St. Patrick
ST. PATRICK,
THE FATHER OF A SACRED NATION
A LECTURE
BY
PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF
The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright, 1889, by Rev. J. F. Loughlin, D.D.
ST. PATRICK,
The Father of a Sacred Nation.
“And the Lord said to Abram: ‘Go forth out of thycountry, and from thy kindred, and out of thyfather’s house; and come into the land which Ishall show thee. And I will make thee a greatnation, and I will bless thee and magnify thyname, and thou shalt be blessed. I will blessthem that bless thee, and curse them that cursethee; and in thee shall all the kindred of theearth be blessed.’”—Genesis XII.
Addressing myself this eveningto the task, so dear to everypriest whose veins are warmwith Celtic blood, of paying this annualtribute of praise to St. Patrick and theconsecrated land of our fathers, I must,first of all, cast aside the vain hope of beingable to say anything new upon a subjectwhich for many generations has engagedthe talents of one of the most eloquent[6]races of the modern world. Fortunately,you do not expect or wish to hear anythingnew on this subject; the perennial charmof the theme, like that of the old, familiarmelodies of our fatherland, lies mainly inthe hallowed memories which sway yoursouls as you listen. I have, therefore, determinedto follow the well-beaten track;and I have chosen for my text that passageof Holy Writ which the wisdom of mypredecessors has oftenest selected as themost appropriate. Indeed, there exists sostriking a resemblance between the officeand mission of the Irish apostle and hischildren in the New Dispensation, and theoffice and mission of the illustrious patriarchand his seed in the old, that this commandgiven by Almighty God to Abraham,and these promises made to him and hisdescendants, may, without the change ofone iota, be transferred to St. Patrick andhis people. At a time when ignorance and[7]error were creeping over the earth andinvolving all the children of Adam in grossdarkness, the Lord called Abraham forthfrom his country and his kindred to makehim the father of a sacred nation, of a nationwhich should remain the dwelling-placeof light and truth amidst the universalgloom, and which, in God’s appointed time,should communicate its inherited blessingsto all the kindred of the earth.
Now, coming down to the fifth centuryof the Christian era, we find in the callingof St. Patrick an exact counterpart to thecalling of Abraham. True religion appearedt