Mar 17

St. Patrick's Day

The Feast of St. Patrick

Magonus Sucatus was born about 390 in Roman Britain. His grandfather was a Christian priest. Although he was kidnapped at the age of sixteen by Irish raiders and sold into slavery in Ireland, Patrick ended up as the country's patron saint. He escaped after six years, and entered religious training in Europe. After becoming a bishop he returned to Ireland about 432 as a missionary to the pagans. The association of St. Patrick with the shamrock stems from his supposed use of its three-part leaf to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to his largely uneducated listeners.

St. Patrick's Purgatory has been a famed site of pilgrimage since the early thirteenth century. It is on Station Island in Lough Derg in County Donegal where St. Patrick had a vision promising that all who came to the sanctuary in penitence and faith would have their sins cleansed.

The Feast of St. Patrick is on March 17. The day is also popularly celebrated by "the wearing of the green," with many people of Irish and other extractions wearing some item of green clothing.