Keeping the Faith: Patrick of Ireland

 

The St. Patrick statue pictured above was a gift to St. Matthew's Church in Tucson from Lenci Loring 

Patrick, a runaway slave, left civilization behind and returned to the land of his captors as a missionary bishop. There his crude Latin - an embarrassment in the civilized world - fit those to whom he wrote, notably Coroticus, a British slaver who called himself a Christian. No Christian are you, said Patrick, for you are a tyrant, kidnapping, enslaving, and slaughtering the innocent.. 

Patrick didn’t write much besides his letter to Coroticus but he did write an ‘apologia’ of sorts - an account of his own fitness for ministry and his credibility as a witness to the saints. It was rough and ready, more like something from the letters of Paul of Tarsus than the literary Confessions of Augustine of Hippo.

His feast we celebrate just a few days before the equinox in March. Saint Patrick’s Day has become a drinking holiday, like so many American days, but in an earlier century it was an occasion for Irish immigrants that had newly become American to proclaim their love for and loyalty to their new country. But now it is often an occasion for the wearin’ o’ the green simply to avoid being pinched, or buying the house a round.

And so we are more likely to associate the equinox with another feast of the Christian year, the Annunciation. If we celebrate the Nativity of our Savior on December 25th it is only sensible that we count nine months back to celebrate his expectation. “Here am I” says Mary, the angels let out a long held breath, and the redemption of creation begins anew. 

We nowadays seek to celebrate more than our own survival, our rescue from the pit of sin or despond: we want to mark a day in spring as a reminder of God’s creation of all things, and our place among them. 

Hence, a month after the equinox, Earth Day. This year that day falls just after Easter. And so we have some time between now and then so we can prepare with proper Lenten expectation, repentance, and humility to recall our place in creation.

Let us remind ourselves that among God’s creatures are the least of people, the forgotten, the invaded, the captive: those assaulted in their own homes and drawn away to a foreign land, as the people of Patrick were, and all those who have ached for release from captivity or relief from the oppression of violence, for the healing of wounds, and the balm of the Spirit Mary’s son bears.

From the Iona Community:

A Universal Prayer for Peace 

Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth.

Lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust.

Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace.

Let peace fill our lives, our world, our universe.

Peace, peace, peace.

Amen

https://iona.org.uk/prayers-for-the-people-of-ukraine/

The Rev. Dr. John Leech is ordained in the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement and has served as pastor in northern California and western Washington and now in southern Arizona.

JRL+ Mar 4, 2022 

https://confessio.ie/etexts/epistola_english#

A Letter To The Soldiers Of Coroticus

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/p02.html

A version of this essay was published in the Arizona Daily Star on Sunday March 13th 2022 page E2 under the title "Patrick of Ireland. https://tucson.com/lifestyles/patrick-of-ireland/article_c74b8a6e-9e49-11ec-a843-a7153b926f82.html

fleshmarket

For the Coracle, magazine of the Iona Community:

Maybe the way to write this up is to put the immediate story up front - the finding of common ground on the borders between north and south, rich and poor. Maybe with this 'local' intro for Scottish readers...

In Edinburgh, mystery writer Ian Rankin came across a street called Fleshmarket Close - where the butchers worked maybe two centuries ago - but today it had another resonance: the treatment of asylum seekers, putting people into privately-run detention centers, amounted to "a market in human flesh". Hence the book, "Fleshmarket Close"... US edition "Fleshmarket Alley". (https://www.ianrankin.net/book/fleshmarket-close/)

[In Arizona as well we know this profiteering - the private for-profit detention centers and prisons that take up so much even of our state budget at the expense of schools, humanitarian aid,... And then we have the migrant crisis.]

This January near the US/Mexico border, we saw an incomparable morning at Common Ground on the Border (an annual gathering at Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, with workshops and concerts) with the three speakers, the musicians and brief announcements, and the courtyard players - Walt Mitchell on hammer dulcimer -- which I associate with the Appalachians -- playing a southwestern ballad with PD Ronstadt and Scott Ainsley on guitar was a wonderful finding of musical common ground. And it was good to see and connect with old friends from Humane Borders, Kino Border Initiative, Cruzando Fronteras AZ, Café Justo, Tucson and Green Valley Samaritans, and more... Mediterranean Hope and now Fiona Kendall from the Church of Scotland seconded to UCC global ministries.

Here is a general impression of border and immigration ministries in this area (The Border Patrol's Tucson Sector).

What is going on around here is massive change, all too often, as our heads are kept spinning by the latest changes in federal policies and practices. Over the past six years I've seen intrepid and continuing work by many people as well as recent expressions of exhaustion.

Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson continues its work, along with their colleagues in other congregations, well beyond the Sanctuary Movement, of advocating and acting on behalf of migrants and their families.

Congregations like Trinity Presbyterian Church work with community volunteers through Catholic church agencies (Kino Border Initiative, Casa Alitas of Catholic Community Services) and United Methodists to take care of people who cross the border - or try to and then must wait. Cruzando Fronteras AZ, an Episcopal project, is building a new shelter in Nogales on the south side of the border, to accommodate migrants and refugees.

San Juan Evangelista Lutheran Church and others not only do ministry on-site but take pastors and others across the border to appreciate and deepen their understanding of the lives, heritage, and spirituality of the people of northern Sonora. Volunteers with Humane Borders, Samaritanos of Tucson and of Green Valley, and No More Deaths continue their actions to succor those in peril in the desert. (The trials of one volunteer gained national attention last year.)

And we continue to learn, through efforts of journalists like Margaret Regan, Curt Prendergast, and Nancy Montoya-Ijams, as well as authors like John Carlos Frey and Reyna Grande, what it is like to live and work through this perilous period.

The question the Iona Community - and the international humanitarian community - has for us on the borders is: how can we help?

For aren't we all on the borders, between hope and perseverance, desperation and compassion, in our common humanity?