Reclaiming the True Legacy of St. Patrick and St. Joseph
Summary of Headings
Introduction
The True St. Patrick
One of the more odious things that the modern world does is they claim things that are truly Catholic, and then they distort them to their own purposes. I think the two saints, two great saints we have coming up this week are excellent examples of the way in which they have been changed. One directly and one indirectly. The St. Patrick, who is coming up on Tuesday, of course, everyone knows who St. Patrick is, vaguely, and at the same time, nobody seems to understand or appreciate just who he is and what he did. The fact of the matter is, the world has suffocated the reality of St. Patrick to replace him with some sort of a Bacchanalian feast. The fact of the matter is, the world has suffocated the reality of St. Patrick to replace him with some sort of a Bacchanalian feast. Where everybody is supposed to wear silly hats and fake beards and get dressed up in green, dye water green, and drink a lot of beer. Usually start a lot of fights. This is anything but what St. Patrick is, and this is, of course, something that we should reject outright. Of course, we should celebrate the feast of St. Patrick. We should celebrate all of his great work for the Irish. But in order to do so, we have to reclaim, in our own minds and in our own hearts, who and what St. Patrick is and what he did. First of all, St. Patrick is not Irish. Believe it or not, a lot of people don't know that. I made an Irishman extremely angry by joking that he was British, which is not entirely true, but he was the son of a Roman governor in England. And so, there's a little more truth to it than not. I actually had to run for my life at that point, so the Irish don't take that kindly. But it's important that we understand that because he was not born a saint. He was, by his own admission and his confessions, he liked to hang out with his friends. He liked to drink. He liked to party. He did not like to study, which is what his father had set him up to do. And as a result, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates. Now, the Irish at the time were among the more feared nations, tribes in the world. Because when Caesar conquered England, he got to a certain point and stopped. And the joke was that even Caesar couldn't conquer the Scots or the Irish. He just stopped. He didn't want to move any further north than England. And he tried to get into Ireland and failed miserably, so he just stopped. The Irish were savages. The Irish were pagans. The Irish had an elaborate religion based upon druidery. And the worship of nature. They also had, they were pirates and enslavers. They were a vicious, a particularly vicious sort of warrior tribe. So when St. Patrick was enslaved, he was sold to a shepherd. And that's what he had to do. He was sold to one of the leaders of one of the clans and he had to watch over sheep. Now, again, for a nobleman, he had to watch over sheep. Now, again, for a nobleman, this is fairly degrading. For someone who's educated, there's no less educated type of work that exists. And yet he continued to do it. While he was there, of course, at first, he was deep in resentment. He hated his captors. He was frustrated with what had become his lot. And he tried to resist and he tried to fight and he tried to escape. And he was caught and he was punished and he was beaten. But then one day, he woke up to the fact that, this wasn't what God had called him to do. So, having not been a very diligent scholar, he didn't have a lot of education to fall back on. He didn't memorize large tracts of the scripture to be able to call it to memory and recite it to himself for his own appeasement. But rather what he did was he started reciting the Our Father 100 times per day. That was the very start of his spiritual transformation. 100 times during the day, he would say the Our Father and he would recite it to himself. And he would maintain a strict prayer life while he was doing the mind numbing work of being a shepherd. Finally, someone was able to smuggle him out of Ireland and he was able to escape. But he did not go back to his life of privilege under his father. But rather what he did is he fled to Rome, all the way to Rome. And he became a priest and he became a bishop. And when he was given a choice of assignments, he requested to go back to Ireland. He went back to Ireland and made it his mission to convert the same savages who had tortured him, who had enslaved him, and who had made his life horrible. He did this because he understood that God's mercy does not have boundaries, does not have limits. It is for each and every one of us that those who are most in darkness are most in need of the light, those who are most lost desperately most need the help of God. He understood and appreciated that. And that became his life's work. So much so that all he did was sacrifice himself to this labor. He confronted great kings of the clans. He defended the faith before the Druids. He fought against the many obstacles that he faced by the Irish. They did not like him. They did not want him. And he battled and battled for 30 years. He fought for their lives. He fought for their salvation. When he finally established the church and it was growing and it was thriving in Ireland, immediately there began divisions. We always joke that the only thing that the Irish like fighting more than the British is each other. They love to fight. And so even in the church in Ireland, they were battling each other. And he was discouraged. So he went up the mountain Croag Patrig, which is named for him now, which is just a bunch of really sharp rocks and people still walk to this day in pilgrimage barefoot. And he went to the top of this mountain and he prayed and God revealed to him all of Ireland. And there were lights showing up all over Ireland. Thousands, tens of thousands of these lights. And he said, each of these lights is a soul that is Catholic and has my grace because of you. St. Patrick's work converted Ireland for the next 1500 years. Made it the most Catholic country in the world for a long stretch of time. One of the most persecuted countries in the history of the world. And they suffered through many difficulties. Violent takeovers. Violent takeovers blessed by the Pope. Henry II was given a bull by the Pope to be able to conquer Ireland. They felt betrayed by the Pope but they still stayed faithful. They went through centuries of persecution when the English became Protestant and tried to enforce their Protestantism on the Irish. The Irish stood firm. Protected their faith. Fought wars to try to reclaim their land and defend their faith. They did everything they possibly could to maintain things. Everything about their culture was steeped in Catholicism. Then during the 19th century, many of them fled because of persecution, because of violence, because of famine. They fled and they spread the faith all over the world. Ireland was the most missionary country of all. There is not a land in this world that is not touched by an Irish missionary. Mexico, even though it was very Catholic, was not touched by an Irish missionary. The Catholic at one point had Irish missionaries crawling all over it. After its conversion. Mexico couldn't even produce enough priests so they had to bring in the Irish. The Catholic Church in the United States is founded upon Irish Catholicism. Don't tell Father Renoir that. He does not like the Irish for some reason. But it's true. The Irish were a rock solid bastion of Catholicism all throughout the world. They were producing more priests per year than any other country. Even under persecution. Even under Protestantism. They still managed to do that. They have since unfortunately lost the faith to an extraordinary extent. They've gone back to the darkness. They've gone back to paganism. They've gone to worshipping the Euro instead of nature. And they've lost so much of what made Ireland extraordinary. They are now starved for voting. They are now in vocations. We are ordaining more Irish priests than the entire island. Very sad thing to admit. But one thing that is necessary for us is that we do not make a mockery of the heritage of St. Patrick. We do not allow what the world says is the legacy of St. Patrick. This absurd festival of combining Hallmark with Bacchanalia and revelry. To be what we think it is. We need to think of when we think of St. Patrick's Day. We need to think of a man who sacrificed himself. Who went and converted his enemies. Who went and loved so much his enemies that he was willing to lay down his life for them. That he was willing to give everything he had to their conversion and to their salvation. That he was willing to confront the powerful, the mighty, and the irreligious to be able to win their souls. And someone whose legacy stood for 1500 years in that battle. That is what we must admire during his feast day. The second saint, of course, that has been overcome by the world, but in a very different way, is St. Joseph. St. Joseph is the model of all masculinity. He is the model of what a father should be. He is the model of what a husband should be. He is the model of what a man should be. We know so little about him because he never said a word in our written history of him. But we know everything we need to know from his actions. And from what the church tells us about him. He is one of the most beloved and most important saints in the history of the world. He is also supposed to be, as much as possible, our ideal of what a man is. Of masculinity. The world hates that very concept and has done everything it can to suffocate the idea of masculinity. To destroy the very concept of a man being a student. A strong, silent person. They have tried to destroy the stoicism and the strength of men. They have tried to destroy the masculine traits that are necessary to be fathers and husbands. They have tried to destroy the very essence of what a leader should be in this world. They have done everything they can. And so the more that they do that, the more that the darkness overcomes this image of what a man is, the more St. Joseph has to stand out brilliantly in our mind. As to what we should be following. The example we should be following and pursuing. What we should be doing with our lives. We should be practicing the virtues that he exemplified so perfectly. Chastity and self -control. Discipline. Following the will and providence of God regardless of what it asks of us. Fidelity. Confidence. Strength. He is called the terror of demons for a reason. The devil could have nothing to do with him. Couldn't lay a finger on him. In part it was because of his proximity to Christ. And in part his proximity to Christ was because he was so virtuous. It was a combination. So the more the world tries to show us a different, they try to take over the image of one saint. And they try to block out the very ideal of the other saint. The more we must keep them alive in our own minds. The more we must bring them back. We should never submit to the reinterpretation of the world. We should never accept what the world declares is truly a man. Or is truly the legacy of the Irish or anything else. Rather we should be strong. We should be dedicated to following and pursuing the ideals that these people represent to us. What these saints represent to us. And more than that we must follow faithfully in their footsteps. We must revere them. We must put them on a pedestal where they belong. And we must follow and pursue the virtues that they exemplify. We must be charitable to those in error. We must be virtuous in the face of all the wrongdoing of the world. We must confront the immorality of the world with our own morality and virtue. We must be willing to step, to bring the light into the darkness despite what the reaction of those possessed of the darkness will be. We have to stand strong in the light. We have to follow the example of masculinity and leadership even when the world rejects it and fights against it and does everything it can to emasculate it. We must stand firm and we must follow their example because this is the only way that we can maintain the legacy of what the Catholic Church knows to be the truth and teaches as the truth. This is the only way we stand by the truth. We shouldn't try to be selfish. We should try to make friends of the world and to join in their ignorance and reinterpretation of things. But rather we need to make sure we use words, people, etc. in the way that God created them and not according to the way the world wants to reinterpret them, to reevaluate them. Because by doing so we can follow their example, we can bring light to souls in the world, we can increase the kingdom of God, and we can be a part of the salvation of souls. Until that we may be able to join them in heaven. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
St. Patrick's Mission
St. Joseph: Model of Masculinity
Conclusion
Summary
One of the more odious things that the modern world does is they claim things that are truly Catholic, and then they distort them to their own purposes. I think the two saints, two great saints we have coming up this week are excellent examples of the way in which they have been changed. One directly and one indirectly. The St. Patrick, who is coming up on Tuesday, of course, everyone knows who St. Patrick is, vaguely, and at the same time, nobody seems to understand or appreciate just who he is and what he did. The fact of the matter is, the world has suffocated the reality of St. Patrick to replace him with some sort of a Bacchanalian feast. The second saint, of course, that has been overcome by the world, but in a very different way, is St. Joseph. St. Joseph is the model of all masculinity. He is the model of what a father should be. He is the model of what a husband should be. He is the model of what a man should be.