Poor Patrick

I do not celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I think if Patrick knew people were worshipping him, he would be sad and mortified! The following is an great explanation of who Patrick was, and also the little known fact that he was a SABBATH KEEPER!! I don't have the website I got this off of, but I could probably find it, if someone wants it.
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“And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” —2 Timothy 4:4

Maewyn Succat’s legacy to Ireland is both ironic and inspirational. Born to a Christian family around A.D. 380 on the banks of the Clyde in Scotland, he was kidnapped by a gang of ruffians, smuggled to Ireland, and sold as a slave to a cattle and swine herder.

At the time of his capture, Succat was unconvinced about following Jesus. By the age of 15, the troubled boy was given to the earthly pleasures of lust, hate, and deceit, and he ignored the teachings of his father, a respected church leader. Succat believed this selfish incredulity doomed him, albeit temporarily: “It was according to our deserts, because we drew back from God and kept not His precepts.”

But during his six years of harsh captivity, wearing rags for clothing and with minimal shelter from pounding rains and frigid nights, he soon gave his life to God. During long evenings of endless hunger and immense suffering, he would hear the voice of his mother and father urging him to follow Jesus. Finally, he began to listen rather than just hear them. And at last, he realized there was something more to life than just himself.Gazing into the starry heavens, he said to God on the evening of his conversion, “I will arise, and go to my Father." Soon after, he escaped and at last returned to his homeland, ready to follow heaven’s call. Invigorated by his new devotion, Succat found and joined a church whose voice in history is unfortunately, though not surprisingly, silent to the general public.

Against the grain of the day’s religious teachings, the Celtic Church not only kept the Sabbath as holy, they followed God’s health laws and practiced baptism by immersion. They believed God’s Law was paramount, and they would only give their allegiance to Christ. In short, they believed there was no difference between obeying the Law and ultimate morality—faithfully obeying God’s Word was the ultimate sign of their love and devotion.

Succat quickly rose in the ranks of this church, fighting against the onset of paganism from the outlying Briton isles and Europe. Sometime in his late twenties, he began to dream of the green island he once regretfully called home. He dreamed of how the heathens there suffered under economic and spiritual poverty—and eventually he believed God was calling him to return to Erin, which once held him prisoner, to set it free with His Word. He followed without hesitation.

The conversion of the island is both baffling and miraculous. Succat led a band of like minded believers across the isle, establishing churches that would glorify the kingdom of God by expressing their faith through obedience to the Decalogue. Queen Margaret wrote about this and other “peculiar” practices of the growing Celtic Church, complaining '”They are accustomed … to neglect reverence for [Sundays].”Though the major religious leaders of the day threatened, cajoled, and attempted to otherwise provoke allegiance to their doctrines, Succat’s church continually turned these temptations away. Because of his strict adherence to God’s desires, Succat is believed to be directly responsible for the establishment of more than 350 churches and the conversion of over 120,000 converts.

In the centuries to follow, Succat’s legacy as a faithful Sabbath-keeper would quickly be shrouded with half-truths and mysticism due to the eventual overthrow of the Celtic Church. (The victors attempted to change history.) Indeed, the ire of all of Europe eventually besieged the tiny, peculiar island until it capitulated and adopted more culturally acceptable norms under force.

Succat is still revered and celebrated as few others—he is as much a cultural icon today as he was when he conquered a nation for Christ. Succat is worthy of remembrance and honor—though he, throughout his writings, directed all the glory to his Savior. Sadly, the truth behind his powerful work is twisted and dimly lit, but that doesn’t mean the real truth can’t be told. Ireland prospered in peace for centuries as it obeyed God’s commands by Succat’s lead. After it incorporated unholy doctrines and practices, it fell into despair and was subjugated by oppression and cruelty. If you haven’t guessed it yet, Succat is better known by the name Patrick of Ireland—or even more familiarly, Saint Patrick.Other interesting facts....Patrick believed that Christianity should be founded with the home and the family as its strength. Too often the Christian organizations of that age were centered in celibacy. This was not true of the Irish Church and its Celtic daughters in Great Britain, Scotland, and on the Continent. The Celtic Church, as organized and developed under Patrick, permitted its clergy to marry.

The absence of celibacy in the Celtic Church gives added proof to the fact that the believers had no connection with the church at Rome. Thus Dr. J. H. Todd writes: “He [Patrick] says nothing of Rome, or of having been commissioned by Pope Celestine. He attributed his Irish apostleship altogether to an inward call, which he regarded as a divine command.”

One of the strongest proofs that Patrick did not belong to papal Christianity is found in the historical fact that for centuries Rome made every effort to destroy the church Patrick had founded. Jules Michelet writes of Boniface, who was the pope’s apostle to the Germans about two hundred years after Patrick: “His chief hatred is to the Scots [the name equally given to the Scotch and Irish], and he especially condemns their allowing priests to marry.”

Patrick rejected the union of church and state. More than one hundred years had passed since the first world council at Nicaea had united the church with the empire. Patrick rejected this model. He followed the lesson taught in John’s Gospel when Christ refused to be made a king. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”(John 18:36.)

Food for thought, huh?