Peace and Revolutionaries

The News is once again concerned with Ireland and whether there can be a peace process between the warring tribes. Even when one or more groups declares a cease-fire, we are constantly reminded of martyrs and victims of the past and this is used as an excuse for bloodshed in the present. During all the talk, argument and violence of the last few months, I have found myself thinking of perhaps the oldest victim of them all. St. Patrick seems to have been captured by one side to use as a totem against the other. I am certain that he would not approve of this situation but he would recognise similarities to the Ireland he came to as both slave and missionary.

Patrick was born near Hadrian's Wall about AD 414. These were troubled times and he was living in a dangerous place. Britain had ceased to be part of the Roman Empire in AD 410, when the Emperor Honorius formally relinquished control of the province in a letter that told the Britons that from now on they would have to fend for themselves. Rome was under attack from the Visigoths and the Legions were withdrawn from this Island to help its defence. The lands of the Romanised Britons, a number of whom, like Patrick's family, had been Christians for several generations, faced regular incursion and attack from Angles, Saxons and Jutes from the east, the Picts from the north and, especially, the Irish from the west. Patrick was captured, when only sixteen years old, by an Irish raiding party and sold as a slave to a Chieftain in Armagh. We know from his own writings that his faith in God sustained him for the six years of his captivity until he, somehow, escaped.

Had Patrick had the attitude of many of his contemporaries (and, one could say, of many involved with the Irish Question now), he would have gone back only to seek revenge. But Patrick was a Christian and, as he explains in his "Confessions", he returned (in about AD 455) to expiate the sins of his youth by preaching the Gospel in Ireland. As he is now the Patron Saint, it might seem that his mission was successful. However, as one of the goals that Patrick set for himself was to teach the warring tribes of Ireland peace, he might consider that there is still work to be completed. I cannot help feeling that he would rather that his name and especially his Feast Day were used to promote peace and not the kind of celebration of Irishness that encourages the divisions between the communities of Ireland and, in any case, has nothing to do with Patrick.

Patrick and his fellow workers for Christ (such as Ninian, another Briton, who was famed for bringing the Gospel to the Picts at the same time) were real revolutionaries because they put their trust in the Lord and not chariot and horses, as Patrick says about his enemies. They tried to help the warriors to get to know the Prince of Peace and, through Him, the Kingdom of God so that they could see that there is a better way than the one that they knew then. Even now, there are too many people who seem to know only the language of revenge and the cause of seeking "rights" that can only be had at the expense of others. They put their trust in the gun and the bomb, whereas we should pray for the real revolutionaries who can show the way of true Peace.

Paul Newman, (First written in September 1997 and revised January 1998)

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