Fellow MTW missionary Mike Pettengill has published a nice overview of who St. Patrick really was and why he matters over on the Gospel Coalition blog. I share the sentiments but usually don’t participate much in the more or less monthly crusades to reclaim the real meaning of this or that holiday from the secularized accretions of Santa or Cupid or the Bunny or whatever, but this one hits close to home for, I hope, obvious reasons.

Patrick isn’t just an exemplary figure (though Mike shows ably that he is that) – he is a marvelous illustration that God’s interest in and interaction with history doesn’t end with Acts 28. Anna and I listened to Thomas Cahill’s fascinating How the Irish Saved Civilization on CD this past fall as we traversed Appalachia; while there’s plenty to quibble with or be skeptical of in his portrait of Patrick, one point stood out: Patrick was quite likely the first missionary since the apostolic age to venture outside the bounds of Roman civilization.

That’s huge: Patrick was the means by which the Church reclaimed its founding and essential mission in the waning days of the civilization into which it had been born. He beat Gregory the Great to the punch by more than a century and a half, and his spiritual children and grandchildren were there with the gospel of Christ the last time Europe found itself suddenly a post-Christian continent.

So enjoy the secularized, folkloric silliness that St. Paddy’s is today, but in the midst of it, remember that though kingdoms and empires rise and fall, the Church is and will be to the end of the age a people on a mission, never more itself than when we go and send and pray. Think of your missionaries today, and pray that the same Spirit that empowered Patrick would guide and strengthen them for the blessing of the nations.

-Ben