March 17, as just about everyone in the Western world knows, is St. Patrick's Day. St Patrick was born in Scotland and taken to Ireland as a slave as a teenaged boy. He later escaped from his captors and fled to Britain, where he was reunited with his family. He had a dream about the people of Ireland, who begged him to come back to their country. So - he studied and became a priest, and was later ordained a bishop. After becoming a bishop, Patrick went back to Ireland. At that time, it was ruled by many pagan tribes with various chieftains. He was able to convert the chieftains and tribes to Christianity and built many churches all over Ireland. He died on March 17, 461. In Catholic tradition, we always celebrate feast days of saints on the day they died, not the day they were born. We do this because the day they died is the same day they were "born into eternal life" - Heaven! Talk about a great birthday to celebrate!
Patrick is famous for using the shamrock to teach about the trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and is also said to have chased all the snakes out of Ireland! To this day, Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and we are happy to celebrate his feast day!
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