"I am Patrick, a sinner..."

"...the most unsophisticated & unworthy among all the faithful of God. Indeed, to many I am the most despised…

"It was here in Ireland that God first opened my heart, so that, even though it was a late start, I became aware of my failings & began to turn with my whole heart to the Lord my God (converterem toto corde ad Dominum meum). For he looked down on my miserable condition & had compassion for me, young & foolilsh as I was. He cared for me before I even knew who he was, before I could tell the difference between right & wrong. He protected me & loved me even as a father does his own child.

"Because of this I cannot – I will not – be silent. I will tell of the great blessings God has granted to me & the grace he has shown to me in this land of slavery. Because this is the way we should behave toward God, when he has shown us why we were wrong & have admitted our sins, we should praise him & proclaim his kindness to everyone in the world.

"There is no other God; there never was & there never will be. God our father was not born nor did he have any beginning. God himself is the beginning of all things, the very one who holds all things together, as we have been taught.

"And we proclaim that Jesus Christ is his son, who has been with God in spirit always, from the beginning of time & before the creation of the world, though in a way we cannot put into words. Through him everything in the universe was created, both what we can see & what is invisible. He was born as a human being & he conquered death, rising into the heavens to be with God. And God gave him power greater than any creature of the heavens or earth or under the earth, so that someday everyone will declare that Jesus Christ is Lord & God. We believe in him & we wait for him to return very soon. He will be the judge of the living & the dead, rewarding every person according to their actions.

"And God has generously poured out on us his Holy Spirit as a gift & a token of immortality. This Spirit makes all faithful believers into children of God & brothers & sisters of Christ. This we proclaim. We worship one God in three parts, by the sacred name of the Trinity.

"…So listen to me well, all of you, great & small, everyone who has any fear of God – especially you landowners so proud of your education – listen & consider this carefully: God… picked ignorant Patrick ahead of all of you, even though I am not worthy, he picked me to go forth with fear & reverence... to serve the Irish faithfully. The love of Christ carried me here to be a help to these people for the rest of my life, if I may be worthy, & to work for them with humility & in sincerity.

"Because of my faith in the Trinity, I must not worry about the consequences of this letter, I choose to proclaim the gift of God & his everlasting help confidently & without fear to make his name known everywhere so that even after I die it might be a kind of spiritual legacy left behind for my brothers & sons, so many thousands I baptized for God…"

An Excerpt from St. Patrick’s Confessions, a letter written by Patrick to answer charges laid against him by the British heirarchy. Excerpt taken from St. Patrick of Ireland by Philip Freeman. EWTN has an alternative translation of the entire text & more (see here). Top photo taken in Dublin in 2005 at ChristChurch Cathedral, lower photos taken at White Friar's Church.