Today we rode our bus 2 hours to northern Ireland to focus on the work of St. Patrick, Ireland’s well-known saint. The most interesting part of the visit was the St. Patrick’s Visitor’s center, where a guide and displays told of the life of St. Patrick, the well-know Irish Saint — there seems to be more fiction that actual known fact about him. There are no snakes in Ireland, but there is no reason to believe that Patrick is responsible.
Patrick was evidently captured by pirates from the Roman Empire as a 6-year old and taken to Ireland as a shepherd boy. He reportedly spent his time praying 100 x a day and night and became a committed follower of Christ. He ran away and returned to his family on the European mainline, but was directed in a dream to go back to Ireland and proclaim Christ to a pagan land. He died on March 17 at the age of 56, and is supposedly buried at the top of the hill above Downpatrick (I doubt it.)
We climbed the hill and spent a lot of time at the Anglican Down Patrick Catholic Cathedral there. This church is still holding Sunday services, has a huge pipe organ and an interesting seating arrangement.
I was pretty turned off by the pettiness of big names, hierarchy, and titles and the likelihood that most of what we were hearing was legend rather than fact. We sang the Doxology there, which was very special, and tour members spent a great amount of time at the Cathedral and cemetery, and were much more impressed than I was.
Someone pointed out that part of the purpose of stained glass windows was to tell the Bible stories, etc. to people who couldn’t read.
Joke: What are your 3 favorite hymns? Answer: him and him and him!
On the way home we saw smoke from 2 different fires burning in the distance – probably because of the extremely dry and hot weather.