St. Patrick

Patrick is NOT the patron saint of green beer, or raucous parties, or bar fights. By many accounts, he was far from that. Accepting some of the stories told about him, he was: Enslaved in his teens, escaped, studied to become a cleric, was successful in his ministry, earned the jealousy of some of his contemporaries and has become one of the most well-known and celebrated of the saints. He probably didn’t drive the snakes from Ireland (there almost certainly weren’t any there to begin with) and he was never actually canonized by the Roman Catholic church. He was, though, a person of great faith and commitment to God. The legend has it his breastplate was engraved with verses that begin “I bind unto myself this day the strong name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three in One and One in Three.” So pick up your shamrock (the one with three leaves) and remember Patrick.