My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person and the least of all the believers…
Today is the day of St. Patrick. It is also yet another day marked by the horrible sufferings in Syria. Remembering this, it is well worth (re)reading the words, which St. Patrick wrote to Coroticus:
“So I don’t know which is the cause of the greatest grief for me: whether those who were slain, or those who were captured, or those whom the devil so deeply ensnared. They will face the eternal pains of Gehenna equally with the devil; because whoever commits sin is rightly called a slave and a son of the devil. For this reason, let every God-fearing person know that those people are alien to me and to Christ my God, for whom I am an ambassador: father-slayers, brother-slayers, they are savage wolves devouring the people of God as they would bread for food. It is just as it is said: The wicked have routed your law, O Lord — the very law which in recent times he so graciously planted in Ireland and, with God’s help, has taken root.” (From The Epistola to Coroticus)
The quotation is from the new translation of the writings of St. Patrick published on the Internet as well as a kindle-book. The edition is furnished by the Royal Irish Academy in connection with a new homepage filled with translations, scholarly resources and high quality information about what we in fact do know about the Irish saint from the 4th – 5th century; which is – alas – not very much, when all the embellishments of the following centuries of hagiographical reworking of the legends are subjected to scientific evaluation.
If in Dublin this afternoon it might be worthwhile to get a ticket to St. Patrick’s Cathedral where the book is formally launched. The programme will include an introduction by Pádraig McCarthy (translator of the Confessio), a reading of the Confessio (in Latin and English) by Dr Anthony Harvey and Ruth Hegarty (Royal Irish Academy) and a performance by members of the Chapel Choir, Trinity College Dublin (Conductor, Margaret Bridge), of extracts from the medieval office of St Patrick, edited byDr Ann Buckley from 15th-century manuscripts from the Library of Trinity College.