Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Today in the Diocese of Norwich we are honored to celebrate with great solemnity
the feast of St. Patrick because St. Patrick is the titular patron of the diocese,
that is, he is the primary patron of the diocese,
and so he is our patron and our protector for we who dwell in the Diocese of Norwich.
And so we have great reason to rejoice and to celebrate
for the life of St. Patrick truly shows the power of Jesus Christ in converting.
St. Patrick's life story is somewhat disputed,
but it is pretty clear now from historical records
that St. Patrick was born on the island of England,
in that part of England known as Wales,
and at an early age he was captured by the Irish,
who were also descendants of the same people,
and he was enslaved.
He would escape from Ireland,
and there he would dedicate himself more earnestly to the Christian faith.
Eventually he would be ordained a priest,
and he would be consecrated a bishop by the Pope.
And when the bishop consecrated,
when the Pope consecrated St. Patrick,
he would change his name to Patricus, that is, Patrick, Patriarch,
because it is said that when the Pope consecrated him a bishop,
he told him that he would become the father of a nation.
And so it was that St. Patrick, at the prayers and the pleas of the Irish people,
especially two girls who were said to be twins,
St. Patrick would return to Ireland,
and he would begin to work earnestly to convert those people.
The Irish people, before that conversion to Christianity,
were a people of a deep spirituality.
Unfortunately, it was not the spirituality of Christ,
it was the spirituality of Satan.
And because they had perhaps the most developed understanding
of the soul in the pagan world,
that was truly a depraved culture,
for we know full well of the human sacrifices of the Druids,
but it was also the human sacrifices of the Druids,
but it was also, as it were, not a depraved culture,
like the native Indians in America were
when they were first brought to missionary activities.
It was a high culture, and so it was a sophisticated culture
in which Satan was honored in a sophisticated manner.
And so St. Patrick would have much work to do,
and he would do that work.
Often it would be punctuated by miraculous signs,
for one day when a group of the Irish
that he had converted were trapped by some Druids,
St. Patrick simply turned to his faithful
and told them to do whatever he said
and to follow him wherever he went.
And so the bishop began immediately to walk
through the very midst of the camp of the Druid soldiers.
The people, as it were, were very fearful,
and they did not know what was transpiring.
So St. Patrick would lead them right through the camp,
and when the account was given,
the soldiers of the Druids said that they saw a stag leading,
as it were, many does, is how the people appeared to them.
And so divine providence was certainly on the head of St. Patrick
as he labored earnestly for the conversion of the people.
And it is why St. Patrick truly can be called
the father of the Irish nation,
for what really determines a nation ultimately is how the men,
the leaders of that nation, decide to live.
And after they accepted the work of St. Patrick
and converted to the Christian faith,
the Irish people settled down and to live as a people
truly consecrated and truly claimed by Jesus Christ.
And so they would build up what would become known
as one of the great Christian cultures in Christendom.
Indeed, during a time of darkness over the European culture,
it was the Irish people who would preserve all the great works
of the doctors and fathers of the church,
and eventually it would be the Irish missionaries
that would reconvert the European nation.
They would labor in all the lands of Europe,
Spain, France, and Germany.
And so they truly, as it were, embraced the teaching of St. Patrick.
And St. Patrick summarizes up his whole life for us
in what is known as the Lorica,
that is the breastplate of St. Patrick,
in which he expresses
a most deep and profound faith in the Blessed Trinity
and also in the incarnation, passion, and death of Christ.
And he concludes it by saying that Christ is all around him.
He says, Christ to his left, Christ to his life,
Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ above me, Christ below me.
Everything for St. Patrick was Christ,
and he wished only that people would come to know, love, and serve Christ.
And so, on this Feast of St. Patrick,
let us also earnestly remember our responsibilities
as being members incorporated into the mystical body of Christ,
that we have an obligation not always to complain about the bad things
we see going on in the Church,
but most especially we must pray,
and pray especially for our bishops who are successors to the Apostles.
Pray that they too lead the people like St. Patrick.
St. Patrick was truly a great pastor
of his people and truly a great bishop
because he did not count the cost to himself.
He only counted what was entrusted to him by Jesus Christ,
and that was the Irish people.
And so, he would risk his life often and almost every day in order,
as it were, to see that those people be converted to the faith of Christ.
And so, we must pray also that our bishops are heroic
in the man of St. Patrick and all the great bishop saints
of the Church, those, that is, men willing to die,
rather than to compromise the faith in any way or even in the slightest,
because they, like St. Patrick, take their responsibility,
their primary responsibility, which is to hand on the doctrine of Christ
to all nations and to all peoples, or as our Lord expressed it,
to go forth and to teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In this day and age in which we are often told
that it is not our responsibility to go forth and convert the world,
Christ himself teaches us in the Gospel that that is not the Christian spirit,
and it is certainly not the spirit that is to imbibe the bishops and priests of the Church.
They must always have a missionary attitude.
They must always be seeking the conversion of all people,
and indeed, it matters not how depraved those people are,
for St. Patrick did not fear the depravity of the Druids around him,
because he knew and he truly believed that the power of Christ
was much more powerful than all the forces of Satan,
if they were to be, as it were, amassed in one place at one time.
The power of Christ can overcome it even in an instant,
and often in the conversion of the Irish people,
that obstacle that Satan would try to put in the way of St. Patrick was overcome in an instant.
And so, he would labor hard in long hours,
but also there would be those moments of instant conversion of the people.
And so, if it was not enough for St. Patrick to burn himself out,
laboring like this for the conversion of souls,
he was also known for his great penitential life.
Indeed, he was said to have prayed all of the 150 Psalms
at least three times a week on the top of a cold mountain,
with his feet buried,
in a bucket of ice water.
And so, the Irish people, in imitating of St. Patrick,
would become known for the virtue of temperance.
Often, we may find some humor in that,
because we also know that the vice that is often associated with the Irish people
is in temperance, particularly in the drinking of alcoholic beverages.
But we see very clearly that a people, once converted, can become a heroic people.
And so, the Irish people would suffer long and hard,
and we see the fruits of their father, St. Patrick,
during the persecution that they would suffer at the hands of the English.
For we know of the terrible plight that would overcome the Irish people.
Indeed, there were forced famines.
There was no, as it were, true famine that transpired in Ireland during its persecution,
for it was a fake famine, it was a false famine.
Although the potato crops,
failed, the good corn did very well,
but it was sent off to other lands in order to make more money.
And so, the Irish people were forced to eat that which was inedible.
And so it was, in order to try to bring them to their knees,
they would be told that if they came into the soup kitchens,
they would receive the food that was necessary.
But there was one thing that would be required for them.
They were to renounce their Catholic faith
if they were to receive the food
that would sustain their lives.
And hundreds of thousands would choose death by starvation
rather than to renounce the Catholic faith.
And that is the fruit of the labors of St. Patrick,
who instilled in those people a deep and profound love of Jesus Christ
and a profound understanding that it is more important to hold on to Christ,
who is the true food of life,
than to hold on to the food of this world.
It is better
to starve to death in the famines of this world
rather than to renounce the faith of Jesus Christ.
And so, let us be inspired by the life of St. Patrick
and the virtue that he inspired a people of a particular nation to follow,
praying that that spirit will ultimately pass over the whole of the world
and catch the world in its grip.
That spirit that loves Christ above all things and sees everything
in the light of Holy Mother Church and in the light of the faith,
that faith that St. Patrick would give to the Irish people,
that faith that they would go forth and try to bring to all lands
in which they would emigrate.
And so, let us be very thankful this day
that we have such a great intercessor for this diocese with the Lord.
And most especially, let us ask him this day
to pray for the bishop of our diocese and also to pray for us,
the people of this diocese.
That we are led by a good shepherd and that we too, like the Irish people,
are willing to die rather than to renounce our faith.
That we too will exercise the virtue of temperance
and also that virtue of hospitality, which is related to the virtue of charity,
which would become the other extraordinary virtue
by which the Irish people would be known.
That is, a spirit by which they would embrace all
and invite them into their house and treat them
as Christians should always treat all peoples.
But they would do so always with a specific purpose,
that by their hospitality, by the love they showed to their neighbor,
they would ultimately win them over for the kingdom of Christ.
And so, let us strive to see that we are all, as it were,
led by great patriarchs, that in one sense,
all bishops can take for themselves the name of Patrick
because they have become true fathers of their people,
are true pastors of the sheep, leading them to the glory that is to come,
that is, the glory of our resurrection in Christ,
that glory that drove St. Patrick to not fear anything
in order to bring the faith to all peoples.
And ultimately, he would be rewarded with that
by the conversion of the Irish people and the establishment of a culture,
a culture that is truly as it, a culture that was truly imbued with the love of Jesus Christ,
indeed, the Irish Constitution was at one time the last Constitution in the world
that began by professing a belief in the Most Holy Trinity
that has been struck from the Irish Constitution.
And so, it is a sign of the depravity of our times,
but it is also a sign for us to call upon the saints to intercede most earnestly for us,
so that belief in the Trinity may again be established in the Irish people
and in all peoples, so that the faith of Christ again
may spread throughout all lands and all nations,
so that all of us may truly know the value and the gift of our salvation,
which is Holy Mother Church, and it exists in each and every diocese of the world.
And let us also be reminded by that stern warning of Pope John Paul II
in regarding particular doctrines of the faith
that St. Patrick was willing to die for.
He said that if bishops are not heroic in defending a particular doctrine of the Church,
then whole Catholic dioceses will disappear.
That doctrine was the indissolubility of marriage,
and we see very clearly how important that doctrine has become in our day and in our age.
It was a doctrine that St. Patrick would teach the Irish people that God has established
and defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman together until death do they part.
And so when the Irish people would embrace this fidelity,
they would truly become a nation of families,
a nation of families led ultimately by Jesus Christ,
and then they would establish all the virtues in their land.
And without this understanding and without the pastors of the Church being willing to die for this understanding,
then, as the Pope said, whole Catholic families will disappear,
for ultimately a diocese is none other than a family of the Catholic Church,
an extension of the mystical body of Christ insofar as it is in union with the pastor of Rome.
And so let us always and everywhere pray earnestly for our bishops,
and most especially let us pray for the Bishop of Rome,
that he leads us according to the doctrines of the Church,
and that he holds out those doctrines to all peoples and to all nations,
so that they may truly come to know the love of Jesus Christ,
and how it can transform a nation from the sacrifice of children
to embracing them as what they truly are, the gifts of Almighty God.
And so it becomes a nation that protects life from conception until natural death,
rather than a nation like the Church,
like the Druid nation was, a nation that destroys the young and destroys the old.
For we may deceive ourselves by covering in technology what we are doing,
but ultimately the nations of the world are simply becoming Druid nations again,
Aztec nations again, in which life is not preserved because Christ is not known,
but life is always and everywhere destroyed,
most especially at its youngest and at its latest.
And so we have much work to do.
Let us call this day upon great Saint Patrick,
in order that we may begin to begin to do the work of reestablishing
the life of Christ in our nation and in our world.
For this cause open them to Christ, to God, and to You.
So that whoever believes it is the Holy Spirit that leads to the salvation of the living begs wear white whoa.
So that whoever believes it is the Holy Spirit that leads to the salvation of the living begs wear white whoa.
So that whoever believes it is the Holy Spirit that leads to the salvation of the living begs wear white whoa.
Though be cookies of a thorn in the shape of a rosy leaf,
there shall uncFE Flying USD1, I'm done for!