From the Confessio

More than 1500 years after his evangelization of Ireland, St. Patrick’s words still ring true with the power of God to transform lives and entire nations.

His personal testimony, committed to writing in his Confessio, echoes the Lord’s call that continues to reverberate in priestly hearts to this day:

“I am greatly in debt to God. He gave me such great grace, that through me, many people should be born again in God and brought to full life. Also that clerics should be ordained everywhere for this people who have lately come to believe, and who the Lord has taken from the ends of the earth (38).

“I spend myself for you, so that you may have me for yours. I have travelled everywhere among you for your own sake, in many dangers, and even to the furthest parts where nobody lived beyond, and where nobody ever went to baptise and to ordain clerics or to bring people to fulfilment. It is only by God’s gift that I diligently and most willingly did all of this for your good (51).

“May God not let it come about that I would suffer the loss of His people who have become His in the furthermost parts of the earth. I pray that God give me perseverance, and that He grant me to bear faithful witness to Him right up to my passing from this life, for the sake of my God” (58).

As we celebrate St. Patrick today, let us ask this holy bishop, who knew the “divine and sublime power” of the priesthood, to intercede for our priests. May his prayers, and ours, help to sustain them in their generous gift of self!