During his missionary life St. Patrick visited every part of Ireland, consecrating bishops, ordaining priests, and fostering the religion of Christ everywhere. Toward the close of his life, having the happiness of seeing the entire nation within the Christian fold, he confined his labors almost exclusively to his own Archdiocese of Armagh. Previous to his death he was forewarned that he should not die in Armagh, but in Saul, "a favorite retreat which he had built upon the land given him by his first convert, Dicho." Having repaired to the monastery of Saul, he awaited joyously the hour of his entrance into eternal bliss. Being admonished by his guardian angel as to the time of his death, says the chronicler, he fortified himself with the divine mysteries, from the hand of his disciple, the holy bishop Tassach, and lifting up his eyes, he beheld the heavens opened, and Jesus standing in the midst of a multitude of angels. Then raising his hands and blessing his people, and giving thanks, he passed out of this world, from the faith unto the reality, from his pilgrimage unto his country, from transitory pain unto eternal glory.
Short Instructive Sketches from the Lives of the Saints for the use of Parochial and Sunday Schools, Academies &etc. (New York, 1888), 40-41.
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