Saint Patrick: Foe of the Paganism that Has Arisen Anew in the Emerald Isle

Today is the Second Sunday of Lent, and the commemorated feast of our glorious Saint Patrick, the Patron Saint and Apostle of the Emerald Isle, Ireland, although the secular and largely pagan celebrations took place in many places yesterday, March 16, 2019, Ember Saturday in Lent.

The life of Saint Patrick had nothing do with the legend of leprechauns nor of Irish beer and pagan celebrations. Very few people today care to remember—or, more accurately, have perhaps never known—that Saint Patrick sought to convert the pagans of Ireland by engaging in that which is forbidden in most instances today by the counterfeit church of conciliarism: proselytism. Saint Patrick wanted to convert the chieftains of the pagan Irish tribes in order to save their souls and thus to convert the people over whom they ruled. Saint Patrick knew that there was only one means of salvation, that provided to us in the Catholic Church that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. He sought with urgency the conversion of those to whom he was sent as a missionary to preach and to save.

The glorious saint of the Emerald Isle, the Land of Erin, Saint Patrick, teaches us much about our duties as Catholics to seek the conversion of all others to the Catholic Faith. No obstacle was too great and no penance was too severe to deter him from doing the apostolic work that Pope Saint Celestine the First had given him to convert the people of Ireland out of their pagan beliefs and practices to the liberation from the power of sin and eternal death to be found exclusively in the Catholic Church. Saint Patrick was not concerned about finding “common ground” with the Druids. He was not concerned about incorporating pagan practices into the Immemorial Mass of Tradition that he offered. He was concerned about one thing and one thing alone: the subordination of all things in Irish life to the Catholic Faith without any exception whatsoever.

Saint Patrick’s zeal to convert souls inspired countless others to imitate his holy example. The whole history of the Church prior to the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9,1958, is a consistent story of one saint after another who sought to go to distant lands to bring people into the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation.

Missionary zeal for souls filled the heart of Saint Francis Xavier himself, who converted the entire population of Goa, India.

Missionary zeal to bring souls back into the Catholic Church prompted Saint Peter Canisius and Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, who was killed by those wretched people known as Calvinists (many of whose anti-Catholic beliefs are the foundation of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service) to seek out the conversion of Protestants.

Missionary zeal for souls impelled Saint Josaphat to seek back the lost sheep who had been lured into Orthodoxy, causing him to lose his life. This stands in sharp contrast to conciliarism’s discouragement, if not outright prohibition in many instances, of the conversion of souls to the true Faith. The Balamand Agreement, entered into by representatives of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and various representatives of Orthodoxy, specifically forbids that Saint Josaphat gave up his life to do: to convert members of the Orthodox churches to the true Faith, Catholicism:

22) Pastoral activity in the Catholic Church, Latin as well as Eastern, no longer aims at having the faithful of one Church pass over to the other; that is to say, it no longer aims at proselytizing among the Orthodox. It aims at answering the spiritual needs of its own faithful and it has no desire for expansion at the expense of the Orthodox Church. Within these perspectives, so that there will no longer be room for mistrust and suspicion, it is necessary that there be reciprocal exchanges of information about various pastoral projects and that thus cooperation between bishops and all those with responsibilities in our Churches can be set in motion and develop. (Full Text of the Balamand Statement)

And then there were the saints who wanted to go to mission lands but who were prevented from doing so. Saint Anthony of Padua wanted in the worst way to be a missionary to convert the Saracens (yes, Saint Anthony wanted to convert the Mohammedans; there is that nasty “c” word again, conversion). He fell ill when arriving in North Africa and could not live his life as a missionary. Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini wanted to go China, winding up ministering to the Italians who had migrated to the United States of America at the personal behest of Pope Leo XIII himself. Missionary zeal for souls filled the heart of Saint Francis Xavier himself, who converted the entire population of Goa, India, and destroyed false idols aplenty.

Saint Patrick and the other great missionaries of the Church proved themselves faithful to this injunction of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, given to the Eleven before He Ascended to the Father’s right hand in glory on Pentecost Sunday:

And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing them they adored: but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.  (Mt. 28:16-20)

The zeal of Saint Patrick, who personally baptized 120,000 sons and daughters of Erin, and the other great missionaries of the Church stands in sharp contrast to the demands of the novelty of false ecumenism that teaches us that we not seek the conversion of others to the true Faith. That is why we must invoke Saint Patrick’s holy intercession to bring an end to the abominations of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which reaffirms people in false religions while no effort is made to bring them into the true Church.

As has been noted frequently on this site, both the late Karol JosefWojtyla/John Paul II and the Apostate Emeritus, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, discouraged “proselytism” among Protestants and the Orthodox. The man is still “preacher” to the conciliar “papal” household under Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap, said in 2005 that the Catholic Church “had the lost right” to convert Jews because of the “way this had been done in the past,” and the false “pope” at the time, Ratzinger/Benedict, who had rejected the “ecumenism on August 19, 2005, a little over a month before Cantalamessa’s “homily” was published on Zenit, did not contradict him. The counterfeit church of conciliarism’s blithe acceptance of false religions demonstrates itself to be nothing other than an agent of Antichrist as it is a direct and incontrovertible contradiction to the work of the Apostles, the Catholic martyrs mentioned above and our dear Saint Patrick and to the efforts (among then being Pope Pius IX’s in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868, Pope Leo XIII’s Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 29, 1896, and Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928) made by our true popes to effect the conversion of non-Catholic Christians to the true Church. Indeed, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has warned constantly throughout the past six years that “evangelization” is not “proselytizing,” going so far to state over and over again that one must not seek to convert a non-Catholic. He has thus taken false ecumenism to the next level by obliterating all distinctions among the “world’s religions.”

Bergoglio told an American “evangelical,” Brian Stiller, that he was not interested in converting him or any "evangelical" to the Catholic Church, thereby showing himself to be an enemy of Christ the King and of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem:

It’s fair to ask what kind of Catholic Church we as Evangelicals want to see. At lunch I asked Pope Francis what his heart was for evangelism. He smiled, knowing what was behind my question. His comment was, “I’m not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism. I want people to find Jesus in their own community.  There are so many doctrines we will never agree on. Let’s not spend our time on those. Rather, let’s be about showing the love of Jesus.” (Of course Evangelicals do evangelize Catholics and Catholics do the same to us. However, that discussion we will raise another day.)

We spoke about how in our diversity we might find unity and strength. Borrowing from Swiss Protestant theologian Oscar Cullman, we reflected how “reconciled diversity” allows us to stand within our own understandings of how Christ effects salvation. And then we press on to deal with global issues like religious freedom and justice and other matters, which affect our wellbeing. (Lunch with Jorge. See also the post at Novus Ordo Watch Wire.)

Phoney-baloney “Bishop” Tony Palmer of the “Convergence Movement” was allowed to die outside of the bosom of Holy Mother Church, the only means of human salvation. Yet officials of the conciliar Vatican referred to him as a "bishop" and cited the fact that Bergoglio himself sent him "greetings" when Palmer was "ordained" a "bishop" for a false church that is an agent of the devil. Then again, so is the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Additionally, as has been noted frequently on this site and in the text of No Space Between Ratzinger and Bergoglio: So Close in Apostasy, So Far From Catholic Truth, the current “antipope emeritus” addressed Jewish rabbis on many occasions now during his false “pontificate,” and he never once invited them to convert to the true Faith to save their immortal souls. Not once. Not even close. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is even more rabid in his support for the ancient enemies of Christ the King, who endorsed his “election” six years ago and have praised him with particular relish ever since.

Why not?

The apostate has gone so far as to pray with his favorite pro-abortion, pro-perversity Talmudic rabbi, Abraham Skorka, straight out of the blasphemous Talmud, and he has followed the examples of Karol Josef Wotyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI by being treated as an inferior by Talmudists at the Rome Synagogue, to say nothing of his hiding his pectoral cross when in the presence of Talmudists.

Saint Patrick sought to serve only the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Lord on Holy Thursday and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. He did not have to “search for truth” in inter-religious “dialogue” with the Druids or anyone else in Ireland. He told them that they had to convert to the Catholic Faith, being willing to lay down his life for their conversion if it was necessary for him to do so. He confronted the chieftains on Easter Sunday, 433 A.D., winning the day for Christ the King and thus beginning his work for the conversion of the entirety of Ireland, a work that continued in the years ahead of him as he traveled throughout the Land of Erin, eventually establishing his own primatial see in Armagh.

Although Saint Patrick encountered challenges and difficulties now and again, he never flagged in his efforts to save souls by seeking their conversion to the Catholic Faith. Seeking the conversion of souls never goes out of date. It never has an “expiration date.” It is incapable of being consigned to the Orwellian memory hole by the Modernist revolutionaries who exercised great influence at the “Second” Vatican Council and who have held the levers of power and influence in chancery offices and universities and seminaries and colleges and schools and parishes under conciliar captivity from that time forward. Saint Patrick knew that there was only one path to salvation: to preach the true Faith as it had been deposited by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady’s Virginal and Immaculate Womb in the one, true Church He created upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Unlike the late Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, who praised witch doctors and other shamans for the great “services” they provided to their tribes, and unlike many diocesan “bishops,” who merrily participate in pagan rituals in the context of the offering of alleged Masses so as to fulfill the principles of the “inculturation of the Gospel,” Saint Patrick wanted to put an end once and for all to the diabolical practices of Druidism. The fact that Druidism has risen again in Ireland in recent decades is partly the result of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s diabolical “reconciliation” with the principles of that “new era inaugurated in 1789,” thereby putting an apparent “Catholic” gloss and the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King. Saint Patrick sought to establish Catholicism as the one and only foundation of personal and social order on the Emerald Isle. Saint Patrick sought to work for the conversion of the masses by converting the chieftains, thereby establishing the framework for Catholic monarchism throughout Europe. The people, Saint Patrick understood, would likely follow the example of their leaders.

Taking advantage of the structure of hierarchical tribal life, Saint Patrick quickly sought to establish dioceses throughout Ireland so as to accustom the Irish people to the hierarchical nature of the true Church, the Catholic Church. He consecrated no less than 350 bishops during his apostolic work in Ireland. Among those he consecrated as bishops were several who later went on to be raised to the Church’s altars with himself, including his own nephew, Saint Mel, Saint Guasach, Saint MacCarthem, and Saint Loman. His work brought about the conversion of Saint Brigid of Kildare, through Saint Mel, and produced a nation so steeped in Catholicism that it boasts of scores upon scores of canonized saints.

Saint Aidan, Saint Brendan, Saint Kevin, Saint Colman of Armagh (as well as several other saints by the name of Colman), Saint Columba, Saint Columban, Saint Kieran, Saint Malachy, and Saint Ita and Saint Lawrence O’Toole, among many others, learned to love and to live the Catholic Faith as a result of the seeds planted by the glorious Saint Patrick.

Unlike most of the “bishops” of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, most of whom are not exactly noted for austere lives of penance, Saint Patrick combined his great pastoral zeal to convert souls with severe penances, including spending time frequently in what became known as Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Dearg. Saint Patrick spent long hours in prayers and subjected his body to many mortifications. He thought only to teach people to love God as He had revealed Himself solely through His true Church, giving no quarter at all to any false belief or false religious practice. He would NOT accept “gifts” from false religions, as the now-retired Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did on Thursday, April 17, 2008, at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, District of Columbia while visiting the United States of America and as Jorge Mario Bergoglio has done on many occasions, including when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handed him a menorah in December of 2013 and when Evo Morales handed him a cross adorned with the Marxist hammer and sickle.

Saint Patrick wanted to eradicate false beliefs and false practices and all other types of sin from the lives of the Irish people and from every aspect of the Irish nation, which is why those who seek to march in Saint Patrick’s Day Parades by identifying themselves as participants in perversity are dishonoring the great Apostle to the Irish. Saint Patrick despised sin. He knew that sin is what caused Our Lord to suffer unspeakable horror in His Sacred Humanity during His fearful Passion and Death and is what caused His Most Blessed Mother to have Seven Swords of Sorrow pierced through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Although the Catholic legacy of Saint Patrick was attacked fiercely by the British following the English Protestant Revolt and has been undermined by cultural forces imported principally from the United States of America, which itself was shaped by the Protestantism and Freemasonry that undermined the Faith of many of the Irish immigrants to this country, Ireland stood out among the nations of Christendom for its sanctity and scholarship for centuries. Saint Patrick would have blanched at the mention of an oxymoronic conciliarist phrase such as a “healthy secularity.” He lived and worked and died so that Catholicism would permeate every aspect of the lives of the Irish people. His intercession must be involved daily for the people of Ireland who still practice the Faith to hold onto the fullness of Tradition without compromise–and for those who have fallen by the wayside to return to the true Sheepfold of Christ. As the Patron Saint of all of the Irish people no matter where they have situated themselves, Saint Patrick’s intercession must be invoked in a special way to help those of Irish ancestry outside of Ireland to honor him by their fidelity to the Catholic Faith he brought to Ireland in the midst of cultural circumstances very similar to the ones we face in the United States today.

Saint Patrick worked for the Catholicization of Ireland. He wants the Catholicization of every land. How it must sadden him in Heaven to see so many sons and daughters of Erin in public life in this country who support all manner of sins under cover of civil law. How it must sadden him further to see so many conciliar “bishops” of Irish descent reaffirm those pro-abortion politicians as they themselves undermine the Deposit of Faith and make war in their own dioceses upon the Immemorial Mass of the ages that he brought to Ireland in the Fifth Century. How much we should pray to him to help us remain steadfast in the Faith on a daily basis so that our prayers, offered to God through Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, might be more efficacious in bringing about the re-conversion of Irish Catholics, both in Ireland and elsewhere, who have lost the Faith and have embraced the very cultural trends that Saint Patrick eradicated so assiduously.

This is no accident as the wicked forces of conciliarism have forged such a reconciliation with the anti-Incarnational principles of Modernity that once thoroughly Catholic Ireland has become overrun with paganism and idolatry of Mohammedanism. There are several mosques and “Islamic Centers” in the Republic of Ireland replete with fourteen imams to conduct their devil worship. As always, the lords of Modernity in the realm of civil government and the lords of Modernism in the counterfeit church conciliarism believe that Mohammedans can be "assimilated" in the remnants of once Catholic countries that have reverted to paganism so that they will accept the joys that are said to come from "pluralism," "diversity," "multiculturalism," "dialogue," "ecumenism" and "religious liberty.

Ever eager to project onto Mohammedanism others a religious indifferentism that they do not share and indeed are contemptuous of, leaders of Western governments and the spiritual robber barons of conciliarism have convinced themselves that "liberal" gestures such as letting Mohammedans build and expand mosques and to permit them to migrate to formerly Catholic lands in large numbers will "pacify" the believing disciples of the false prophet Mohammed over the course of time. Mohammedan leaders know that their pretended friends are fooling themselves, and they have the patience to outlast them as they win by procreation and by what is forbidding by "ecumenism," proselytism, to convert large majorities of people either to Mohammedanism itself or, at the very least, an acceptance of it and of the "rights" of Mohammedans to live by Sharia law in formerly Catholic countries.

Gone are the days when Charles Martel defeated the Mohammedans at the Battle of Tours (also known as the Battle of Poitiers) on October 10, 732, as the infidels who followed the false prophet Mohammed attempted to move northward from southern France. The Mohammedans are present today in France in large numbers, creating a "multiculturalism" there that had not previously existed. The French, victims of the falsehoods of the French Revolution that were "baptized" by the Sillon and then incorporated into the liturgy and pastoral praxis of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, have contracepted and aborted themselves, something that has been exploited by the Mohammedans, who are welcoming children in abundance. The same is happening in Ireland now as has happened throughout the continent of Europe where one formerly Catholic nation after another has come to view Mohammedanism as "sacred" and beyond criticism, no less public sanction. Indeed, “Islamophobia” is a criminal offense throughout the countries that once constituted the bulwark of Christendom.

Obviously, the conciliar “bishops” of Ireland who suborned decades of clerical abuse without a single “papal” penalty issued by “Saint John Paul II,” Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI or Jorge Mario Bergoglio and who stood largely mute when the land evangelized by Saint Patrick voted to endorse “gay marriage” in 2015 and to legalize baby-killing last year have welcomed Mohammedans to their country and have not said a word as one large mosque after another has sprung up across the Land of Saints and Scholars:

Plans for one of the largest mosques in Ireland have been given the go-ahead by An Bord Pleanála in spite of local opposition.

The planning-appeals board has said the Shuhada Foundation of Ireland can build a four-storey mosque, community centre and primary school on the site of Warrenstown House, a former HSE facility in Blanchardstown, in west Dublin.

Dr Taufiq al-Sattar, a Dublin-based neurosurgeon, pledged to build the mosque in memory of his late wife, Shehnila Taufiq, who died along with their daughter Zainab (19) and sons Bilal (17) and Jamal (15) in an arson attack in Leicester, England, in September 2013. Its tapering steel minaret, from where Muslims are called to prayer, will be 29m (95ft) high, the equivalent of seven or eight storeys.

The board approved the development after finding that it would not seriously harm local amenities or property or cause a traffic hazard.

Planning appeal

Fingal County Council approved the plan last year, but it was then appealed by Patrick Regan, a former local resident, on the grounds of noise pollution, traffic congestion and lack of public consultation. A number of other locals lodged observations and a petition; they expressed concerns about the visual and aural impacts of minarets; excessive scale, overdevelopment and unsustainable development; lack of integration with the local community and creation of an exclusive community.

The council told the appeals board that the minaret will not be visually obtrusive and that any potential noise disturbance will be controlled by planning conditions. It also said the Shuhada Foundation of Ireland has indicated that the school and community centre will be open to everyone.

Plans for the development were first lodged in 2016. They were substantially revised and scaled down last year after the council raised concerns about the scale of the development.

Multicultural community

In his appeal Mr Regan said that Dublin 15 was “one of the largest and most welcoming multicultural communities in the county and [understood] the need [for those communities] to be provided with opportunities for worship”. But, he added, “the large scale and size of this project represents a major regional religious and cultural centre which will serve a huge area”. It would create “huge potential traffic congestion” and parking issues, as well as noise pollution.

“The call to pray can often start as early as 5.30am and the last call to pray at 9pm, causing noise pollution, with up to 150 worshipers attending at any one time during normal day prayers, without the celebration of Ramadan and other social events.”

The new mosque will be financed from Dr al-Sattar’s family fund, his life savings and donations from the Muslim community in Leicester. He also plans to raise funds from the medical community in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. (Plans Continue to Build One of Ireland's Largest Mosques.)

No one, it would appear, is concerned about the true work of Saint Patrick and the efforts he expended the plant the seeds of the Holy Faith deep in the heart and the soul of the Irish people. True Catholic history is something for which the conciliar authorities apologize, not seek to foster and cultivate. The lie of “multiculturism,” at whose false altar we are all supposed to genuflect and at which we are to make our verbal acts of obeisance, prevails throughout the Western world, including in Saint Patrick’s beloved Ireland. Multiculturalism, one of many masks used by Antichrist to accustom the world’s “citizens” to his One World Ecumenical Religion and One World Governance, has replaced Catholicism as the binding force of men and their nations. The memory of Saint Patrick is made of sport of drunks, homosexuals, baby-killers, heretics, apostates, pagan and idolaters. How is possible for Catholics to honor Saint Patrick, who hated sin and false worship, by celebrating debauchery, false worship and the sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance?

Well, here is a brief answer for you: Conciliarism has made this possible.

Yes, conciliarism has created such an openness to the world and its falsehoods that its false “bishops” can only "lament" and bemoan faits accompli when governments such as the one in Ireland require that publicly-funded hospitals to advertise new positions with the stipulation that applicants must “be willing carry out elective abortions”:

LEICESTER, United Kingdom – Ireland’s bishops have called the requirement that applicants to new posts at Dublins’s National Maternity Hospital be willing to carry out elective abortions, a violation of a doctor’s “constitutional and human right to freedom of conscience.”

The recent advertisement for consultants in obstetrics/gynecology and anesthesia at the hospital said they must be willing to carry out abortions to be considered for the positions.

“A doctor who is eminently qualified to work as a consultant in these fields is denied employment in these roles because of his/her conscience,” the bishops said in a March 13 statement.

Doctors who are pro-life and who may have spent over a decade training in these areas and who may otherwise be the best candidate for these positions are now advised that, should they apply, they would not be eligible for consideration.  This totally undermines the whole concept of freedom of conscience which was guaranteed in the recent legislation,” the statement continued.

“The consequence for the entire training and recruitment of doctors to work in these positions in hospitals in Ireland is greatly undermined by these advertisements,” the bishops said.

Abortion became legal in Ireland at the beginning of the year, after the country voted to end constitutional protections for the unborn in a referendum last year.

The Irish government has said that it will protect the conscience rights of doctors when it comes to abortion, but that all hospitals that receive any public funding – including Catholic hospitals – will have to allow abortions to be performed on their premises.

A hospital spokesman denied the recent advertisements were undermining conscientious objection guidelines.

He told the Irish Independent that the new posts were being funded for “the very specific purpose of providing termination of pregnancy services.”

“They are, therefore, for individuals willing to contribute to the provision of these services. Other past and future posts are not affected,” the spokesman said.

“They are, therefore, for individuals willing to contribute to the provision of these services. Other past and future posts are not affected,” the spokesman said. (Irish "Bishops" Lament that New Hospital Staff Will be Required to Help with Baby-Killing.)

Live by separation of Church and State, die by separation of Church and State. It is that simple. This could not have happened in Ireland before the death of Pope Pius XII, but it is happening because a false "pope" opens not his mouth about baby-killing has signaled to the lords of the world that he only cares about "climate change" and open borders while attacking believing Catholics as "hypocrites" and "Pharisees." Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his false "bishops" have surredered to the world, and even the few among the conciliar "hierarchy" who care about moral evils can only "lament" at their steady advance. We are far, far the time of Saint Patrick, Bishop and Confessor:

To Have Recourse to Saint Partrick

God knew from all eternity that Saint Patrick would die in Lent. He lived a penitential life to help the souls he was appointed by Pope Saint Celestine to serve to get them home to heaven. He lived a penitential life to help the Poor Souls in Purgatory. He lived a penitential life to help the land he converted to the Catholic Faith. It was only right that he should die in Lent and that his feast day should be kept in this holy season of prayer and fasting and penance and mortification. Indeed, Saint Patrick fasted and prayed so severely on one occasion, doing battle with demons, to have found himself rewarded by Our Lord by being granted the following petitions:

Many souls would be free from the pains of Purgatory through his intercession.

Whoever in the spirit of penance would recite his hymn before death would attain the heavenly reward.

Barbarian hordes would never obtain sway in his Church.

Seven years before the Judgment Day, the sea would spread over Ireland to save its people from the temptations and terrors of the Antichrist.

He should be deputed to judge the whole Irish race on the last day.

Keeping in mind the penitential spirit that characterized the entirety of Saint Patrick’s holy life of service to the Church, which was fostered greatly by the six years he was a slave in Ireland from the age of seventeen to the age of twenty-three, we should not celebrate too exuberantly today. We honor Saint Patrick best by doing what he did throughout his priesthood and episcopate: deny ourselves permissible pleasures in order to united ourselves more fully with the Cross of the Divine Redeemer, at which stood Our Lady, who is always pleased with the voluntary sacrifices given to her through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be used as she sees fit.

Saint Patrick is not honored by drunkenness and revelry and is certainly dishonored by parade organziers who now permit those steepd in perversity to march with "pride" on this day. Saint Patrick hated sin. He sought the conversion of infidels and sinners. He did not evanglize Ireland to reaffirm people in unbelief or in their sins of wanton debauchery.

Saint Patrick is thus honored by hearing Holy Mass and by spending time before the Blessed Sacrament, although this is not possible in most of the world in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Saint Patrick is also honored by praying of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary, especially for a restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter and that the Irish, many of whom have returned to the pagan ways of the Druids, return to the true Faith.

Saint Patrick is honored by our making of the Stations of the Cross during Lent and he is honored by our reading about his life and times in Dom Prosper Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year. He is honored by our praying–and taking deep to our hearts–the prayer, the Breastplate of Saint Patrick, that he recited before he confronted the chieftains on Easter Sunday in 433 A.D.: 

I bind to myself today the strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity: I believe the Trinity in the Unity, The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today the virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism, the virtue of His crucifixion with His burial, the virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension, the virtue of His coming on the Judgment Day.

I bind to myself today the virtue of the love of seraphim, in the obedience of angels, in the hope of resurrection unto reward, in prayers of Patriarchs, in predictions of Prophets, in preaching of Apostles, in faith of Confessors, in purity of holy Virgins, in deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today the power of Heaven, the light of the sun, the brightness of the moon, the splendour of fire, the flashing of lightning, the swiftness of wind, the depth of sea, the stability of earth, the compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today God’s power to guide me, God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to teach me, God’s eye to watch me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to give me speech, God’s hand to guide me, God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to shelter me, God’s Host to secure me, against the snares of demons, against the seductions of vices, against the lusts of nature, against everyone who meditates injury to me, whether far or near, whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues against every hostile merciless power which may assail my body and my soul, against the incantations of false prophets, against the black laws of heathenism, against the false laws of heresy, against the deceits of idolatry, against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids, against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today against every poison, against burning, against drowning, against death-wound, that I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ in the fort, Christ in the chariot seat, Christ in the [deck], Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today the strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity: I believe the Trinity in the Unity, The Creator of the Universe. (The Breastplate of Saint Patrick.)

Not a bad prayer for our time. Not a bad prayer for all times. Not a bad prayer to be invoked in a day when false “popes,” one of whom has kissed the Koran while another entered a mosque and took off his shoes before turning in the direction of Mecca and assuming the Mohammedan prayer position and has provided “space” for the false worship of Protestantism while at the same time calling a mountain upon which Buddhists worship their devils as “sacred,” and false “bishops” themselves pay homage to false gods and bind themselves to the false laws of heresy and make incantations to false prophets, yes, even in the context of alleged Catholic “liturgies.” Saint Patrick is the model for all Catholic bishops, zealous in seeking the conversion of all men to the Catholic Church as he sought to convert himself by his life of constant prayer and severe penances and embrace of Holy Poverty.

The aforementioned Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote the following prayer to our great and glorious Saint Patrick:

Thy life, great saint, was spent in the arduous toils of an apostle; but rich was the harvest thou didst reap! Every fatigue seemed to thee light, if only thou couldst give to men the precious gift of faith; and the people to whom thou didst leave it have kept it with a constancy which is one of thy greatest glories. Pray for us, that this faith, without which it is impossible to please God, may take possession of our hearts and minds. It is by faith, that the just man liveth, says the prophet, and it is faith that, during this holy season of Lent, is showing us the justice and mercy of God, in order that we may be converted, and offer to our offended Lord the tribute of our penance. We are afraid of what the Church imposes on us, simply because our faith is weak. If our principles were those of faith, we should soon be mortified men. Thy life, though so innocent, and so rich in good works, was one of extraordinary penance: gain for us thy spirit, and help us to follow thee, at least at a humble distance. Pray for Erin, that dear country of thine, which loves and honours thee so fervently. She is threatened with danger even now, and many of her children have left the faith thou didst teach. An odious system of proselytism [conducted by the Protestants] has disturbed thy flock; protect it, and suffer not the children of martyrs to be apostates. Let thy fatherly care follow them that have been driven by suffering to emigrate from their native land: may they keep true to the faith, be witnesses of the true religion in the countries to which they have fled, and ever show themselves to be the obedient children of the Church. May their misfortunes thus serve the advance of the kingdom of God. Holy pontiff ! intercede for England; pardon her the injustice she has shown to thy children; and by thy powerful prayers hasten the happy day of her return to Catholic unity. Pray, too, for the whole Church; thy prayer, being that of an apostle, easily finds access to Him that sent thee. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

The readings for Matins in today's Divine Office teach us about the life of our dear Saint Patrick:

Patrick, called the Apostle of Ireland, was born in Great Britain. The name of his father was Calphurnius, and that of his mother Conchessa. She is said to have been a relation of St Martin, Bishop of Tours. When Patrick was a lad, he was several times taken prisoner by savages, and while being in their hands he was employed as a shepherd, he already showed marks of his saintliness to come. His spirit was filled with faith, and love, and fear of God, so that he would rise before the light, in snow, and frost, and rain, to make his prayers to God, being accustomed to address God in prayer an hundred times every day, and an hundred times every night. After being rescued from his third captivity, he was placed among the clergy, and for a long time exercised himself in sacred learning. To this end he travelled with much labour, through Gaul, Italy, and the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, but at last being called of God to work for the salvation of the Irish, and, having received from the Blessed Pope Celestine a commission to preach the gospel, and likewise being consecrated a Bishop, he betook himself to Ireland.

In the discharge of his calling it is a marvel with how many evils, with how many sufferings and labours, and with how many adversaries the Apostolic Patrick had to bear. Nevertheless, by the goodness of God, that island, which had up to that time been given over to the serving of idols, was, through the preaching of Patrick, so wrought on that she soon brought forth the fruit which won her the name of the Island of Saints. Patrick caused many of her people to be born again by the washing of regeneration; he ordained many Bishops and clerks; he decreed rules for virgins and widows living in continency. By the authority of the Bishop of Rome he established the See of Armagh as the Primatial See of all Ireland, and enriched the Church with relics of the Saints brought from Rome. Patrick, moreover, was so eminently adorned with heavenly visions, with the gift of prophecy, and with great signs and wonders from God, that the fame of him spread itself abroad more and more, day by day.

Besides that which came upon him daily, the care of all the Churches of Ireland, he never suffered his spirit to weary in constant prayer. They say that it was his custom to repeat every day the whole Book of Psalms, together with Songs and Hymns, and two hundred Prayers; that he bent his knees to God in worship three hundred times every day, and that he made on himself the sign of the Cross an hundred times at each of the Seven Hours of the Church Service. He divided the night into three portions; during the first he repeated the first hundred Psalms, and bent his knees two hundred times; during the second he remained plunged in cold water, with heart, eyes, and hands lifted up to heaven, and in that state repeated the remaining fifty Psalms; during the third he took his short rest, lying upon a bare stone. He was a great practicer of lowliness, and, after the pattern of the Apostle, he always continued to work with his own hands. At last he fell asleep in the Lord in extreme old age, refreshed with the Divine Mysteries, worn out with unceasing care for the Churches, and glorious both in word and work. His body is buried in Down in Ulster. He passed away in the fifth century after the giving of salvation by Christ. (From Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Patrick.)

As noted at the beginning of this brief commentary, Saint Patrick’s feast yields second place to the Second Sunday of Lent, on which is read the account of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as included in the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Holy Mother Church places this account before our eyes today as Our Lord’s Transfiguration took place shortly before the beginning of His entry into Jerusalem and was meant to take away the scandal of the Cross from Saints Peter, James and John, who were privileged to accompany Him to the top of Mount Thabor and would be chosen to join Him in His Agony in the Garden in Mount Olivet, where they fell fast asleep.

In like manner, of course, Our Lord permits us to have moments of consolation, some of which are so personal that they can be understand by no one else as He has tailored them for us personally, in order to encourage us to carry our daily crosses to work for the only consolation that matters: eternal glory in Heaven before the very glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s meditation on today’s Gospel account should help us to batten down the hatches, shall we say, for the remaining five full weeks of Lent ahead of us as a preparation for living always in a manner befitting redeemed creatures and thus of being chosen by Our Lord to share the happiness that His ineffable Sacrifice of the Cross has made possible for us to enjoy for all eternity in Heaven:

The subject offered to our consideration, on this second Lent, is one of the utmost importance for the holy season. The Church applies to us the lesson which our Saviour gave to three of His apostles. Let us endeavour to be more attentive to it than they were.

Jesus was about to pass from Galilee into Judea, that He might go up to Jerusalem to be present at the feast of the Pasch. It was that last Pasch, which was to begin with the immolation of the figurative lamb, and end with the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. Jess would have His disciple to know Him. His works had borne testimony to Him, even before those who were, in a manner, strangers to Him; but as for His disciples, had they not every reason to be faithful to Him, even to death? Had they not listened to His words, which had such power with them that that they forced conviction? Had they not experienced His love, which it was impossible to resist? And had they not seen how patiently He had borne with their strange and untoward ways? Yes, they must have known Him. They had heard one of their company, Peter, declare that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Notwithstanding this, the trial to which their faith was soon to be put was of such a terrible kind, that Jesus would mercifully arm them against temptation by an extraordinary grace.

The cross was to be a scandal and a stumbling block to the Synagogue, and alas ! to more than it. Jesus said to His disciples at the Last Supper: ‘All of you shall be scandalized in Me this night.’ Carnal-minded as they were, what would they think when they should see hi seized by armed men, handcuffed, hurried from one tribunal to another, and doing nothing to defend Himself! And when they found that the high priest and the pharisees, who had hitherto been so often foiled by the wisdom and the miarcles of Jesus, had now succeeded in their conspiracy against Him, what a shock to their confidence! But there was to be something more trying still: the people, who, but a few days before, greeted Him so enthusiastically with their Hosannas, would demand His execution; and He would have to die, between two thieves, on the cross, amidst the insults of His triumphant enemies.

Is it not to be feared that these disciples, when they witness His humiliations and sufferings, will lose their courage? They have lived in His company for three years; but when they see that the things He foretold would happen to Him are really fulfilled, will the remembrance of all they have seen and heard keep them loyal to Him? Or will they turn cowards and flee from Him? Jesus selects three out of the number, who are especially dear to Him: Peter, whom He has made the rock, on which His Church is to be built, and to whom He has promised the keys of the kingdom of heaven; James, the son of thunder, who is to be the first martyr of the apostolic college; and John, James’s brother, and His own beloved disciple. Jesus has resolved to take them aside, and show them a glimpse of that glory, which, until the day fixed for its manifestation, He conceals from the eyes of mortals.

He therefore leaves the rest of His disciples in the plain near Nazareth, and goes in company with the three privileged ones towards a high hill called Thabor, which is a continuation of Libanus, and which the psalmist tells us was to rejoice in the name of the Lord. No sooner has He reached the summit of the mountain than the three apostles observe a sudden change come over Him; His Face shines as the sun, and His humble garments become white as snow. They observe two venerable men approach and speak to Him upon what He is about to suffer in Jerusalem. One is Moses, the lawgiver; the other is Elias, the prophet, who was taken up from the earth on a fiery chariot without having passing through the gates of death. These two great representatives of the Jewish religion, the Law and the Prophets, humbly adore Jesus of Nazareth. The three apostles are not only dazzled by the brightness which comes from their divine Master; but they are filled with such a rapture of delight, that they cannot bear the thought of leaving the place. Peter proposes to remain three for ever and build three tabernacle, for Jesus, Moses, and Elias. And while they are admiring the glorious sight, and gazing on the beauty of Jesus’ human Nature, a bright cloud overshadows them, and a voice is heard speaking to them: it is the voice of the eternal Father, proclaiming the Divinity of Jesus, and saying, ‘This is My beloved Son!’

This transfiguration of the Son of Man, this manifestation of His glory, lasted but for a few moments: His mission was not on Thabor; it was humiliation and suffering in Jerusalem. He therefore withdrew into Himself the brightness He had allowed to transpire; and when He came to the three apostles, who, on hearing the voice from the cloud, had fallen on their faces with fear, they could see no one save only Jesus. The bright cloud was gone; Moses and Elias had disappeared. What a favour they have had bestowed upon them! Will they remember what they have seen and heard? They have had such a revelation of the Divinity of their dear Master! Is it possible that, when the hour of trial comes, they will forget it, and doubt His being God? And when they see Him suffer and die, will they be ashamed of Him and deny Him? Alas! the Gospel has told us what happened to them.

A short time after this, our Lord celebrated His last Supper with His disciples. When the supper was over, He took them to another mount, Mount Olivet, which lies to the east of Jerusalem. Leaving the rest at the entrance of the garden, He advances with Peter, James, and John, and then says to them: ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay you here and watch with Me.’ He then retires some little distance from them, and prays to His eternal Father. The Heart of our Redeemer is weighed down with anguish. When He returns to His three disciples, He is enfeebled by the agony He has suffered, and His garments are saturated with Blood. The apostles are aware that He is sad even unto death, and that the hour is close at hand when He is to be attacked: are they keeping watch? are they ready to defend Him? No: they seem to have forgotten Him; they are fast asleep, for their eyes are heavy. Yet a few moments, and all will have fled from Him; and Peter, the bravest of them all, will be taking his oath that he never knew the Man.

After the Resurrection our three apostles made ample atonement for this cowardly and sinful conduct, and acknowledged the mercy wherewith Jesus had sought to fortify them against temptation, by showing them His glory on Thabor a few days before His Passion. Let us not wait till we have betrayed Him: let us at once acknowledge that He is our Lord and our God. We are soon to be keeping the anniversary of His Sacrifice; like the apostles, we are to see Him humbled by His enemies and bearing, in our stead, the circumstances of divine justice. We must now allow our faith to be weakened, when we behold the fulfillment of those prophecies of David and Isaias, that the Messias is to be treated as a worm of the earth, and be covered with wounds, so as to become like a leper, the most abject of men, and the Man of sorrows. We must remember the grand things of Thabor, and the adorations paid Him by Moses and Elia, and the bright cloud, and the voice of the eternal Father. The more we see Him, humbled, the more we must proclaim His glory and divinity; we must join our acclamations with those of the angels and the four-and-twenty-elders, whom St. John, one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration, heard crying with a loud voice: ‘The Lamb that was slain, is worthy to receive power and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction!’  

Dom Prosper Gueranger also explained the lesson from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Thessalonians by teaching us that the Apostle to the Gentile was showing us the “manner of life” that “should be followed by Christians,” a manner of life that is far, far different than the pagan spirit that permeates the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s “reconciliation” the world and its errors.

Here the apostle shows what manner of life should be followed by Christians; and the Church, by repeating his words, exhorts the faithful to profit of the present season of grace, and regain the beauty of the image of God, which the grace of Baptism first gave them. A Christian is a ‘vessel of honour,’ formed and enriched by the hand of God; let hi, therefore, shun whatsoever would degrade his noble origin, and turn him into a vessel of dishonor, fit only to be broken and cast with the unclean into the sink of hell. The Christian religion has so far ennobled man, that even his very body may share in the soul’s sanctity; on the other hand it teaches us that this sanctity of the soul is impaired, yea, altogether effaced, by the loss of the body’s purity. The whole man, therefore, both body and soul, is to be reformed by the practices of this holy season. Let us purify the soul by the confession of our sins by compunction of heart, by the love of God; and let us give back its dignity to the body, by making it bear the yoke of penance, that that so it may b be, henceforth, subservient and docile to the soul, on the day, of the general resurrection, may partake in her eternal bliss. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Volume V, Lent—Book 1, pp. 186-190, 192-194.)

Although this Second Sunday of Lent and the commemorated feast of Saint Patrick will end in but a few hours, let us follow the example of Saint Patrick to pray for us to enjoy the glories of Heaven as beg him daily in our prayers for his holy help to persevere until the end in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church, not of the robber church of conciliarism. In the meantime, may we beg Our Lady to send us the graces to plant the seeds in our own land for Saint Patrick had accomplished in Ireland. the Triumph of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Knock, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Patrick, pray for us.

Saint Colman of Armagh, pray for us.

Saint Mel, pray for us.

Saint Brigid of Kildare, pray for us.

Saint Malachy, pray for us.

Saint Columba, pray for us.

Saint Columban, pray for us.

Saint Kevin, pray for us.

Saint Brendan, pray for us.

Saint Kieran, pray for us.

Saint Aidan, pray for us.

Saint Ita, pray for us.

Saint Guasach, pray for us.

Saint MacCarthem, pray for us.

Saint Loman, pray for us.

Saint Cormac, pray for us.

Blessed Oliver Plunkett, pray for us.

Saint Tassach, pray for us.