Episode 541 - Praying with Patrick - Matt Mikalatos and Aaron Burns

Well, welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad for all of you who are listening today. Uh, this is a, a podcast that I'm really excited to share because I am such a fan of the subject matter. Uh, as many of you who have, uh, listened in the past to, uh, Voices in My Head podcast, you will know that Um, I have not only written music about St. Patrick and have written songs from the, the famous Breastplate Prayer of St. Patrick, but even when I endeavored and wrote a book a few years ago, um, I included a section that was all about the life of Patrick. Well, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Fascinating Podcast, about a week or so ago, and I heard that one of the hosts, Matt Michelatos, was coming out with a new book about St. Patrick. And so today I am really excited to be able to share the authors of these books with you today. Matt Michelatos and Aaron Burns have both joined me on Voices in My Head today, and we're going to find out more about their new book, Praying with St. Patrick. So Matt and Aaron, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thanks, Rick.

Thank you. Excited to be with you.

Well, it's, it's so, uh, great to be with you. I, I have actually Believe it or not, Matt sent me the book last week and I uploaded it so I could kind of— what I sometimes do when I'm driving is I'll upload a book and then do the thing that iPhones do where they let you kind of read the screen and speak it to you. So I was kind of listening to your book like an audiobook as I'm going down the road. And I was on my way to a hospital, actually, because not only because I work as a chaplain part of the time, but also just there was someone in my life who was very sick and in the hospital., and I ended up using, um, one of the, one of the prayers inspired by Patrick coming from this book. And, and I just felt like it was such a timely thing to be able to talk to both of you today. So let's just dive kind of right into the book today. Um, tell me first, like, what inspired you guys, uh, to write this really neat book that is really not just a book about Patrick, but it's one that's a prayer book too? And I'll let either one of you who wants to start, Matt or Aaron, tell me how this book came about.

Oh, that's, that's Aaron's to answer, actually.

So I, like, I think 33 million Americans pretend to be Irish every St. Patrick's Day. So like, you know, there's a good chunk of Americans like, oh yeah, I'm Irish. And you know, your Irish friends will make fun of you and say, no, you're not Irish, you're American who happened to have an ancestor who used to live in our country. But growing up, you know, we'd wear green t-shirts and, you know, eat corned beef or whatever on St. Patrick's Day. But had no idea if St. Patrick was any more real than, you know, Robin Hood or King Arthur or something. So a few years ago, I stumbled into the letters of St. Patrick and read what he actually wrote. And the testimony of this man is so profound, and the impact that he had on his world through his prayers and his faith and his life of obedience, uh, in his day was so profound that I said, I would love to share this with her will today. So was exploring his life and wound up talking with Matt about it, and he said, this should— this could be a book. This would be interesting to share some of these things. That began our journey, uh, to write, uh, Praying with Patrick.

Well, let me ask this question going into that, because one thing that to me is fascinating about St. Patrick is kind of all the legends around him. And your book deals a little bit with it kind of in the beginning about some of the things that, you know, have been said about him. But for the longest time, I didn't know anything about St. Patrick except, you know, like, okay, we wear green on that day and you get pinched if you don't wear green. And, uh, you know, there's the— they changed the, the river, I think, in Chicago to the color of green on St. Patrick's Day and all kinds of different stuff. Uh, but tell me about, like, some of your favorite— and this is, again, let maybe Matt would know this too. We'll let him answer the next question. Do you have any, like, of your favorite, like, myths about Patrick that have been told over the years? Because I know the one is about him driving all the snakes out of Ireland, and I don't think there were snakes there to start with. But anyway, that's a great question, Rick.

Yeah, you know, it's funny, we purposely steered away from the more obviously legendary things like him driving the snakes out of We both love that story. It's actually a symbolic story about Patrick coming and removing dangerous spirits and religious practice from Ireland, which is really interesting. But as near as we know, there never were snakes on Ireland, right? So it's all spiritual metaphor, which is pretty cool. One of my favorite stories about Patrick probably is you know, he is enslaved in Ireland, so he's not originally from Ireland. He manages to escape in a really God-ordained way, like God tells him when to leave and he finds a boat and he gets away. But what the story I love is that he's praying one day and has this vision essentially of the people of Ireland saying, 'We need you to come back.' and tell us what you know. So if you can just imagine that someone who has been enslaved being invited back to the country where he lived as a slave to come back and share the gospel with people, which I just think is really beautiful, not just the invitation, but then he does it and he becomes— we think of him as Irish because he goes and becomes so deeply embedded in that culture and with those people. But he wasn't. At least initially, right? He's, he's an immigrant, which I think is a really beautiful and interesting story about how the gospel works. Like, he becomes Irish to share God with the Irish.

Oh, man, that is— that's fantastic. And, you know, I love the way that you share in the book, too, about that, because he, he was not, as you say, originally Irish. He was kidnapped and was, was taken there and was made a slave. It's interesting to me that while he grew up in, in the church, that he didn't want anything to do with it. And it was kind of— he was a pretty wild guy actually before all this happened and before he was kidnapped. Um, one thing that I find amazing about his story, um, so often the work that I do as a chaplain is just sitting with people and listening to their stories and just helping them kind of be. And then maybe they hopefully can be present to the presence of God that's there with them. But my job is not to like go in preach and tell them what the story is. It's, it's more to listen to their story. And one thing that I find fascinating about Patrick is he really didn't have much to do with faith when he was younger, but being out there in the fields tending the sheep, um, listening and just being alone and being, um, for really— I, I often think of him like freezing, you know, just kind of waiting and listening, remembering the stories of the faith that he heard, but then getting to know the God who really is, you know. And, and it feels almost like he had to learn how to just be with God by literally being taken away from it all and to just be kind of in that place. Um, so anyway, that was just one part of the story that to me is amazing. I feel like his life was, um, was guided and he was kind of carried along from place to place throughout all of his story, um, even his escape, getting away from Ireland. Um, but what, what were some of the, the parts of your story story so that I don't go on too long, because I can talk all day about Patrick myself. What were some parts of the story— was there anything that maybe was new to you as you were studying about him, or maybe just some new insights at all that, that felt new because it struck you in a new way during the writing of this book?

Yeah, tons, tons of them, uh, for me as I just processed on his life. I'll share one that I think is It's interesting, as you were saying, Rick, the way God's sovereignty and God's providence orchestrated his journey. There's the famous scripture in the Old Testament where Joseph is talking to his brothers who also enslaved him and, you know, sold him as a slave. And I see parallels between their story in some ways. And Joseph says, what God meant— what you meant for evil, God used for good. And that theme is so evident in Patrick's life that over and over again, there are things that other people did to him or looked like they were great evils that in the end were used for good. And I think as we, as we look at our lives, sometimes we ask God, why are you doing this? And why is this happening to me? Um, and, and as time passes, often we can look back and see that it's a loving Heavenly Father who has a bigger plan, a bigger purpose for you than, than we can see. And that's so evident, um, in Patrick's life. One other that I'll, I'll mention A lot of times we see these heroes in, in history and we think of them as men and women of action who jump up and they see a problem and they go conquer it and they get it done. My personality type is an action type. I want to go do things and get them done. I see a need, I want to do it. But often I find myself waiting, and the waiting can be a very frustrating, very hard season. I know in you know, as I counsel in my church and talk to people through things, waiting is one of the hardest trials. And we see Patrick doing that time and again in his life. When he's enslaved, he spends 7 years waiting for an opportunity to escape. Then when he comes back, even as Matt mentioned, this, this calling to go back and share Jesus' love with the people of Ireland, there's another long period of waiting. And for us, that's a lesson that I often think about is learning to wait well. And learning to trust God through those things, that he has a plan, and to be faithful, um, in the mundane, uh, even as we all dream of being heroes and of, of, of doing something of, of purpose and vision. A lot of times, learning to wait well is the foundation for us to be able to be used in big ways.

Wow, man. Yeah, learning to wait is a very difficult thing. I think one of the To me, one of the hardest things, uh, that, that we are challenged to do in scripture, it's just the, the words that say, be still, be still and know that he is God. We have the hardest time just being still. I, I almost feel like it's easier to do things than to just actually be still in the presence of the Lord and to wait and to listen, even to find Sabbath rest and things like that. It's, it's really a difficult and challenging thing. Um, I, I would love to to know your thoughts as well, both of you or either of you. Looking through the prayers and the story of Patrick in his life, I'm always interested kind of by the shape that Christianity takes throughout kind of different eras and the way that it looks. I think the way that it looked in Patrick's time was probably quite different and maybe even unrecognizable if someone like Patrick was to walk into some of our churches today. Just like I think the same thing about the disciples, you know, if they were to walk into one of our churches and they'd think, what is this, you know, all about? Just because of the, the way that, that faith has been shaped so differently. How do you think Patrick's— maybe his approach to like evangelism, to bringing the gospel— I, I don't know if this is even anything you thought about, but the way that he went back, it, it seems to me he didn't have sort of a, I'm going to overtake this land with the gospel and, and conquer, you know. It was more or less I'm going to go to this very scary place, you know, because it really was a time of, of like barbarians. I almost picture like people with battle axes and Patrick walking in and, you know, let me tell you about God in the midst of all that. What did you find? I mean, is there anything that kind of, as you have thought about his life, the way that he approached things, what do you think maybe we could take from that today, I guess, as different as it may be?

Well, let me take— I'll give one take on it, and then I'll let Matt give a take as well, because we— there's lots of different ways you could approach that question. The first way I think that I would answer it is actually disagreeing with the premise that it was very different for him, uh, because when you read his letters, there— the forms and maybe the external nature of things were shockingly different. Again, you'll see you know, guys just walking by with a truckload of slaves like, oh yeah, you can buy this guy for 20 gold pieces. You're like, that doesn't look like my world. Or if I've got more warriors and battle axes than you, I can just come over and take all your stuff. Or, you know, they're just, you know, let's sacrifice your children on this rock over here and bash their heads in there. So there's things that look externally very different. But the heart of his faith, if you just read his letter, the heart of his faith, the God he believed in, the truths that sustained him are so similar, they're identical. So he could come to your church and share a message about the theology of missions or the sovereignty of Jesus or the need for loving your neighbor, and it would be an identical message to what you would go out and share today. So from the, the heart of it, it— to me, that was one of the most moving things, is that 1,500 years ago, here's a guy who's 400 or 500 years removed from the teaching of the apostles in early church history, all the way up to our modern day, that that truth has been preserved. We believe the same thing he believes. We serve the same God he does. The power that was available to him to go and do the courageous acts that he did in Ireland is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and the same power that is able to flow through us today. So from that perspective, I was very encouraged and surprised at how that thread of faith had been preserved to us.. But yeah, there's lots of others on the other side of that as well, which maybe Matt can speak to.

I think, yeah, it's actually interesting when you start looking at scholars who study St. Patrick. They're very skeptical of almost every piece of the story. It seems so unbelievable to them, including things like, was Patrick actually enslaved? Did he really go back? That seems unlikely. But it's purely based around this kind of gut feeling of people wouldn't do that. Uh, which is kind of funny because that's part of the point of Patrick's story, is that he's doing something that, yeah, an ordinary person would not do. He's doing it because God is calling him to, empowering him to. Um, I think one thing to remember is we're, we're at the tail end of the Roman Empire here. The Christian church is just one church. It hasn't really splintered at all yet. We're less than 100 years out from the Council of Nicaea, so we're still like trying to keep everybody together. And but Patrick was controversial because when he goes to Ireland, he does things in a little different way than the rest of the church is doing at the time. He, he is becoming deeply embedded in Irish culture. He, of course, he already knows the language and he's doing some things that people felt a little weird about sometimes. But kind of weird in the same way people felt about Jesus, right? Like he's hanging out with, with really the lowest levels of society. He's baptizing people. He's in his church is being attacked. Like literally there he has a letter where some soldiers came through and just kidnapped or murdered a bunch of his people. And then he writes them this really kind of strongly worded letter. Like, hey, you can't be doing that, you know, stuff like that. So he was a really weird, interesting dude. He's buying slaves to set them free. He goes back to his owner, you know, quote, owner, to apologize to him for running and shares the gospel with him. Also, you know, all these unexpected things. So in that sense, I think it's really different than our expectations of how someone would do evangelism today. He didn't— he didn't go— he didn't— he never said, So I've heard some American pastors that I grew up with saying things like, we will worship in church and God will draw people to us and they will see that life we live. And if God is calling them, they'll desire that. That was not Patrick's. If that's someone's philosophy, Patrick's was very opposite. He saw the church as one that went to the wounded, went to the poor, went to the enslaved, and brought good news to them. Didn't like he wasn't, uh, he didn't think, oh, let's just light a light somewhere. He said, let's bring a light to them in the darkness, uh, which, which I think is really cool and one of the things that's really inspiring about Patrick for me.

Yeah, well, and I'm glad for what both of you mentioned. Um, I just, I think of him as such a courageous person, you know, because he really did, uh, as, as you were saying, wasn't confined to the church walls for him to go back and it— you'll have to help me if I'm wrong on my facts. It's been a while since I read about, uh, Patrick outside of your book, but he was quite a bit older, I think, before he kind of accepted the call to go back to Ireland, if I remember. Like, he'd been serving as a priest, and, and it was almost like, I think, maybe even in his 40s, if I'm not mistaken. Do you guys recall how old he was when he started to go back and do that kind of new mission to Ireland?

Or those timelines are bit fuzzy.

Okay.

It could have been as late as, yeah, mid-'40s or a bit later.

All right.

Which is pretty incredible.

Yeah. And, you know, I think about that too. And for me, it's been like 3 years now since, you know, I've had God really shake things up in my life and ministry and call me into this whole new thing of chaplaincy, which entering school and, you know, going into uncomfortable, weird places. Nothing quite like Patrick did, but it is interesting to me when I think about kind of that timeline. We often have stories not only of Patrick, but, um, you think of Abraham in the Bible and different ones who— they're not like young people whenever God says, uh, go do something. I actually think that is, is a wonderful message for us to continue sharing with people wherever we go too, that like God's not just calling young people, and there's not just one or two of you who are called to leave your church and go somewhere to minister. Like, God wants all of us to go. And you could be— doesn't matter if you're in your 40s or 80 years old or whatever, there's a special place that God has for you, I think, uh, to, to go out and, and just be Christ in the world and share this message. So I really love— so, Matt, you kind of grinned when I was talking about that.

Did something come to mind whenever I Oh, I was just thinking, yeah, it's really great for us old folks to hear that message. You know, like, it's nice.

Oh yeah.

Don't worry, old people. God hasn't forgotten you. Go do something important in the world.

Well, as you read his letters, one theme that just breaks through is the theme that God can use anybody. Yeah, it's really unlikely. Patrick himself spends half the letter apologizing for how unlikely it is that he'd be the guy who got picked. Yeah, he says, look, I barely can read and write Latin. And it's— and I talked about this as we're writing our book. He says, I'm not a very good writer and I can't write concisely and beautifully like all y'all can. And, you know, in this kind of fumbling language, he says, I don't have an education. I don't have any credentials. I shouldn't be the one who's doing this. But God called me and God chose me. I have sins in my past. I have failures in my past. I'm a broken person. I still struggle today. I still struggle with sin today. But God called me and he's using me. And when you see the scope and scale of how God used him, you assume he must be this amazing guy. And he wasn't. He was just a very, very normal person who allowed himself to be used. And that's encouraging to me because I, like all of us, have big dreams about a big God, but I'm not that big of a person. So the humility that Patrick had and the way God used him is very inspiring, I think, for all of us, whether you're young or old, important or educated or otherwise.

Yeah, well, I, I agree. I, every time I read about him, uh, I just find him incredibly inspiring. So you know what, let's— speaking of reading, let's talk just a little bit specifically about kind of the way that your book is structured, because I think it might be interesting to people to learn. I think sometimes when we talk about reading about people who are maybe not from our time, we get a little bit intimidated because some of the writing at times— um, a good example, we're, we're reading Aristotle right now in one of my classes, and he's not exactly writing in a way that's easy for like modern readers to read. So sometimes when they hear about somebody like Patrick, like, I don't know if I want to tackle this. Um, but talk to us about like the structure of the book, because it really is something that I feel like anyone can pick up and really glean something from. Tell us about the way that it's just structured, kind of beginning to end, and the way that you intended it for, for it to be used.

Well, I think one— I mean, a great benefit we have with St. Patrick is we do actually have some things he wrote, which is not true of all the early church saints. Uh, and so that's really cool. We wanted to use his actual words in there. So what you'll find is Uh, it's set up kind of like a devotional, right, where each entry will have a quote from St. Patrick from something in his life or something he was thinking about or an insight he has about God. Then there'll be a scripture that, for, for one or whoever of us wrote it, or, you know, we planned it all out together, uh, that like—

Scriptures, man.

No, no, no, we've not yet. No, we're working up to that. God uses anyone he wants, you know, etc. No, but when we're writing the book together, we found scriptures that resonated for us on the topic or with what Patrick was saying, or sometimes he's just quoting scripture. Uh, and then we would write about either something that happened in his life or something we think he would have been thinking about. And then after that, we have a prayer, and the prayer is, uh, something— sometimes it's an actual prayer of Patrick, sometimes it's something we could imagine him praying or us praying alongside him. And then it's all connected to things that hopefully we you might be experiencing in your regular life, right? So, uh, prayers for when you're feeling alone, which Patrick did multiple times. Uh, so then there would be a whole entry where we're talking about Patrick feeling alone, and then we can enter in as fellow believers into that moment and pray to— not— we're not saying you're literally praying together with Patrick because we're actually not Catholic, but we are saying that we're praying in the same way that Patrick did in those days. Um, so yeah, that's the basic setup. Uh, also it's set up so that you're walking kind of chronologically through his life too, so you can read it through as a story, or you can do a daily, like a devotional. Like, it's, it's a pretty flexible, uh, tool as a book.

Good. Well, it is, uh, really— I, I really appreciate the, the way that it's structured, the way that you've set it up, and I applaud both of you for helping us be able to put Patrick back in and shed some light on him again for people that might not know about him. And it's the perfect time of year actually for that. So I want to let all the listeners know today that if they go to wherever they listen to the podcast, if you look in the show notes of the podcast, you should be able— if the technology works the way it's supposed to, I always give that preface— but you should be able to, with just a click on the link that's in the show notes to this episode, it should take you to the book. It'll take you to more information about Matt, more information about Aaron, and we want to make it very accessible to you to do that. And if you have any problems, you can also look up, uh, Praying with Saint Patrick, and you'll be able to find that wherever you find books from. Um, now guys, before we end our conversation together today, is there anything that like you're really excited about, um, as far as the book, or maybe it doesn't even have to be this book, any upcoming projects or anything that you would like to share? I'd love to give you a moment to do that.

I'll just share one thing about St. Patrick in the book. In his letter, he prays, you know, a number of prayers, but one of them said, I pray that anyone who reads these words that Patrick the Unlearned Sinner wrote from Ireland, when he thinks about what God did here, when he thinks about me, he wouldn't think of me, but he would think of Christ. And I read that, you know, a few years ago as we were meeting St. Patrick. I thought, this is a prayer that's been sitting out here for 1,500 years and has not been answered yet. So if you, you know, if you take a minute to read his book or, you know, to, to read the book that we wrote about him, you're a part of answering that 1,500-year-old prayer. And would you take an opportunity, you know, here coming up in a week or two, always St. Patrick's Day, as people wish you a happy St. Patrick's Day, are you wearing a green t-shirt? What a neat time to say, hey, can I tell you a little bit about the man behind the story and the God that he served? And it's been such a fun thing to be a part of sharing his story and then doing that, sharing the love of God with the people around us today. So I hope that as people read this book or look up his letters and take an opportunity to do that, what a beautiful opportunity our culture affords us by having a day that we celebrate the amazing things that happened there.

That's terrific. And Matt, how about you?

Yeah, I, uh, you know, it's funny, we talked this whole time and never even mentioned Aaron and I met because he had a movie script about St. Patrick's life, and a mutual friend introduced us, and I read it and it was beautiful. And Aaron was looking at potentially doing a movie about St. Patrick because Aaron is a filmmaker. And we've worked on a number of projects together. We did the story together for a movie called Legacy Peak, and then Aaron— I wrote it and he went and made it, which is amazing. He has a movie out recently called Birthright Outlaw and a movie called Beyond the Mask. But yeah, if you're interested in those sorts of things, I think that's a really fun way to get into Aaron's world a little bit too. Excellent. Yeah. And we're hoping that St. Patrick movie might come around someday. It's really an amazing story. And Aaron has worked hard to make so many connections in Ireland and elsewhere. So be praying for that, if you would, that Aaron would get a chance to make this movie about this amazing saint.

Oh, man, I would love that. I hope that happens too, because I'd be the first one to buy a ticket for sure. I'd love to see that.

Oh, it's— and it's a beautiful script, Rick. When I, when I read it, I literally was crying when I got to the last page. And I get sent a lot of terrible scripts, and I was really worried when I started reading it. And then by the time I got to the end, I was so invested, I was like, I've got to get to know this guy better. Oh, so that's really great stuff.

Well, great. Well, I hope the rest of us get to see it one day because that sounds amazing. Well, you know, both of you, I wanted to share something with you as we close today. Sometimes when I am in hospital rooms with people, it didn't occur to me actually until I picked up your book last week, and this isn't like specifically written this way in your book, but it just struck me. Um, I was like, why am I not using Patrick's prayer when I'm with patients, uh, in the room? And the breastplate prayer, which again we think maybe someone associated with Patrick or someone, uh, maybe Patrick himself wrote it, maybe he didn't, but it doesn't matter because it really captures the heart of his ministry. But it occurred to me in that breastplate prayer. And Aaron, you actually kind of alluded to it a moment ago from some of the things Patrick wrote. There's the part that's very famous, the Christ with me, Christ before me, and all that. And it occurred to me, like, what a beautiful prayer for us to pray over others if we just change that me to you. And I've been in a couple situations, even just since you gave your book to me, where I've got to pray this prayer over other people in hospital rooms and, and in people who are in pretty desperate places in their lives. And I thought it might be a good way for us to kind of close our conversation today, uh, for everybody listening today, all of us included, just as I use this as a prayer today. Um, Christ with you, Christ before you, Christ behind you, Christ in you, Christ beneath you, Christ above you, Christ on your right, Christ on your left, Christ when you lie down. Christ when you sit down. Christ when you arise. Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of you. Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of you. Christ in every eye that sees you. Christ in every ear that hears you. Amen. And I, I think that's probably one of the better benedictions we could have today. I'm so grateful Patrick's prayers, and I'm thankful for both of you. Thank you for putting this into this wonderful new book. Um, and by the way, just as we close out our time today, if any of you are looking for some music to go along with your St. Patrick's Day celebration, you can just look up my name with the song Christ is Lord, Christ Before Me, and it's, it's actually written from that famous breastplate prayer of St. Patrick. And I hope it'll be something that will help us all as we worship together coming into this, uh, this another time when we get to celebrate the life of Patrick. And maybe our churches, we can actually, uh, highlight his life and the things that he actually did rather than the things that he didn't. So guys, thank you so much for being a couple of the voices in my head this week. Um, I'm so grateful, uh, to be able to have all of you who are listening come back week after week. Thank you for listening listening to Voices in My Head. You can find out more about me at rickleejames.com, and our podcast is at voicesinmyheadpodcast.com. So we'll see you around next time. Thank you and God bless.