Here is some quick background information about Saint Patrick. I will be leading a Mission Trip next year during Saint Patrick's Day. Let me know if you are interested!
Most people do not realize just how long ago Patrick lived. Patrick was 16 years old in about the year 405, when he was captured in a raid. He then became a slave in what was still radically pagan Ireland. Far from home, he clung to the religion he had ignored as a teenager. Even though his grandfather had been a priest, and his father a town councilor, Patrick "knew not the true God." But forced to tend his master's sheep in Ireland, he spent his six years of bondage mainly in prayer. He escaped at the suggestion of a dream and returned home.
Patrick was in his mid-40s when he returned to Ireland. Intimately familiar with the Irish clan system (his former master, Milchu, had been a chieftain), Patrick's strategy was to convert chiefs first, who would then convert their clans through their influence. Milchu was one of his earliest converts.
It is interesting to note that he did not drive the snakes from Ireland, as there have never been snakes on the Emerald Isle, and he was never formally canonized as a Saint in the Catholic Church.
- Christianity Today
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