Whenever I read the accounts of St. Patrick’s work amongst the Irish I am reminded of the actions of Holy Moses in the Old Testament. As Moses went in the darkness of Egypt and faced a pagan pharaoh and his demonic magicians, so Patrick went to Ireland and faced pagan kings and Druid sorcerers. A mortal combat between life and death…between the light and darkness …between truth and falsehood…between a worker of true miracles and the performers of lying wonders…between Christ and the devil.
Moses would be the good Lord’s instrument in bringing all the tribes of Israel out of Egypt. And Ireland would become the only country in the world that entirely owes its conversion to the work of one single man, namely, St. Patrick. As Moses went up Mt. Sinai and received the revelation of the law after much fasting, so St. Patrick had his own Lent of forty days spent on top of a mountain known as Croagh Patrick…the Mt. Sinai of Ireland…where the saint could look over the Island on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. And from these heights, St. Patrick stood in the breach like Moses and obtained from the good Lord heavenly promises, including a remnant in Ireland that would always maintain the Faith and even the promise of St. Patrick being given the privilege of judging the Irish people and those of Irish descent at their deaths.
On that Mountain of Croagh Patrick, the saintly bishop blessed the land on Holy Saturday and, having descended, Patrick offered Holy Mass for the people on Easter Sunday. But it is interesting that the great work of conversion in Ireland began on the night of the Resurrection…on Easter Vigil with the Easter Fire.
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