The Prayer of Saint Patrick
Week of Monday, March 18, 2002
Sunday March 17 commemorated Saint Patrick's Day, but for most Protestants the extent of honoring this saint probably went no further than gawking at the Chicago River dyed green each year at this time. Protestant individualism, which places man before God with no mediator between them except the Bible, makes it hard if not impossible or even impermissible to honor the saints, and that's a pity. Personally, the more company I keep on this journey with Jesus the better and safer I feel, and I am confident that I need all the help I can get from saints dead or alive. “To hell with the future,” runs an Irish joke, “we live in the past.” Protestants could enrich their faith if they would learn to move beyond their individualism and live in the past a little more, and one way to do that is to learn from the saints that have gone before us.
Saints are not mediators for us. That unique role belongs to Jesus, “the one mediator between God and man” (1 Timothy 2:5). Thus, we honor the saints but we do not worship them. Rather, the saints compose that “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) that urge us on in the faith. They comprise the invisible church in heaven as opposed to the visible church here on earth, and are included in the “communion of the saints” that Christians say they believe in when they recite the Apostles' Creed each week. I like how Sergei Bulgakov refers to them: they are our friends, and it is not beyond my imagination to hope and think that they do, in fact, pray for me and somehow help to protect me.1 Lord knows, I need it.
One way to think about saints is to understand them as Christians who have distinguished themselves in holiness or, perhaps, their extraordinary level of self-sacrifice. Here we think of a “saint” in the singular sense of the word, like Saint Patrick. Jesus says the twelve apostles will sit with him in heaven at the renewal of all things (Matthew 19:28). Presumably they are with Him now even as I write, and I want to think that they care for me. Revelation 6:9 mentions all the saints who have been martyred for their faith. If we skip to the present it is not difficult to add some modern day believers who can and must be thought of as saints in this singular sense, people like Mother Teresa, who shone like bright stars in the dark world (Philippians 2:15).
But in the New Testament the word “saints” is almost always used in the plural, in a down-n-dirty sense, if you will. It is not a category to describe the great ethical achievement or extraordinary personal sacrifice of a very few people. If it was, then most of us would be left out. I know I would be. Rather, all believers are saints (1 Corinthians 1:2) and “called to be saints” (Romans 1:7), which means nothing more or less than to be set apart to God. Sainthood, by God's grace, is the expected trajectory of every believer. This is a radical and liberating notion, for when you think about it and extend the category to all believers you realize that
it is not just the saints of the church that we should remember in our prayers, but all the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and whole ones, the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives who, one way or another, have been our particular fathers and mothers and saints, and whom we loved without knowing we loved them and by whom we were helped to whatever little we may have, or ever hope to have, of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own.2Thank God for all His saints, the extraordinary, singular ones like Mother Teresa, and the regular, everyday ones like me who struggle, straggle and stumble on the journey with Jesus.
Recovering reliable historical information about many of the saints is difficult if not impossible, and Saint Patrick (c. 390–461) is no exception. Born in Scotland, Patrick was imprisoned and taken to Ireland when he was about sixteen years old. He retuned to Scotland, only to have a dream in which the people of Ireland called out to him, “we beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once again.” He did return, and although the details are obscure and the legends are large, he wandered and ministered in Ireland for over thirty years, converting the nation.
Saint Patrick is also remembered for his moving prayer, the so-called “Saint Patrick's Breastplate.” I offer it to you this week, as one saint to another.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude.I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may come to me in abundance.Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
-
Sergei Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1988), p. 119.
- Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey (San Francisco: Harper, 1982), p. 74.
The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself Copyright ©2002 by Dan Clendenin. All Rights Reserved.
