Resurrecting St. Patrick – His Savvy and Shrewdness
Resurrecting St. Patrick – His Savvy and Shrewdness. (this post is in process and will be completed soon)
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Jesus’ word to His disciples in Matthew 10:16, which could have easily been said to St. Patrick in Ireland).
St. Patrick’s Timetable (all these dates and ages are approximate but still give us a relatively accurate glimpse):
… The Young Boy: Born around 390 AD in or near Wales in Roman Britain;
… The Teenage Slave: Kidnapped by Irish slave traders from roughly 406-412 AD, when Patrick was 16 years of age, and was enslaved in Ireland for about 6 years;
… The Obscure Priest: Trained for the priesthood somewhere in Britain and/or France, and ordained around 430 AD;
… The Pioneer Missionary: Traveled and preached mostly in western and northern Ireland for thirty years, between 432-462 AD.
Shrewd as a Snake. Jesus’ parable of the ‘Shrewd Manager‘ in Luke 16:1-9 contained a main point that was adopted by St. Patrick in his missionary methods… Be as clever for my Kingdom as those Irish are in theirs. Be savvy in matters pertaining to My Kingdom, and learn to outthink your opposition. Keep your spiritual wits about you. Don’t become self-righteous and start believing that you don’t need to be street-smart in spiritual matters. Be shrewd in your sense of self-preservation as you live in a rather dangerous world. Don’t lose your edge in your Spirit-led survival as you follow Me. Use the clever mind of Christ regarding their spiritual welfare and yours. Use your ingenuity to move you along in your spiritual walk so you can guide them in theirs. Since you are now My sheep in a wild pasture, you need to play it smart as you walk through the inevitable pack of wolves. Be imaginative and flexible as you continue to be mindful of My Kingdom’s best interests for them. Develop an effective savviness as you subversively work the angles for their spiritual benefit. Be practically wise as you plot to help the Kingdom to advance. Be on constant alert as you continue to cleverly strategize for My work in Ireland. Use the good judgment I am giving you so you won’t be gullible or naive while being challenged by their thinking and living.
Holy Syncretism. Patrick decided to meet the pagans where they were and guide them from there to Christ. His evangelistic method was to take their familiar pagan symbols and reveal how they were fulfilled in the reality of Jesus and the Christian faith. He was not about to engage in theological nit-picking, but instead to incorporate local beliefs into Christian truths. One example is his idea of what has come to be known as the Celtic Cross. There was a dominant worship of the sun in Ireland, and so Patrick designed a cross to be superimposed over the circle of the sun. He went from the sun to the Son, a pagan symbol that was fulfilled in Christ. Patrick ws clever and careful as he consecrated pagan holy sites through a christening process of prayer and fasting. He used their nature worship to introduce to them the truth of the Creator of creation, that nature was not a god that held magical powers but an example of the handiwork of God’s power and wisdom. Patrick translated Celtic nature spirituality into Christian creation spirituality, and so imaginatively transformed for them the true meaning of holy ground.
The Celtic Thin Places. One impressive aspect of Celtic tradition that Patrick incorporated into the Christian faith was their idea of thin places. The traditional thin place as the Irish understood it has been described in many ways: where the veil between heaven and earth is so thin as to be porous, permeable, practically transparent; where the space between the divine and the human has narrowed; where the boundary between heaven and earth has collapsed; where the wall between heaven and earth have become indistinguishable; where the doors between heaven and earth have cracked open enough to walk through, if only temporarily; the place where eternity and time seem to join together. St. Patrick has helped to introduce those descriptions of thin places to include… wherever God has chosen to reveal Himself and make Himself known with unusual intimacy; wherever the sacred interaction with God’s presence is more pronounced and accessible; wherever the Holy Spirit is released in a particularly powerful way; a physical space where one can more directly and intensely experience God’s presence. I like to think of a thin place as when the Spirit of God opens the skylight of the earth’s roof and helps us climb through it into the cellar of heaven. Patrick would intentionally consecrate pagan sites through his Christian presence, prayers, fasting and church rituals. And sure enough, the pagan thin places that were nature worship became sites of true God-worship.
On the one hand, God is present everywhere. As the ancient prayer of the Christian Church says, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might! Heaven and earth are full of your glory! Hosannah in the highest!” (based on Isaiah 6:3). It is preposterous to think that the Lord of the Universe is somehow more present in thin places than in thick places. There is literally not one micro-inch of the world in which God is not present. God is present everywhere, no matter what the place. His glory fills the earth, whether the space on earth is thin or thick, on a mountaintop or in a whirlwind, in a garden or in a cave. As King Solomon said in 1 Kings 8:27, “Why, the cosmos itself isn’t large enough to give You breathing room, there isn’t enough room in all of the heavens for You! The highest heaven cannot contain You!” So on the one hand, we don’t have to seek a thin place to have access to God, or for God to have access to us.
On the other hand, there are moments of special intimacy with God. It’s not unlike what happens in a healthy marriage or a deep friendship. Marriage partners or special friends spend a lot of time together, and those moments aren’t all necessarily intimate. But there are moments the friends or spouses are more attentive, less distracted, more sensitive to the moment, are more open and accessible to the other. There are times with God, too, where we are more available and receptive, when our spiritual antennae are out in full force. Perhaps those are when the thin places present themselves and the presence of God is more pronounced. In human terms, we probably are not even equipped to experience the full, ongoing intensity of God’s intimate presence. I can’t imagine a marriage with continuous personal intensity, 24/7.
The Biblical roots of thin places would definitely include physical spaces that are thin, such as the wilderness tabernacle, the Jerusalem Temple, Mt. Sinai, the Burning Bush, Bethel the place of Jacob’s dream of the ladder to heaven, and of course the Garden of Eden. There were biblical moments that could be considered thin places, such as the Cloud and Pillar, the Transfiguration, the Annunciation, and Pentecost. And it wouldn’t hurt if we consider thin places in our own earthly experiences, whether in worship or prayer, in the Sacraments or in each other. Let’s not forget that the ultimate Thin Place is actually a Person, Jesus Christ, in which the boundaries between heaven and earth were removed in His Incarnation. St. Patrick focused heavily on Jesus as the definitive Thin Place in the flesh, in which the veil between the divine and the human were blended into One. Yes, in the eternal union between the Father and the Son, Jesus is our walking, talking Thin Place, the veil of separation between heaven and earth eternally torn in two.