Sign Up With Fox News for access to this material
Plus unique access to choose short articles and other premium material with your account – totally free of charge.
Please go into a legitimate e-mail address.
This year of 2024, the Fifth Sunday of Lent accompanies St. Patrick's Day, the banquet of the tutelary saint of Ireland.
And while lots of people are seizing the day to savor all things Irish, a priest informed Fox News Digital that the story of St. Patrick is a prompt suggestion of the power of God's forgiveness.
St. Patrick goes through “a bargain of folklore” and misunderstandings that are not completely accurate, Fr. Timothy Harris, T.O.R., informed Fox News Digital. Harris is pastor at St. John Vianney Parish in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and is a pastor for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic males's fraternal company.
‘THE GREAT LENT': WHY SOME CHRISTIANS WILL START OBSERVING LENT ON MONDAY
St. Patrick himself was not Irish– he was most likely born in Wales or Scotland, however his birth place doubts.
“Either method, it is clear that it was not Ireland,” stated Harris.
Fr. Timothy Harris, T.O.R., at right, is a Catholic priest based in Pennsylvania. He is likewise a pastor with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish-Catholic fraternal company. (iStock/Courtesy of Fr. Timothy Harris, T.O.R.)
St. Patrick concerned Ireland after he was abducted at the age of 16 and offered into slavery.
He was a servant, working as a shepherd, up until he was age 22, stated Harris, “when God led him to go back to his home and household.”
There's likewise no proof that St. Patrick utilized the shamrock to describe the Trinity, stated Harris, however it is a “terrific custom.”
St. Patrick is “an outstanding example of God's grace and love that is continuously used to us.”
While these stories are good, they are not why St. Patrick is popular each year, a centuries after his death.
“The most crucial aspects of his story that history does verify are what make him such a fantastic saint for us to commemorate today,” stated Harris.
EVANGELICAL LEADER STRESSES SACRIFICES OF MARTYRS THIS LENT: ‘BE INSPIRED BY THEM'
After his go back to his household, St. Patrick was ordained a bishop and “went back to the island that oppressed him, to end up being a servant of Christ to share [God's] love with the Irish,” stated Harris.
In specific for youths, St. Patrick is “an outstanding example of God's grace and love that is continuously provided to us, even when, in one's vibrant pride, one may not acknowledge the requirement for forgiveness.”
St. Patrick is commemorated around the globe every year on his feast day, March 17. (Angelo Merendino/Corbis by means of Getty Images)
As a kid, St. Patrick was not spiritual himself,
