I wish all my friends with Irish hearts a very happy St. Patrick's Day.
I found this video at StPatricksday.com Trust me. Just start the video. I promise you it will tickle your heart. I can promise that, because, I can't imagine that a person who comes to this blog wouldn't like this video. (Note: this video allows for closed captions, but they are no match for this Irish accent.)
If you need something more detailed, you can try the bio at Catholic Encyclopedia version that fills in some of the gaps in the video. Here's a sampling.
In his sixteenth year, Patrick was carried off into captivity by Irish marauders and was sold as a slave to a chieftan named Milchu in Dalriada, a territory of the present county of Antrim in Ireland, where for six years he tended his master's flocks in the valley of the Braid and on the slopes of Slemish, near the modern town of Ballymena. He relates in his "Confessio" that during his captivity while tending the flocks he prayed many times in the day: "the love of God", he added,
and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me.
In the ways of a benign Providence the six years of Patrick's captivity became a remote preparation for his future apostolate. He acquired a perfect knowledge of the Celtic tongue in which he would one day announce the glad tidings of Redemption, and, as his master Milchu was a druidical high priest, he became familiar with all the details of Druidism from whose bondage he was destined to liberate the Irish race.
You know, I very much doubt that any of those who are presently queuing up for green beer at the pubs along my walk could even begin to tell me just what it is they are celebrating, aside from the highly-advertised opportunity to get drunk and meet women.
ReplyDeleteThat said, thank you for posting this. It was informative, enriching, and encouraging to catch a glimpse of history through the eyes of such a well informed youngster whose knowledge would probably far outstrip any of those I might see along my way.
Thanks Anon for putting the video in this context. I totally agree with the first paragraph. But, you know, it is an animated film. There's a good chance there was no little girl, but rather an adult reading a script. But that doesn't take away from its charm.
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