Salute to PATRICK Of Ireland!

Well, he wasn't  Irish, and he wasn't Catholic, either.

St. Patrick was likely born in what is now Scotland. His father was a Roman centurion and also a deacon in a local New Testament [read that as "proto-protestant"] church.

He was actually captured and taken to Ireland as a slave, but he later escaped. After his conversion to Christ, he studied on the mainland in Gaul, and then returned to minister to the heathen tribes in Ireland as an early-- and extremely effective-- foreign missionary.      

He started scores of churches and baptized-- yup, immersed-- thousands of converts. He is said to have been largely responsible for the large number of Bible-believing Christians that still inhabit Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England to this very day.

Patrick, his father, and also his grandfather, were proud of the fact that they were never controlled by the centralized Roman Church, and that they were responsible only to God.

This man called Patrick [His real name is believed to have been Maewyn Succat-- he probably took on the name "Patricius"-- meaning "nobleman" or "patrician"-- after his conversion to Christianity] was later canonized by the same Roman Catholic Church in a clever political move to control the Irish churches.

However, he certainly was a "Saint," as ALL blood bought believers are. [I Cor. 1:2, Phil. 4:21, etc.]

SO... Here's to Patrick Of Ireland, a man eminently worth remembering.

He is not Catholic or Protestant, really-- he belongs to all who name the name of Christ!

PEACE