In yesterday's post we were reminded of Saint Patrick's unique status as a documented saint of fifth-century Britain and Ireland. This is a point reiterated by one of Saint Patrick's more recent translators, Sister Máire B. de Paor, PBVM. In the introduction to her 1998 analysis of Saint Patrick's writings she states:
Saint Patrick is known to many as Apostle of Ireland; as first Romano-British missionary bishop, beyond the pale of Roman civilisation, he is known to a few; but as a littérateur of stature and genius and a spiritual thinker of great depth and originality, he is relatively little appreciated...Yet, in Patrick's writings we have two unique, personal, spiritual documents from the darkest of the Dark Ages, fifth-century Northern Europe. Indeed, they are the only personal documents that can be claimed by either the Church in Britain or the Church in Ireland from that troubled century.
..We Irish are, moreover, the only nation who have the great privilege of treasuring the writings of our Father in the faith about his founding of the Christian Church in our country. Conscious of the unique Christian heritage bequeathed to us by our national apostle who has left such an indelible impression on his people, I have attempted a modest literary and spiritual exposé of his writings to mark the fifteenth centenary of his death.
Máire B. de Paor, PBVM, Patrick the Pilgrim Apostle of Ireland- An Analysis of St Patrick's Confessio and Epistola (Dublin, 1998), 6-7.
Having witnessed the attempts to de-Christianize the celebration of Saint Patrick's Day 2026 here in Ireland, it would seem that our need to appreciate the privilege of treasuring our national apostle's writings has become more pressing.
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