Did you miss St Patrick's Day?

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

Around A.D. 390, Patrick was born into a Christian family in the Roman province of Britain. As a teenager, he was taken as a slave to Ireland. He later wrote that while living in Ireland, “the Lord opened the understanding of my unbelief… that I might turn to the Lord my God with all my heart.” From that time forward, Patrick began seeking God’s direction for his life. In his autobiographical Confessions, he wrote, “Tending flocks was my daily work, and I would pray constantly…. The love of God and the fear of Him surrounded me more and more.” 

After six years, Patrick escaped and returned to Britain. There, Patrick experienced his own Macedonian call: he heard the voice of a man in Ireland calling, “Come and walk among us again.” He became a minister and, around 432, returned as a missionary to the area where he had been enslaved. Patrick’s passion for evangelism brought the gospel to Ireland and beyond.

At that time, Ireland was considered the “end of the earth” because it lay beyond the borders of the Roman Empire. The vast majority of people were pagans, practising witchcraft, magic, and human sacrifice. Under Patrick’s preaching, some of the leading druids were converted. The king’s brother became a Christian, and a church was established in his home area. By 447, fifteen years after Patrick arrived, most of Ireland had heard the gospel. 

By the time of his death, Patrick had planted approximately 200 churches and baptized 100,000 converts. He promoted true discipleship, refusing to baptize new converts until they showed steadfastness in the faith. 

Perhaps most importantly for the spread of the gospel, Patrick established an indigenous Celtic church. He trained men to serve the churches he planted. Following Patrick’s death, missionaries from Ireland took the gospel through central Europe, as far north as Iceland and back to Britain, the land from which their first missionary had come. In the years after Patrick’s death, Christianity’s greatest evangelistic efforts were led by Irish missionaries, the fruit of Patrick’s ministry.

Patrick is far more than a mythical character celebrated by wearing green on March 17. He is a hero of early Christianity and, in many ways, a model for missions today.

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All things bright and beautiful

Last weekend, I spent the weekend in the beautiful country of Northern Ireland. For me, it is a bit like coming home. I love it. My mother was born and raised (raised, they would say) in Belfast. Some of my ancestors were from County Monaghan and others from Fermanagh. My wife is from Ballymena, County Antrim, so there are lots of family roots in this wonderful land.

Weather-wise, it was a great weekend. A slight drizzle (that is obligatory), but 98% of the time, the sun shone, and with what brilliance! We all know what a difference a little bit of sunshine makes! The landscape literally shines and glows in the glory of sunlight. The townlands and coastal scenery come alive (as does everyone who is out and about enjoying the majesty and splendour of God’s incredible creation) as you try to take in the greens of the fields, trees and shrubs (this is Ireland, after all) the shades of sea blue and the whole pallet of restful colours that vie for your attention. Words cannot fully express beauty. Many talented artists have attempted to reflect what they see, songwriters have written lyrics to express what they feel, and poets have created soulful words describing how they feel, as have many writers. Still, there is something inexpressible about beauty and the glory of the created order. On a very simple level (as long as you attribute the source as God) the Bible calls it worship, Psalm 8. As a Christian believer, I know that there are other deeper aspects to worship. Still, at a very elementary level, a ‘wow response’ comes from our appreciation of beauty and the awesomeness of what we see, hear and feel that demands deep reflection and admission that there is more to this than meets the eye (literally). Who gave us this ability to enjoy, value, be satisfied and delight in good music, amazing food, and beautiful words. Who gave us the capacity to appreciate art and to revel in talent. This is unique to humans. There is no evidence that any other creature has this sense of awe, this deep appreciation, the ability to be stunned and to stand back and be wowed by glorious majesty.

The last train from Limerick!

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

The green land of Ireland was once described as one huge golf course criss crossed by railway lines. A bit of an exaggeration but it did once have a more extensive network of lines than it has now. Some of them served quite rural sparsely populated areas, often on lonely branch lines that saw, in a number of cases, only one train each way per day.

Stations could be some distance from the area they were meant to serve and their names quite unusual. There was Horse & Jockey in Co Tipperary, Meeting House Halt in Co Antrim, Narrow Water in Co Down, Oola in Co Limerick and Tubbercurry in Co Sligo to name a few.

By the late 1960’s nearly all the rural stations with their unusual names and their few or only one train a day had gone but there remained one route that still had its daily train in the timetable. Each weekday morning at 9.50 am an engine, two coaches and a guards van set out from Ballina in Co Mayo for Limerick, returning in the afternoon at 3.50 pm. I was able to make two journeys on the Limerick afternoon departure. The first being as one of a handful of passengers from Limerick who upon arriving at the Co Galway station of Gort found themselves invaded by secondary school children. They were polite, well behaved and in talking to them had a knowledge of Bible stories. Among the passengers were also two friendly ladies in their sixties who had disembarked from a transatlantic liner. at Cobh near Cork that morning. I was able to obtain an official pass to ride in the cab on my next journey on this daily train. A cab ride is a unique experience and gives one a completely different view of  travelling by rail as you know what lies ahead along the line.