Director of Mission and Pastoral Life, Dr Chris Cotter, reflects on the “deep awareness of identity and purpose” of two prophetic Christian leaders; Pope Francis, who is leading the reimagining of the global church and St Patrick, whose legacy resonates in our daily life, 1600 years since he first went to Ireland.
I was educated by the Christian Brothers, sometimes known as the ‘Irish’ Brothers. I remember a school assembly on a St Patrick’s day in the late 1970s. Brother Patrick O’Malley led prayer and gave a short talk on St Patrick. The only part of the prayer and talk I remember is this: that in the 1960s the local bishop had turned up at our school on St Patrick’s Day and sent all students home to celebrate this great feast day. I don’t think I was the only boy at the assembly who was hoping Brother O’Malley would suddenly send us all home to celebrate St Patrick! Alas, it wasn’t to be, and we trudged off to class wondering if we had been born in the wrong decade.
This week also marks the tenth anniversary of Cardinal Jorge Bergolio’s election to the office of the Bishop of Rome, our Pope. There are some interesting parallels between St Patrick and Pope Francis. One of the things that has marked Pope Francis’ pontificate is his advocacy for migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and people who have been trafficked. Along with his concern for the environment, it is one of his signature causes. We don’t know a lot about St Patrick, and what we do know comes mostly from two documents attributed to him. In his Confessions we are introduced to the young man ‘Patrick’, from a land that we now called England. Patrick is captured by pirates and sold into slavery or ‘trafficked’. He ends up in Ireland herding sheep. Patrick reports that this servitude was important for him as he got to know and understand himself and to become a Christian. He also came to know the situation in Ireland. After six years he escaped and returned to his family. Soon a sense of destiny grew within Patrick; he came to understand that his future was to be an apostle to the people of Ireland. This “servant boy” was called to go and “walk among” the people where he was once enslaved.
Pope Francis also has this same sense of manifest destiny. In his Apostolic Exhortation, (Evangeli Gaudium) The Joy of the Gospel, Francis says:
"My mission of being in the heart of the people is not just a part of my life or a badge I can take off; it is not an “extra” or just another moment in life. Instead, it is something I cannot uproot from my being without destroying my very self. I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world." (par 273).
The deep awareness of identity and purpose, of being called and sent to be a missionary disciple is there in Francis, just as it was in Patrick.
In his encyclical (Fratelli Tutti) On Fraternity and Human Friendship, Pope Francis urges the whole human family to loving collaboration and partnership in work, in ministry and in every human endeavour. Despite the popular image of St Patrick as single-handedly Christianising the whole of Ireland, it is certain that he had collaborators and followers.
In recent years the figure of St Brigid has emerged as an important figure in the development of Christianity in Ireland. It seems that she saw herself as a fellow missionary of St Patrick. In the readings for the solemnity, we observe collaboration in ministry. In the Gospel, our Lord sends the seventy-two out in pairs, and Paul and Barnabas continue their ministry among the pagans in Acts. Finally, Jesus reminds us to rejoice, not because of our great deeds or great collaborative efforts, but because our “names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
