Episode 413: How Saint Patrick Saved The World

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Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you're back with me again this week for another episode of Voices in My Head. This is a special episode to me because today, at the time of release, it is March 17th, which is St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is a hero of mine. If you've been listening to Voices in My Head for a while, you will probably know that one of my songs, which is, you know, I'm really kind of a non-hit wonder. I call myself a non-hit wonder anyway, anyway. But if I do have any sort of semi-hits, one of my songs that I've had published with Lifeway Worship, which has gotten quite a few plays over the years. One of my most played songs, most streamed songs, and probably most recorded songs, I guess, with Lifeway is a song called Christ is Lord, Christ Before Me. It almost was recorded with Keith and Kristin Getty, and Keith told me that it was his favorite adaptation of the the St. Patrick's Breastplate prayer that he had ever heard. And I took that as a very great compliment from him, and he's one of my favorite writers, and so I really appreciated that. And so anyway, St. Patrick's Day is always a favorite time of mine, and, and I've wanted to take a time on the podcast this week to actually share a bit about St. Patrick. I've done this before, I've shared about St. Patrick before, and I even wrote about St. Patrick in a book that I wrote a few years ago called Out of the Depths: A Songwriter's Journey Through the Psalms. And what I would like to do tonight on this episode of Voices in My Head is share some from my book, which tells a little bit of the story of Saint Patrick. In the book, I share from the chapter that is— that I write about Psalm 42. And Psalm 42 is titled in my book, I Will Still Praise Him. And again, I'm gonna just be sharing from the back half of the chapter. The chapter is titled Psalm 42, I Will Still Praise Him. If you have the book and you want to read along, that's great. If you don't have the book and you might be interested in purchasing it, you can get it on Amazon. You can actually go to right now, you can go to rickleejames.bandcamp.com. For a short time, we do have a sale going on where everything on rickleejames.bandcamp.com, uh, you can get for 25% off as a St. Patrick's Day sale. And, uh, if you use the word Irish when you're checking out, you can get everything— that's, uh, CDs, books, vinyls, you can get t-shirts, all that kind of stuff. So everything on the store is 25% off if you use the code Irish for a very limited time. In celebration of St. Patrick's Day, and, and I wanted to share about St. Patrick, so I'm going to do that by reading from my book. So here we go, Out of the Depths: A Songwriter's Journey Through the Psalms, and I'm going to be reading from that chapter. So here we go. If you don't know much about St. Patrick, I hope that you will enjoy what I'm going to share here. So I'm going to start from right about here. It's about midway through the chapter, actually. And, and the reason I'm going to start here is it gives a little bit of context about the psalmist, and then it's going to go into Patrick himself and why I felt like it was important to talk about Patrick in relation to the psalmist who wrote Psalm 42. And here goes. Although no one knows the full context of Psalm 42, Some scholars believe that the psalmist had the experience of being kidnapped and was harshly persecuted for his faith. If indeed the writer of Psalm 42 was a victim of kidnapping and was persecuted by his captors for his faith, then the following lines make a great deal of sense: When can I go and meet with my God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" I pour out my soul; my soul is downcast within me. I say to God, my Rock, "Why have You forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?" My foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" The blues, while not a welcome part of the journey, are a part of the journey nonetheless. Sometimes it takes a cross to set us free. I know the places of our deepest despair are difficult, but it's often from out of the depths that we experience the greatest opportunities for growth. We may find that our pain will become the balm of healing for the wounds of others. God can use our story of pain to tell of His glory— and the story of his healing grace and love. God can, through our weakness, change the world. There is a story that comes to mind as I try to envision what the writer of Psalm 42 may have been experiencing. While it is a heartbreaking story of loss, it's also a story that in many ways shaped Western civilization. It's my belief that the heartbreaking events of this story led to the salvation of Western civilization and education as a whole. It is the story of the man whose name we know as Saint Patrick. If you want to talk about the blues, Saint Patrick had more than his share, but God used them as only God can, to do the miraculous. The experiences of Saint Patrick were probably very similar in tone to the experiences of the psalmist. If the story of the Psalter is one of loss, exile, and alienation from one's homeland faith, then the story expressed in Psalm 42 has everything to do with the story of St. Patrick. Holding to this context, we may find a deeper understanding of how we too could pray along with the writer of Psalm 42 in our deepest times of despair. Imagine living in Ireland in the early 5th century AD. It's a land without literacy and a land without our concept of cities. It's a place of magic and superstition where spiritual realities are blurred and intertwined in large part from the influence of druids. It's a place where gods were searched for in the stones and trees. It is a place where human sacrifice was an acceptable and practiced means to appease the gods. It is a place where fierce, battle-axe-wielding warriors brought a savage terror upon their enemies. Stories of enemies' magical shape-shifting abilities made them even more terrible. This multi-tiered world of fear and power is the world of Saint Patrick. Saint Patrick's given name was Patricius. He was born into a well— he was born into a well-to-do home in Romanized Britain in 387 AD. Slavery was a common reality in the world and widespread. As a young able-bodied male, Patrick was of significant value to the slave trade and was kidnapped by Irish slavers and was taken back to Ireland where he would be held for 6 years. You can imagine how terrifying this would be for anyone, but especially for a young child. As a slave in a terrifying situation, he was forced into the wild countryside to work as a shepherd. It was a life of poverty and brutal isolation. Here, both hunger and nakedness were his only constant companions. Growing up in Roman-controlled Britain before he was enslaved, Patrick really had no significant faith in or relationship with God. He found priests and talk of God to be foolish nonsense. But later, in the cold, isolated fields of Ireland, having no one else to turn to, he turned to God, the God of his parents. And he began to pray. During this miserable 6-year period of slavery and near total isolation, Patrick became something he likely would never have become otherwise: a holy man. Patrick had been enrolled in the advanced classes of the School of the Blues, and as a result, he learned how to listen and pray deeply. Than intimately. On the final night of his captivity, a voice spoke to Patrick saying, "Your hungers are rewarded. You are going home." To make a long story a bit shorter, through the flight of many unseen and dark miles, he made his escape in a lifeboat. Months of travel and trial finally found Patrick back with his family in Britain. But the years of slavery had changed him. He was clearly not the same boy he was when he left. The physical changes were obvious, but so too were the changes to his life socially, emotional— emotionally, mentally, and above all, spiritually. He now had a new identity as a follower of Christ. Following the call of God on his life, he eventually attended a school in Gaul, became a priest, and then later accepted a call to serve as a bishop. One would think that he would have been content to stay in the ease of Britain after his traumatic years in Ireland. However, Patrick instead felt a holy restlessness that can only be described as the leading of God. Unable to escape this call of God upon his life, he returned to Ireland as a missionary. It's hard for me to imagine the amount of courage it took for Patrick to return to the land of Ireland. For him, it was a place of horror. It was a land that had stolen his freedom and his youth. What kind of faith is this? That would lead a man to follow his God back into such a frightening place? What kind of trust in God possesses a man to confront bloodthirsty, battle-axe-wielding Irishmen while being armed only with the love of Christ? That is true faith and true courage, my friends. Now, as brutish as they might have been, Patrick found that the pagans of Ireland were not completely without virtue. Patrick saw the people of Ireland as courageous, loyal, and deeply generous. When they saw that Patrick lived out these same virtues, they developed a kinship with him and became very open to what he had to say. In a very short span of time, Patrick was able to make thousands of converts to Christianity. Like Joseph in the Old Testament, Saint Patrick went from being a slave to being a man of respect and authority. He gained admiration and influence with the people of Ireland because his constancy of character and authenticity in the way he lived out the Gospel. As Patrick's influence grew, he became the first public figure to take a stand against slavery imploaring the Britons to end the slave trade in Ireland altogether. Aside from the slavery issue, St. Patrick's greatest contribution to the world might be the introduction of literacy to the Irish people. The ripple effects of this contribution cannot be overestimated. Years later, when Rome fell to the barbarian and illiterate Gothic rule, Their scriptoriums were in many cases completely destroyed, their books burned, and the employment of copywriters ended. By contrast, the Irish rapidly embraced literacy and education. Amazingly, this once warrior society turned to a Christian worldview devoid of the brutal bloodshed, and slavery that had characterized it years before. Many of the Irish were fascinated by stories of the early Christian martyrs. Their desire to recreate martyr-like circumstances led certain pious men to the concept of the Green Martyr. The Green Martyrs were reclusive holy men who removed themselves from society. They ventured into forests and other wild places for the purpose of study and prayer, This is where the concept of monasteries of the Desert Fathers further developed and flourished. The Green Martyrs would gather together in places far from the towns and villages of the land to practice intentional solitude, to study, to pray, and also to copy manuscripts. Eventually, formal monasteries were built. These Irish monasteries took on the prehistoric Irish virtue of hospitality, and all who would seek refuge there were welcomed. This once illiterate land full of stories and shapeshifters and brutal, bloodthirsty mythologies now began to fill with libraries and an open-minded brand of Christianity that seems unique even in our enlightened, postmodern era. After the Tanakh, the Gospels, and many of the epistles were recorded and redistributed by the copyists, the insatiable Irish desire for knowledge led to the copying and maintaining of Greek mythological stories comedies and tragedies. The Irish monasteries viewed all learning as sacred, not just what was found in scripture. Their open-minded brand of Christianity observed contextualized and re-traditioned holidays like May Day, Halloween, and Easter, even though they had been banned by the Church of Rome. The irony is that while Ireland was seen as the wild barbaric mission field to the rest of Europe and the areas around Jerusalem, When Rome fell in the 5th century, it was to Ireland that most of the well-educated academics fled. As anarchy spread over Europe, the formerly savage land of Ireland became a place of refuge. Exiled European academics flooded the Irish monasteries, where there was both safety and hospitality. The Irish emphasis on the sacredness of learning combined with the addition of exiled scholars, promoted these monasteries to become academic hubs for both preservation of history and the promotion of hope for the present and future. Here, the last remaining books of antiquity were copied, distributed, and treasured. This is why St. Patrick is so important not only to Christianity but also to the world. I wonder if St. Patrick had any idea that his introduction of Christianity to the Irish people would in turn save Western culture. I doubt it. I think he was just following the call of God on his life. There's a very famous prayer known as St. Patrick's Breastplate. Characteristics of its language would assign it to the 7th or 8th century, so it cannot be definitively ascribed to St. Patrick himself, but it is clearly patrician in its style. Like Patrick, the prayer sees the universe itself as a great revelation of God, designed by a loving creator to bless human beings. In his book How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill says of St. Patrick's breastplate, it is, in attitude, the work of a Christian druid a man of both faith and magic. Its feeling is entirely un-Augustinian, but it is this feeling that will go on to animate the best poetry of the Middle Ages. If Patrick did not write it, it surely takes its inspiration from him; for in this cosmic incantation the inarticulate outcast who wept for slaves, aided common men in difficulty, and loved sunrise and sea, at last finds his voice. Appropriately, it is an Irish voice. I've copied the St. Patrick's Breastplate prayer below. If we read it in light of Patrick's story, the lament of Psalm 42, and the hopeful assurance of the deliverance provided by the listening God of Psalm 42, we may just see how the hand of God can use our trials as well. The God who, in order to reveal His glorious healing power, can both hear us and deliver us regardless of our circumstances. We can raise our own voice with Patrick and the writer of Psalm 42 and say, "Why, O my soul, are you so ill at ease within me?" Don't give up. Keep your hope in God, even in these lonely times. I will still praise Him. And now, the Breastplate Prayer of Saint Patrick. I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through the belief in the Threeness, through the confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation. I arise today through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism. Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial, through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension, through the strength of His descent for the Judgment Day. I arise today through the strength of the love of Cherubim, in obedience of Angels, in the service of Archangels, in hope of resurrection to meet with reward, in prayers of Patriarchs, in predictions of prophets, in preaching of apostles, in faith of confessors, in innocence of holy virgins, in deeds of righteous men. I arise today through the strength of heaven, light of sun, radiance of moon, splendor of fire, speed of lightning, swiftness of wind, depth of sea, stability of earth, firmness of rock. I arise today through God's strength to pilot me, God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me, God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me, God's host to save me from snares of demons, from temptations of vices, from everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and near, alone and in multitude. I summon today all these powers between me and those evils. Against every cruel, merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of pagandom, against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry, against spells of women and smiths, and wizards, against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul. Christ, to shield me today against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, so that there may come to me abundance of reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in the eye, in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. I arise today through a mighty strength The invocation of the Trinity through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation. And that, my friends, is the Breastplate Prayer of Saint Patrick. And now I want to end today's show by, by playing my adaptation of that prayer in the song that I released on my album Hymns, Prayers, and Invitations through Lifeway Worship and the song is called Christ is Lord, Christ Before Me. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head, and here is that song. And God bless you, and happy St. Patrick's Day to you all.

The Father, Spirit, Son. I call upon the holy name of God, the three-in-one. I rise today by power of faith that Christ was born to save, conquering death upon the cross and bursting from the grave. Christ before me, Christ before me. Behind Christ to guide me. Christ beside Christ to comfort. Christ restore. Hallelujah! Christ is mine. Unto myself the power of his redeeming love. The sweet well done of judgment hour in Christ, this work is done. Christ before me, Christ behind, Christ to guide me, Christ beside, Christ to Come, the Christ restore. Hallelujah, Christ is Lord. I find unto myself the might of God to hold stay. His ear to hear, his eye to see, his hand to guide the way. Against the demon snares of sin that drive temptation's storm, the lust, the greed, the wars of men, in Christ their hold is torn. Christ before me, Christ behind. Christ to guide me, Christ beside. Christ to comfort, Christ restore. Hallelujah! Christ is Lord. Christ to comfort, Christ restore. Hallelujah! Hallelujah, Christ is Lord. Hallelujah, Christ is Lord.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.