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View from the Pew  Mary Adamski |
St. Patrick was (gasp!)
not really an IrishmanOne of the most famous of Christian saints will be celebrated Wednesday in a church or two here, and in any number of saloons where one might hear the toast: "St. Patrick was a gentleman who through subtlety and stealth, drove all the snakes from Ireland. Here's drinking to his health."
He is revered by the Irish as the man who brought the light of Christianity to their land, and places where he walked 1,550 years ago are holy sites today, the destination of pilgrimages and tour buses.
The March 17 anniversary of his death in 461 became a celebration of their own identity for Irish immigrants to America, Australia, Canada and elsewhere. For their descendants the parades and parties continue, but many are pretty vague about the facts.
>> A man in a back pew at St. Patrick Church roared in dissent last year at the audacity of the Hawaiian priest who said Patrick was not Irish. 'Tis true. He wrote it himself in his "Confessions." Born of noble Roman parents in Britain, he was kidnapped by pirates and taken to Ireland as a teenager, where he served as a shepherd for a minor Irish king for six years before escaping. It turned out to be a great learning experience. When Patrick returned as a bishop in 433, he knew the language and politics and the Druid beliefs he had to overcome.
>> An Irish friend stimulated a similar reaction from us American visitors when she mentioned he was not the first Christian missionary to Ireland. 'Tis true, according to church chronicles. Pope Celestine sent French Bishop Palladius to Ireland in 431. Opposed by the Druid religionists, he managed to build three churches before he either died a martyr or went on to Scotland as a missionary. Like so many tales of the Irish, fact and myth are hard to sort out.
>> The shamrock that Irish will wear Wednesday is a religious symbol. Patrick used nature to demonstrate the Trinity -- God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, separate and still one. One of Hawaii's best-known Irishmen, the late Foodland founder Maurice Sullivan, may have flinched from his heavenly cloud last week at a mailed store flier in which a copy writer described the Trinity as "faith, hope and charity."
Many members of the Celtic Pipes and Drums corps, who will lead the Wednesday Waikiki parade, feel a pang of loss each year at this time. Their pre-parade tradition for years was to be sent off on the march by Sister Roberta Derby, an Irishwoman of dignity and depth of soul, before her death in 1996.
There's not a toast to be heard next week that could compete with hearing Derby recite or sing the beautiful prayer and the saint's own composition known as "St. Patrick's Breastplate." It goes, in part:
"I bind to myself today, God's power to guide me, God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to teach me, God's eye to watch over me, God's shield to shelter me.
"Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left.
"Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me."
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Religion Calendar
Mary Adamski covers religion for the Star-Bulletin.
Email her at madamski@starbulletin.com.