On the mountain: Transfiguration

Today St. Patrick and the First Sunday of Lent coincide. In the Gospel, Jesus goes to the mountain top and is transfigured.

There is a simliarity between this event and St, Patrck's first expeience in Ireland.

He experienced the mountain tops there as a young slave. He was captured and sent to the mountains to herd sheep. Many believe those long solitary hours on the mountains of Erin developed in him a reflective spirit.

St. Patrick thus began to receive a transformation/transfiguration on the mountains of Erin.

He would later escape and get passage back to his homeland, which may have been Britain or Normandy.

It was only after experiencing the comforts of his homeland, that he felt summoned in dreams to return to Erin and convert the pagan Irish.

When he returned, he spent 40 days in prayer atop Croagh Patrick

Mountain  during the 40 days of Lent.

 

Subsequently, he was the first Bishop in history to condem slavery.

 

 And so we pray:

I arise today

through a mighty strength,

the invocation of the Trinity,

Through beief in the threeness,

Throug confesion of the oneness

of the crator of creation.

St. Patrick's Breastplate.