Today the Christian world honours St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. As we do so our prayers join his for peace with justice in the land he first evangelised back in the 5th century especially in the wake of the ongoing Brexit settlement.
We can have no better thought, on St Patrick's Day, than his own famous invocation: Christ be beside me, Christ be before me, Christ be behind me, King of my heart. Christ be within me, Christ be below me, Christ be above me, never to part.
St Patrick's breastplate, so called, is dear to both Catholics and Protestants in the Emerald Isle. Today's Saint helps us rise above denominationalism and sectarianism to Christ who is above all and in all.
Jesus Christ is more real than any other reality in the world. By his resurrection he is all present and all powerful. "He is before us and behind us", as Patrick affirmed, "below us and above us". In Christ all things were made and hold together. By his blood, that of "an eternal Covenant", he is become "the Great Shepherd of the sheep" (Hebrews 13:20), desiring to bring us all into one fold.
With St Patrick today we magnify Christ knowing that it is the very purpose of the universe to be brought together in Jesus. Christ is the centre of all things and he is drawing humankind into that centre we call the Communion of Saints.
There is through another force and with that comes a tendency to division and separation. One of many endearing features of this great missionary Saint is his awareness of his sins. We forget that saints are sinners. Their great grace is the awareness of their sin. In the case of Patrick the awareness of God’s mercy in covering his sin made him the saint he was. He was all the better able to tell people of the Lord’s goodness.
I wonder what Patrick would make of our situation today? He’d rejoice that Jesus Christ is still a reality to so many in our land. He’d lament the divisions of both church and society. Perhaps above all he’d want to remind people to seek the Lord’s mercy.
The God who covers our individual sins when we seek him can also cover the sins of his church. No church or Christian anywhere exists without the grace and mercy of God. We all need mercy for the ways we’ve failed the Lord. The level playing field we must find is the ground at the foot of the Cross. To take up Patrick's breastplate, to make his prayer, is to put faith in the power of Christ following from there which overcomes the evil of sin within us.
Take Christ, then, on your right hand, Christ on your left hand, Christ all around you, shield in the strife … light of your life. So be it!
[Image from Missionaries of the Sacred Heart website]
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