n t possible to say exa where he embarked, but con:
ing that-he had walked two hundred miles from the place of his captivity have been on the south possibly the coast of Wexford. Nor can we say with certainty where the ship touched land, when ther im Britain itself or in Britainy in France. All he says is that they [sailed for three days and then travelled many days overland. But describe eventual home-coming: "And so it happened that ter many years I was again in Britain with my parents, and they received me as a son and besought me that now at last after so many afflict had befallen me I would them no more.
And with tears and lamentations they besought me and offered me many gifts. But God strengthened me to resist their entreaties, and He, not I, resisted in ime, so that it afterwards came io Twa documents, written by his|me, this gift so great and salutary, to know and love God—nay, even to give up my fatherland and my parents, that I might come and preach the gospel to the heathen Irish."
The call of the apostolate wi ringing in his ears In his dreams, he beheld the Irish people standing on the shore by the Western Sea and calling him to return to them. And he, the one-time slave boy, made up his mind to answer their call. He tore himself again from his home and country and went to prepare himself for his perilous mission, to preach the gospel among a fierce and warlike people.
Ordained Priest His six years in Ireland had laid the foundations, and now he built on these foundations; for thirty years he prepared himself for the living most of the time in the great monasteries of Europe. In due course he was ordained priest and consecrated bishop by St. Germain of Auxerre. And at length, in 432. he returned to Ireland—a slave agai but this time, as he tells us, slave in Christ to a foreign nation for the sake of the unspeakable glory of eternal life which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord, "And so I dwell" he goes on "a stranger and an exile for the love of God, and it has come to pass by His grace that these men who formerly had worshipped only idols and abominations have lately become a people of the Lord and children of the True God. The sons of the Irish and the daughters of chieftains have become monks and virgins for Christ."
His apostolate went on for nearly forty years. Up and down through the country he went, preaching and teaching and baptising and confirming and ordaining. Like St. Paul he spent himself and was spent for his people, a life of poverty and hardship and danger. Willingly, he tells us, would he have laid down his life to bring them to God. In castles and in cabins, on the moun-tarnside and in forests he offered the Holy Sacrifice, the same Mass whick is daily offered on our own altars He won the country for God, ing all these changing centuries in one thing alone there has been no change. The Mai to-day as it was in Patri is the living línk that binds us to him. and through him to Christ and to God Fidelity to Faith H eatest monument is the fidelity of his children to the Faith ght them: their unswerving fidelity through long centuries of persecution, when it was high treason to be a Catholic, when it was a crime to celebrate or hear Mi when priests were hunted down as dangerous outlaws because. they brought Christ to His people, and when the people themselves clung desperately to their Faith, and willingly, cheerfully, risked all that the world holds dear for the privilege.
Who can explain persecution except that it is Satan stirring up the worst that Is in mankind to crush God out of our lives? The Catholics of the penal days paid dearly for their fidelity. Forbidden by law to practise their religion openly they fled to the mountains and the woods, and there in many a mountain glen, the sentry posted on a nearby crag to give warning of the approach of the soldiers, they gathered about the rock altar to hear Mass, fugitives for Christ and with Christ, Who vouchsafed to be a fugitive with them. Wherever His people fled He fled vith them; they were always martyrs in spirit and often in fact, too, for it was death to be found with Carist.
Thanks be to God for it all It is 2 noble record, written not in letters of gold but of blood. God grant that we whose proudest history is rooted in those days of trial and persecution may be worthy of them!
Fidelity to Christ. And that second unfailing characteristic of Catholic life, fidelity to Mary also. It could hardly be wrong to borrow the words of Sacred Scripture and say: What God hath joined together let no man put asunder. God gave us both. Jesus ind Mary, the Child and His Mother And so we gather around the a at Mass in the mornin; evening cames we gather about our Blessed Mother for the rosary. The family rosary has become of the rich traditions of Catholicity in Ireland. May we ever cling to it, for what else it but to cling to Cur Lord and His Mother? The rosary is the story of Their two lives inseparably intertained, the lives that they lived for us, with their joys and their sorrows and their glories.
Began his Mission St. Patrick came to Ireland year after the, Council of Ephesu: the Council at which Our Lady's prerogative of Mother of God wa: E defined as a dogma of faith—Mo or Jesus Mother of God With the proclamation a fresh wave of enthusiasm s wer the w —the whole world was Catholic An ci ndom was ringing her praises, and it was while enthusiasm was at its height that St.
Patrick began his mission. We might thus boast that Ireland Our Lady's conquest after lessns. With her Divine Son s officially afd triumphantly the hearts of the people of Ireland, the Child with Mary His Mother.
Some time ago I heard a story brings out very well th Mess of this devotion to Our Lady—how naturally she belongs to our art of our life as she was part of her Son's life—her joys anc her sorrows, but especially sorrows, our joys and our sorrows, too Two Sisters were out visiting the poor one day in the West of Ireland They came to a house, little more than a cabin, and pushing in the door they found the old women sitting in Hundreds of Borough Council Picture shows
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.