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St. Patrick
00:22:13
Dr. Elizabeth Klein and Taylor Kemp discuss the historical life of St. Patrick. Captured multiple times by pirates, St. Patrick escaped slavery and returned to his land of captivity to preach the Gospel to a pagan people. Living during a time of great plagues, St. Patrick preached the good news of a God who embraces suffering. His feast day is March 17.
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Podcast Narrator
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith.
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Host
Hello and welcome to Catholic Saints. Today we are talking to Dr. Elizabeth Klein. Thank you for being here, Dr. Klein.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Thanks for having me.
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Host
Yes, and today we are talking about St. Patrick. He is a beloved saint of many people. What do we need to know about him?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Well, St. Patrick is a patristic saint, so he falls into my favorite time period, which is one reason I wanted
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Host
to talk about that. Tell us, what is the patristic period, please?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So the patristic period will debate when it ends, but basically it's somewhere from, like, the year 200 to the year 6 or 700, depending on how you decide to put it.
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Host
When someone says early church father, that's.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
That's the period they're talking about.
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Host
St. Patrick. Early church father.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
He's an early church father. And there's a lot of sort of legendary material surrounding St. Patrick and lots of famous stories. But I thought it'd be really awesome to talk about kind of the historical Patrick and the material that St. Patrick left us, because St. Patrick actually left us a couple pieces of writing, and they're short, but they are very interesting. So he left two works that are kind of securely attributed to him. One is his confession, which is some kind of defense of himself. It seems that maybe he was accused of something, maybe by some other bishops. So it's partly autobiographical. And so that's where we get kind of really solid evidence of his life's work. And another. Can I ask a question?
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Host
Was there a common. Was it common back then to do something like this, like a confession? Because I'm thinking about St. Augustine's Confessions. Was this, like, a common practice, per se?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
No, it wasn't a common practice. I wouldn't say. Although the idea of writing a defense of yourself was a common practice, so the autobiographical nature of it isn't necessarily super common. Got it.
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Host
Okay.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. So that's really interesting. And then there's also a short letter that he wrote to someone named Coroticus.
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Host
Great name. Who?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
We don't know who it is. Could have potentially been a king. Some people have tried to identify it with different figures, but whoever this person is raided one of the churches in St. Patrick's Diocese and carried off and killed Christians, even though they themselves were Christian. So Patrick is, you know, condemning this as one should.
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Host
Okay. Did he. So he was a bishop. Was he a bishop when he wrote both of these things? Do you Know? Do we know?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. So he wrote. So this is written late in his life. He says that in the confession that he's writing it as an old man. And he even apologizes that his Latin isn't amazing and that he didn't kind of dare put anything down before. So yeah, he's older, kind of at the end of his career when he's writing the confession.
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Host
And if someone wanted to look up how they could read this confession, is it available online?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
That's a good question. I don't know if it's available free online, but you could look up the confession of St. Patrick and I know it's available very inexpensively because Google it. I bought it on Reddit.
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Host
Nice.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So just some things about his life that he tells us from his confession is that. So he was born in Roman Britain. So this is kind of the southeast part of Britain, which was under Roman control at the time. And so Christianity had spread there early. I mean, basically Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire by the third century even to like the far places in the empire. So Christianity was there, but it was kind of still a minority. Kind of weird thing from the east considered by the people there. But Patrick tells us that his father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest. So he's already kind of like a.
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Host
Yeah, he's in a Christian family.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
He's in a Christian family.
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Host
So Christianity in these parts is early. It's not totally everywhere else. What is it up against? Is this just various forms of paganism? Would that be the competing religion?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Right, so various forms of paganism. And in some of the later legendary, you see him kind of like doing battle with the Druids and things. And it's very clear that especially in sort of Britain, Ireland and Scotland that like it was hard fought against paganism. It was deeply rooted.
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Host
And so everyone see people.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, so really people think about the conversion of England as happening through kind of more Irish missionaries later and also Augustine of Canterbury. But it was there earlier as Patrick kind of witnesses. But the fact that it wasn't super strong is also witnessed by Patrick because it seems he wasn't really practicing his faith, you know, in his early life because he says even though his dad was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest, he was captured by pirates when he was 16 and said that he was like a great sinner and wasn't, you know, turning to the Lord, it wasn't sort of active in his faith. But that experience of being sold into slavery made him really turn to the Lord and seek The Lord and had a kind of sincere conversion through that.
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Host
This is a comforting story for any parents out there who are faithful Catholics and their children are maybe wayward.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Maybe they'll get kidnapped by pirates.
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Host
Pirates can be a grace. Yes.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
I do think as a. You know, obviously we. We know this, you know, that suffering can be a place where God can come in and that, you know, having difficult experiences in life can be a very valuable thing. But it's a good thing to remember that that is. It's just. That's true. And it's always been the case and that the forms of suffering we experience are not as bad as in some periods of history.
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Host
Yeah, no kidding, Frant.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
I mean, Patrick. Yeah. He talks about being captured multiple times. This isn't the only time that he's captured. And then the fact that his letter talks about other Christians being captured, seems like there was a lot of. Like there was a lot of capturing, pillaging.
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Host
Yeah.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
You know, and of course, this is even before the Viking conquest with more capturing and pillaging.
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Host
So he's captured by the pirates. How old was he?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
He's 16.
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Host
He's young. Okay, so then what happens after the pirates?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So he, as a servant or slave, is a shepherd. And he spends most of his time with the sheep on the field. And he says he takes time for prayer. So he just really is out in this field praying kind of night and day and having this sort of sincere
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Host
turning to the Lord. So can I ask, though? So he was. When he was captured by the pirates, was he a faithful guy?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
No.
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Host
Okay, so then he's captured by the pirates. So what happens? Do we have any idea what happens between him getting captured and then being a shepherd and he's praying and he's becoming a more faithful person.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
He doesn't really say. Leaves it to the. Too much. Yeah, he just says that, like, that experience of kind of, you know, this suffering. He says, well, I deserve this because I'm a sinner. And that kind of causes an awakening of conscience. Yeah, an awakening of conscience. And then, you know, he's kind of afforded this, like, weird kind of retreat situation, almost away from everyone he knows, away from, you know, you can think, like, away from all of his friends, away from all of his possessions, away from anything that would tempt him to think of anything other than God.
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Host
It's so interesting. Feel like there's a couple. There's a diary of Eddie Hilom. I don't know if you've heard of this. She was a Jewish woman that was captured during The Nazi occupation. But I've heard of this in other places, too, that people who are captured and put into solitary confinement or. Yeah, they're just captured. That they can often come to an awareness of their own sinfulness. And maybe even if they were unjustly captured or whatever, they come to this realization of, like, no, I am a sinner. And I. This is just not in that. Like, it was right that I'm being captured by this group of people for this reason, but it is just in that, yes, I have done harm. There's, like, an awareness of sinfulness, which in.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, that's really. It's almost as if, like, he turns to God to ask God, like, why or why God is allowing this and then finds it, like, well, what do I really have to say?
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Host
Who says why not? Like, why someone else and not me? It's just. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing. And I also never experienced.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, there's this kind of beautiful. Like. I don't know if he's intentionally recalling this, but it really reminded me of, like, King David, you know, when Samuel comes to find the king to anoint or whatever. David's not even there because he's the youngest and he's out in the field. You know, David, of course, the reputation for praying the psalms and being very contemplative, it just. You know, it's just a very beautiful picture that he kind of had this horrible experience, but that it also afforded him this, like, complete freedom from all of his attachments and made him a very prayerful man.
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Host
And you can either go one of two directions in that when terrible stuff happens to you, you e close in, get more angry, more bitter, more mad at God or other people, or you come to that realization that leads to, in a very paradoxical way, more freedom, which is what happened to Patrick.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah.
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Host
So he's in the field.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. And then this leads to literal freedom because he's praying kind of night and day out in the field with the sheep. And he receives a vision from God that he will be able to escape his captivity and sort of like the port he's supposed to go to. So Patrick escapes and finds a boat. And he doesn't really tell us exactly where he is or how the journey works, but he has a very treacherous, long journey back to his hometown. And part of his experience is of almost dying of starvation with kind of the sailors on the ship. And he prays to God for food, and they, like, encounter a herd of swine, and he converts the sailors. So he has his first missionary experience on his journey home, and then, yeah, he makes his way back home, but he really emphasizes then this divine call to go back to Ireland later in his life to. To preach the gospel.
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Host
Yeah. Which is crazy.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting because we get a kind of, like, the sense of his family story here. I mean, I think a lot of saint stories, we get only something like you have in the Gospels where Jesus says, like, come, follow me, and then everyone drops everything and does what he says. But you do get a little bit more background of Patrick and, like, the difficulty that it was for him to follow this call because he has this vision or this dream where someone hands him a letter where the voice of Ireland is begging him to return. And his family's like, what are you talking about? Like, you. You've been away from our family for six years.
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Host
You were captured.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
You were captured. Yeah, we have, like, we haven't seen you, and you're going to, like, go back to a country where you're never going to see us again. And again, his family's Christian, as far as we know. And so I think it's really interesting, even such an early figure, to like, get a little bit behind that kind of legendary heroic act. It is heroic, but it isn't, like, easy. It's not just like this very triumphant, you know, yes, I will go, and all the Irish will just fall down at my feet. It's clearly very difficult. And he talks about especially the difficulty of being a foreigner, you know, going into Ireland and trying to preach to the people and how difficult that was. But there's this kind of sense.
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Host
And can I add. Yeah, go ahead. There's other. I've been thinking about St Augustine of Canterbury, some of the other early fathers who go into pagan territory. Like, evangelization back then was not what we would often think of it today, where it's like, I'm trying to talk to someone in a relatively civil manner and explain the truths of the faith and maybe have some, like, argument or something that this was, like, a dangerous venture. There's not like. I mean, it wasn't just conversations. So for him to make a decision like this, to go evangelize these people, this is like, oh, yeah, I could probably will die.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. And I was just going to say, actually, right before that, this is perfect for. What I was just going to say is, like, especially, like, Britain and Ireland are seen as, like, the edge of the known world. Right beyond that is the sea. They don't discover the new world for a long Long time. So as far as anyone's concerned, it's
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Host
like, this is it.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
That's it. That's like the edge of the world.
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Host
And.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Right. The edge of the world was always kind of considered. Like, that's Satan's territory. Right. The farther you get from, like, the center, it's like more chaos, more chaos. The devil's out there out to get you. And a lot of these early saints, it's like they're really going into enemy territory. What they see is spiritual, like, sort of enemy territory. To do this. To do this work. And he really emphasizes that this was a call from God and not from himself, possibly because he's defending himself. But I do also think there's a kind of a sense of, like, who would. Who would choose this for themselves?
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Host
Who wouldn't just stay home?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Who, after escaping slavery from these people, like, I went through enough, would go back to try to make them Christian? Like, what?
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Host
That's inspiring.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Who would want to do this? So, obviously, St. Patrick is credited as converting Ireland and that he's called. Even in the east, he's called Equal to the Apostles, which.
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Host
Oh, interesting.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. So the title Equal to the Apostles is used for anybody who's said to convert a whole people. So it's kind of the idea that the apostles were sent out to the nations, and so they're like the apostles and bringing whole nations to Christ. And that might be like, a bit of an overstatement because Pope Celestine had already sent around the same time, a bishop named Palladius to Ireland to evangelize Ireland. But it doesn't seem like he was super successful. And so certainly, like, the crediting of the conversion of Packard is not made up. He says himself that he baptized himself thousands of people.
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Host
Yeah. Wow.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And that's a lot of people at this time. That's a lot of people, especially in a sparsely populated place. And his later lives, especially talk about his kind of work to work with women and the poor. This is a really common theme in early Christian evangelization, is that often it seems that Christianity appealed to the downtrodden and for that reason was often suspected. Right. Like people who could kind of see as charlatans who were, like, tricking the simpletons. But I think it's. I think it's very beautiful because it always meant sort of the mission call was to often, like, the poorest of the poor first and the lowest first, which seems just very fitting given sort of Christ's own mission. The people Christ chose to call as his first Disciples and, of course, you know, kings and all that convert, too, and they were important to missionize. But it does really seem like it was kind of always like, a grassroots venture.
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Host
Yeah. Like, it's to the least of these. Yeah.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. And it's often women who are widowed who kind of take up monastic vows early, and they become, you know, sort of people who act in charity to the poor. And also, if you think about, like, it always sounds noble to, like, go to the poor.
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Host
Yeah.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
But I mean, if you got to think about, like, what do the poor look like in, like, rural, early medieval Ireland? Like.
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Host
No, I get. Really. Yeah.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
This is not. Like, these are people who are, like, squalid.
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Host
Yep. There's a. It's in the Brothers Karamazov. I don't exactly remember where, but there's a great line that is something along the lines of love in the abstract, or love is an ideal, is like, a grand and beautiful thing. But love in the concrete is a harsh and dreadful thing that, like, putting love into action, like, loving the poor, it's actually, like, very messy, very difficult, very hard. And that's something that, like, all of us, when we run into that at all the time, it's like, it's so easy to be like, oh, I'm gonna go evangelize. I'm gonna go love XYZ person or a group of people. Then you do it, and you're like, oh, you just realize all this stuff rises up, and you're like, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. And especially when Patrick's not a native. So trying to reach people who have different beliefs that are very at odds with what the Christian faith is trying to preach. And, I mean, being up against, too. I mean, preaching the gospel in a land with so much suffering. I mean, ancient people, basically, it's like your God was your only. Like, he was your doctor. He was your, like, financial aid. Like, if you. If things were going bad, you had to, like, placate the correct gods to make it go right. So when you're preaching a very different gospel of, like, embracing suffering and that, you know, But God isn't just, like, a candy machine that you get all your blessings out of. That's. That's very hard. It's very hard in a time when, like, plagues, you know, ravage the land, or you get stolen by pirates on your baptismal day in this letter.
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Host
And that's why the saints are so great, because they give us the witness that is credible, where it's like, someone like St. Patrick could come to the Irish people and preach the gospel and say, this God is worthy of your praise and adoration. And when they're like, well, who are you to say? And it's like, oh, I've been captured. I've been hungry. I've been where you're at. And it gives a credible witness. And I feel like the saints are always, like, taking on the infirmities of the people that they're evangelizing, because that's where you gain credibility. And I feel like you can see that in St. Patrick.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And I think also St. Patrick, something he kind of witnesses in his ministry is that the gospel has always been countercultural. Like, we think about it now, as, you know, it's so against the culture, and it is. Obviously, we have unique challenges to our own age, but it's not like any missionary ever walked into a mission territory that was like, oh, yeah, this is exactly what we were looking for. We totally understand. This makes perfect sense. Of course, we believe all people feel the call from God. And so there is always a kind of natural appeal of the gospel. But the gospel is hard. And Patrick already is complaining about the apostate Picts, who is like, a group in Scotland. And so to think that there's already been a group evangelized and who have, like, reverted by the 5th century when he is in Ireland. And part of it has. It talks about apostasy, which was one of the major sins of the early church.
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Host
Can you define apostasy for us?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Apostasy is renouncing the faith. Okay, so because, like, when times got hard, people went back to their old gods. Right? It's like, oh, well, my daughter's sick, and the Christian God's not healing her.
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Host
She's not getting better.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So I'm gonna sacrifice some cows to the idol I used to and see if that works.
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Host
It's so easy to revert back. I mean, this is the story of Israel being like, I. I'd rather go back to Egypt. I know it was tough, but this is worse. Take me back. Yeah. And we do that in our own lives. It's good to pay attention to. So, okay, I have two questions.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Okay.
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Host
First one, the snakes. So there is often associated with St. Patrick that he drove the snakes out of Ireland. What do we have to say about such a thing?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
So the stories about Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland is until, like, the eighth century.
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Host
So eight.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. So 200 years after Patrick's. And also, apparently, there are evidence of people noticing the lack of Snakes in, like, the third century. So the likelihood of Patrick having been responsible for driving the snakes out of Ireland is not very high.
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Host
Although ruining all those that are Irish that are listening, like, no.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Although I do think it is a kind of, like, it's a really beautiful spiritual image. If you think about, obviously, the serpent as the primordial image of the devil.
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Host
Stuck.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yep. And him kind of bringing this. This new faith against great resistance. And they would have really seen it as demonic resistance. I think it's still cool.
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Host
It's awesome. That's why it's so tragic. But it's okay. It's a good image that we can keep.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
But in better news, the shamrock also probably is not St. Patrick.
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Host
I don't know if we'd call that better news. Okay, so tell us what's going on with the shamrock. Why is that associated with St. Patrick?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
I don't know. I only was able to do a tiny bit of research. It seems like it's like a 17th or 18th century thing that Patrick with the shamrock. And apparently the shamrock didn't have anything particular, special significance in Ireland before that. So I'm not sure what the deal is. I mean, Patrick clearly has a very strong trinitarian confession at the beginning of the confession. This is the hallmark of orthodoxy, obviously, and also still very important as Arianism, which is a rejection of Christ's divinity, is still present in nearby Gaul. So it's very important that he confess the Trinity. And he talks about preaching the triune God. And we also know that the idea of, like, trifold or triplicity was a really resonant image for sort of Irish native religion, pagan religion. And so there's no doubt that he preached the Trinity and that the Trinity was important. So it's not that it's unfitting. But, you know, I say it's good news because I'm a theologian, and the shamrock isn't, like, the best image for the Trinity.
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Host
We have to talk about that very quickly. Okay, so for any of you that don't know, Dr. Klein has written a book called what Every Catholic Should Know God. You can buy it on Catholic market. You also did a lectio course. Yes, Lectio God. That's a video course, so you don't have to read stuff, but you'll hear a little bit more about this. Give us, like, a little bit. Why is the shamrock a bad image of the Trinity?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Because the Trinity is not divided into parts.
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Host
Okay. So if you remove one clover.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, yeah. You can't. Can't separate it's. Not just three parts of one thing.
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Host
Yep.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Okay, so like a three in one. That's not exactly.
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Host
That was a teaser, but you can learn more in Lectio God and what Every Catholic Should Know. God. Okay, so just to close up here, what are some major lessons that we ourselves today, the faithful can look at St. Patrick and maybe take into our own spiritual lives?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
I think one of the main things is that the life of a Christian is out of a living sacrifice. And Patrick uses that phrase a couple times in his confession. And also a very early hymn in honor of him calls him a living sacrifice. And that can take many different forms. And, you know, I think if we pay attention to our own lives, we will see little ways in which we're being conformed to Christ. Maybe even literally. You know, you have like him not just taking the form of a slave, but Patrick actually is literally a slave.
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Host
Yeah.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And that isn't kind of lost on him, but his conversion is through this experience of slavery. And so I think that's a really important lesson. And to remember that that has kind of always been the case. The way of the cross has always been the way to Christ, whether yesterday, today, forever.
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Host
That is great to make ourselves a living sacrifice. So thank you, Dr. Klein, for all of your wisdom and thank you everyone for joining us. We will see you next time on Catholic Saints.
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Podcast Narrator
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