What do we celebrate on St. Patrick’s Day?

Dear friends and readers,

A blessed and happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of my readers. St. Patrick has a special meaning for us at Preda and the rescued youth and children, he being a victim of human trafficking and slavery in his day.

We are all in a kind of slavery ourselves. The Covid-19 has pinned us down, locked us up in jail-like conditions and under its control. Covid-19 is our invisible jailer and slave master. .We too are like slaves to its control and power and we long for freedom. May we all be free soon from this Pandemic. Here is an essay I wrote to celebrate the Day.

Freedom and friendship to all,

Fr. Shay

What do we celebrate on St. Patrick’s Day?

We recently celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day, let’s think about what we ought to celebrate. Who was the man Patrick? He was a teenager grabbed by a slave raiding party from his community a victim of human traffickers and slavery. He was kidnapped when 16-years-old by Irish slave traders from his family villa in a village named Bannavem Taburniae on the West coast of Wales, or England and sold as a child slave to a rich Irish farmer. He wrote in his Confesso

My name is Patrick, I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers… 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.

The raiders were likely sent by King Niall of the Nine Hostages and Patrick was than a 16-year-old boy named Succat. He worked as a shepherd slave for six years and learned to speak Irish. Then he escaped and fled as a refugee and likely worked his way on a wooden ship to the continent from around Wexford then somehow he got back to Britain and his family . Later he went to France and studied for the priesthood and was ordained . After a period of religious training, he was ordained a deacon around 418 A.D. and in 432 A.D. consecrated as a bishop and given the name Patricius.

He then left on a missionary journey back to Ireland in 433 the was determined to convert the kings of Ireland and to free their slaves. The boy slave turned migrant and missionary used his fluency in Irish to convince kings to abandon the violence and cruelty of their pagan ways and accept the more caring and peaceful values of the Gospel and eventually to free there slaves.
That is what we celebrate as we think of him as the champion of the victims of modern slavery and work and pray that many can escape as he did and become advocates of freedom, justice truth, goodness, courage and service to others This is the heart of love ,to serve the downtrodden, the poor and enslaved and free them. That is the mission of Preda.

May it last a long time and save many more.

Fr. Shay