St. Patrick: A Man Who Saw Fertile Ground To Plant Seeds

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<Jesus said, in the Parable of the Sower,> “(22) The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.  (23) But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”’ (Matthew 13:22-23)

As we ‘celebrate’ Saint Patrick’s Day today, the legend is old ‘Saint Patty’, around 500 AD, led all the snakes in Ireland off the island and this is supposedly his big ‘claim to fame’.  Actually, this ‘legend’ is not true as Ireland has likely never had any indigenous snakes, being an island in the northern Atlantic Ocean to the east of Great Britian.  The true story of Saint Patrick is he was an English teenager when he was kidnapped by the Norse (Vikings) and taken to Ireland for several years to work as a slave, before he escaped and hopped onto a boat back to England.  Back home, he studied Christianity, and returned to Ireland to lead in the effort of evangelizing the ‘native’ Irish who lived in the northern portion of the island.

They were pagan in their worship, likely having some mixture of Norse gods (brought to them by the Vikings who had settlements there), and some forms of idol worship.  Patrick was not an ‘ordained’ Catholic priest, but he went to Ireland anyway to provide the Gospel and convert as many of the Irish and Norse to Christianity.  Most of what is known about Patrick is through his own writings, which speaks of many conversions and baptisms that he performed, and the setting up of churches with his own form of ordaining converted natives as priests to minister to the congregations of these churches.

It would be understandable if Patrick had not wanted to return to Ireland; the hardships of his kidnapping and subsequent enslavement would likely have most people refuse to go back to the ‘scene of the crime’.  However, Patrick’s Faith and growth in his Christian Walk compelled him to go and provide the Word to those who performed these acts against him.

It is said Ireland is the ‘Emerald Isle’ due to its luscious green foliage, a soil enriched to grow plants.  Patrick saw Ireland as a place needing the seed of the Gospel message planted into the Irish people.  The seed of God’s Word would fall on rich soil in Ireland, and thousands there would accept Jesus in Faith.  The crop that Patrick planted grew into the Faith that many in Ireland found in Christ, on behalf of the growing church worldwide at that time (roughly 1,500 years ago).

These two verses are part of the Parable of the Sower, who goes and sows seed all over the place.  He goes over the rocks and pavements, the sandy dunes, the fertile farm land, like the old story of Johnny Appleseed who went west and threw apple seeds as he went so apples would grow for the future settlers to eat.  Seeding for Christ can be the same when looking at results.  The amount of preparation, seed location (where planted), when the seed is planted, how much care and feeding after the seed is planted – these all contribute to whether the seed starts to grow and how fast it’ll grow. Those who follow may see the growth is ready for them to harvest.

Each of us mature in our Christian Walk a little differently due to the circumstances we find ourselves in, and due to past influences.    While I was ‘rock hard’ against hearing the Word, I did not want anything to do with any forms of evangelizing or church-going.  What it took was patience for the seed that was planted to allow the rock be broken down, cultivated with some fertilizer, sod and water, and eventually the seed started to grow.   Others were fortunate to be born as ‘prime farmland’, and their seed grew quickly.  Still others started growing on the farm, but due to no care or neglect spiritually, the ‘thorns’ of secular life came in and stunted the growth of their Faith. 

Have patience with the Christians around you, especially those that seem to be weak in their Faith or struggling in their Walk with Christ.  Be their fertilizer and encourage them.  If you’re witnessing to someone who seems to be a ‘rock’, keep encouraging them whenever possible.  Sometimes all that’s needed is a little patience, perhaps some nudging and adjustments, as we find in Saint Patrick’s life – a life where he took upon the task of bringing the Word to an island nation that had taken him captive and worked him as a slave.  His effort was worth it, though we remember him in celebrations that don’t reflect his true purpose.