Answering the Call: Patrick’s Confessions

‍Patrick, missionary to the Irish, is celebrated every March 17th in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and North America. Though Patrick tends to be treated as a caricature or even a mythical figure in these celebrations, he was a very real person. However,  few know the real story and many assume the many misconceptions about him to be true. 

The most important fact about Patrick is that he first and foremost shared the gospel with the previously unreached Irish. He even wrote about God’s providences that led him to the Irish and gave him a heart for their salvation in his Confessio. Though written more than a thousand years ago, likely not long before his death, it still resonates today. In this, one of very few surviving writings of Patrick that remain to us, we learn of obedience to Christ and God’s abundant mercies despite the many trials of a missionary.  

What follows are excerpts from an English translation of Patrick’s Confessio. It can be read in full here. For more information into his life, read our short biography about his life and works. 

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My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae. His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and did not keep His commandments. We would not listen to our priests, who advised us about how we could be saved. The Lord brought His strong anger upon us, and scattered us among many nations even to the ends of the earth. It was among foreigners that it was seen how little I was.

It was there that the Lord opened up my awareness of my lack of faith. Even though it came about late, I recognized my failings. So I turned with all my heart to the Lord my God, and He looked down on my lowliness and had mercy on my youthful ignorance. He guarded me before I knew Him, and before I came to wisdom and could distinguish between good and evil. He protected me and consoled me as a father does for his son.

That is why I cannot be silent – nor would it be good to do so – about such great blessings and such a gift that the Lord so kindly bestowed in the land of my captivity. This is how we can repay such blessings, when our lives change and we come to know God, to praise and bear witness to His great wonders before every nation under heaven.

.…

A few years later I was again with my parents in Britain. They welcomed me as a son, and they pleaded with me that, after all the many tribulations I had undergone, I should never leave them again. It was while I was there that I saw, in a vision in the night, a man whose name was Victoricus coming as it were from Ireland with so many letters they could not be counted. He gave me one of these, and I read the beginning of the letter, the voice of the Irish people. While I was reading out the beginning of the letter, I thought I heard at that moment the voice of those who were beside the wood of Voclut, near the western sea. They called out as it were with one voice: “We beg you, holy boy, to come and walk again among us.” This touched my heart deeply, and I could not read any further; I woke up then. Thanks be to God, after many years the Lord granted them what they were calling for.

…

It was not by my own grace, but God who overcame it in me, and resisted them all so that I could come to the peoples of Ireland to preach the gospel. I bore insults from unbelievers, so that I would hear the hatred directed at me for traveling here. I bore many persecutions, even chains, so that I could give up my freeborn state for the sake of others. If I be worthy, I am ready even to give up my life most willingly here and now for his name. It is there that I wish to spend my life until I die, if the Lord should grant it to me.

…

It is there that I await His promise – He is the one who never deceives, as is repeated in the gospel: “They will come from the east and from the west, and they will lie down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” We believe that believing people will come from all over the world.

…

How has this happened in Ireland? Never before did they know of God except to serve idols and unclean things. But now, they have become the people of the Lord, and are called children of God. The sons and daughters of the leaders of the Irish are seen to be monks and virgins of Christ!

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Those who wish may laugh and insult. But I will not be silent, nor will I hide the signs and wonders which the Lord has shown me even many years before they came about. He knows all things even before the beginning of time.

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I see that already in this present age the Lord has given me a greatness more than could be expected. I was not worthy of this, not the kind of person the Lord would do this for, since I know for certain that poverty and calamity are more my style than riches and enjoyment. But Christ the Lord became poor for us; I too am wretched and unhappy. Even if I were to wish for riches, I do not have them. I am not trying to judge myself, since every day there is the chance that I will be killed, or surrounded, or be taken into slavery, or some other such happening. But I fear none of these things, because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of almighty God, who is the ruler of all places, as the prophet says: “Cast your concerns on God, and He will sustain you.”

Now I commend my soul to my most faithful God. For Him I perform the work of an ambassador, despite my less than noble condition. However, God is not influenced by such personal situations, and He chose me for this task so that I would be one servant of His very least important servants.

…

For this reason, may God not let it come about that I would suffer the loss of His people who have become His in the furthermost parts of the earth. I pray that God give me perseverance, and that He grant me to bear faithful witness to Him right up to my passing from this life, for the sake of my God.

If I have ever imitated anything good for the sake of my God whom I love, I ask that He grant me to be able to shed my blood with these converts and captives – even were I to lack a grave for burial, or my dead body were to be miserably torn apart limb from limb by dogs or wild beasts, or were the birds of heaven to devour it. I declare with certainty that if this were to happen, I would have gained both my soul and my body. There is no doubt whatever that we will rise on the appointed day in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our redeemer. We shall be like children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ and to be fashioned in His image, since it is from Him and through Him and in Him that we are to reign.

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Again and again I briefly put before you the words of my confession. I testify in truth and in great joy of heart before God and His holy angels that I never had any other reason for returning to that nation from which I had earlier escaped, except the gospel and God’s promises.

I pray for those who believe in and have reverence for God. Some of them may happen to inspect or come upon this writing which Patrick, a sinner without learning, wrote in Ireland. May none of them ever say that whatever little I did or made known to please God was done through ignorance. Instead, you can judge and believe in all truth that it was a gift of God. This is my confession before I die.