St. Patrick's Day 2020

Most priests and deacons have at least one bookshelf dedicated to ritual books. Not copies of Sacred Scripture. The “how to” books of everything from baptisms to burials, confessions to confirmations, marriages and Sacrament of the Sick. (I did not pair those last two for any particular reason.) 

The oldest of these on my shelves is a “Rites of Christian Burial” I received at ordination.  While Holy Mother Church has changed the rituals over the years and abandoned some of the prayers, I still use my broken-binding-ed RCB for sentimental reasons – so many of my family’s friends, students, addicts and former inmates I have worked with, personal friends have been commended to God with that small blue book that I cannot bring myself to abandon it. It is prized for the memories it holds. 

It is valued, too, because of the conflict caused by one of its prayers.

When prayed well – in a solid voice, resonantly, with rhythm and cadence, with a sense of confidence and hope in the Mercy and Goodness of God – it is a comforting and Faith-nurturing prayer.

But I genuinely don’t like the prayer because, while it reflects a simple, honest Faith, it denies what dying generations of Americans were taught in Catholic grade schools and through the Baltimore Catechism: God is omnipresent. 

“Peace be with those who have left us and gone to God.
May they be at peace.
May they be with God.
May they be with the living God. 
May they be with the immortal God.
May they be in God’s hands.

May they sleep in peace.
May they live in peace. 
May they be with the living God now and on the day of judgment.
May they live with God.
May they live in eternal light.

May they live in the peace of God.
With God in peace.”

There’s just one problem with these beautifully poetic lines I have prayed hundreds of times in churches and cemeteries. 

It’s terrible theology: It makes God distant – the Great Someone to whom we go.

There’s something special about religious mythology and few do myth as well as the Irish.

Tradition and myth hold that when Loeguire, King of Tara or high King of Ireland – “a great king, fierce and pagan, emperor of the barbarians” - schemed to kill Bishop Patrick, the future patron saint of Ireland armed himself and his companions with his lorica – The Breastplate of St. Patrick or his prayer of protection. The Thesaurus Paleohibernicus, published in 1903, tells us 

St. Patrick sang this when an ambush was laid against his coming 
by Loegaire, that he might not go to Tara to sow the faith. And then it 
appeared before those lying in ambush that they [St. Patrick and 
his monks] were wild deer with a fawn following them.

As Christians, we proclaim that God is Omnipresent – God is Everywhere.  In “The Deer’s Cry” or “Breastplate of St. Patrick” the bishop prayed:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation…

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From everyone who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude…

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.  

We arise and we lie down every day with the Eternal God before us and behind us, to our left and our right, above and below us, and always within us. 

We do not “go to God.” For God is always with us.

Thank you, St. Patrick.