hymn, with words by Cecil F. Alexander and music by Charles V. Stanford.

“The Breastplate of St. Patrick”:

The second video is a moving hour-long documentary about St. Patrick and his legacy. The scenery throughout is reason enough to view it, but the commentary in the video is rich in insights. (I learned that one of the presenters in it — the Rev. Dr. Les Fairfield — was one of my husband’s seminary professors forty years ago.) I believe you will find it as interesting as I did.