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 kidnap and enslave 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. Cultural appropriation is hardly a sufficient label: 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.
Yet why not, this year as any other, 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 the release from captivity, the healing of wounds, and the balm of the Spirit Mary’s son bears.
