As the nation goes green on Saturday to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, one evangelical leader asks who this "saint" that everybody is recognizing really is.
Dressed as St. Patrick, Pat Minehane, left, leads 105-year-old Jack A. Weil, the founder of Rockmount Ranchwear, to the corner of a street in lower downtown Denver to perform the annual sign changing ceremony and rename the street after former Denver district attorney Dale Tooley on Thursday, March 8, 2007. The annual ceremony is held to kick off the week leading up to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Denver, which is one of the largest held in the country.
Many might say St. Patrick is the Roman Catholic who drove the snakes out of Ireland. But the "saint" has become more famous for what he did not do than any other figure in history.
"First of all, he was not Irish," Dr. D. James Kennedy, head of Coral Ridge Ministries, said in a sermon featured on the ministry's daily broadcast. "He was English."
And, Patrick was a preacher's kid, even living up to the stereotypical "PK" willful and rebellious character, Kennedy said.
Moreover, he was not a saint – at least, he was never canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.
While nearly everything people believe of St. Patrick today is a myth, Kennedy drew attention to the real Patrick, which is "far more wonderful than the myth and ... obscured by the myth."
In Patrick's three writings, the English man never called himself a saint. Instead, he wrote, "I, Patrick, the sinner."
At age 16, he was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who were attacking his family's estate and then transported to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity, Kennedy explained. During those years, he remembered his father, a Christian deacon, had said to him that there is a God and He is a God who is able to deliver you. At that point, Patrick committed his life to Jesus Christ.
After six years, Patrick had a dream where he was told that his ship was ready. Escaping 200 miles to the coast, Patrick saw a ship that was to head for England.
He soon returned to his home country. The people of Ireland, however, kept coming back to his mind. And 20 years later, he had a dream where Irish druids called him to return to their land.
Patrick became a missionary in Ireland, and according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, he converted 120,000 people and baptized them and built over 300 churches.
"He found Ireland totally pagan and left it resoundingly Christian," said Kennedy. "His accomplishment was absolutely gigantic."
Although not a saint in the Roman Catholic sense, Kennedy said he was a saint in the sense that he was sanctified by God and the Holy Spirit and he submitted himself to the Lord.
Despite his renown as a myth, St. Patrick is "a hero far greater than the myth and one that challenges every one of us today," commented Kennedy.
In a recent update on Kennedy's health, who suffered a heart attack in December, the evangelical pastor has been transferred to a rehabilitation hospital in Michigan where he will continue to receive therapy, according to Brian Fisher, executive vice president of Coral Ridge Ministries. He is in stable condition and is progressing toward recovery.
