Happy St. Patrick's Day! 1,600 years ago, after being kidnapped from Britain by pirates and enslaved in Ireland, St. Patrick became a Christian

St. Patrick depicted with shamrock in detail of stained glass window in St. Benin's Church, Kilbennan, County Galway, Ireland

Patrick confesses that he is a sinner and that he did not know the True God

The Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell

I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, the least of all he faithful, and utterly despised by many. My father was Calpornius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a presbyter, of the village of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a country seat nearby, and there I was taken captive. I was then about sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity to Ireland with m any thousands of people -- and deservedly so, because we turned away from God, and did not keep his commandments, and did not obey our bishops, who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord "brought over us the wrath of his anger" (Isaiah 42:25) and "scattered us among many nations," (Jeremiah 9:16) even "unto the utmost part of the earth" (Acts 13:47) where now my littleness is placed among strangers.

God uses Patrick's kidnapping to draw Patrick to Himself

The neo-gothic St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City

And there (in Ireland) the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief that I might at last remember my sins and be converted with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my abjection, and mercy on my youth and ignorance. After I came to Ireland -- every day I had to tend sheep, and many times a day I prayed -- the love of God and his fear came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. And my spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night, and this even when I was staying in the woods and on the mountain; and I used to get up for prayer before daylight, through snow, through frost, through rain, and I felt no harm, and there was no sloth in me -- as I now see, because the Spirit within me was then fervent.

Patrick is kidnapped from Britain by Irish pirates, experiences six years of captivity as a slave in Ireland, escapes and returns to Britain, and then returns to Ireland to be a missionary

Slemish, County Antrim, where Saint Patrick is said to have worked as a shepherd while a slave.

I came to the people of Ireland to preach the Gospel, and to suffer insult from the unbelievers, bearing the reproach of my going abroad, and many persecutions even unto bonds, and to give my free birth for the benefit of others; and, should I be worthy, I am prepared to give even my life without hesitation and most gladly for his name, and it is there that I wish to spend it until I die, if the Lord would grant it to me. Patrick follows Jesus Christ's Great Commission I must accept with equanimity whatever befalls me, be it good or evil, and always give thanks to God, who taught me to trust in him always without hesitation, and who must have heard my prayer so that I, however ignorant I was, in the last days dared to undertake such a holy and wonderful work -- thus imitating somehow those who, as the Lord once foretold, would preach his Gospel "for a testimony to all nations before the end of the world." (Matthew 24:14) So we have seen it, and so it has been fulfilled: indeed, we are witnesses that the Gospel has been preached unto those parts beyond which there lives nobody.

'Patrick the Pilgrim' statue near the dock for the ferry to Station Island.

Source: Haykin, Michael A.G. Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2011, pages 135, 137, 138, 140, 141.

Badges of the Order of St Patrick. Top: Badge of the Grand Master of the Order. Bottom: Badge and Riband of a Knight Companion of the Order