From the Pulpit: An Irish Sermon for St. Patrick’s Day
As the world celebrated Ireland's patron saint and donned a bit of green, the Archbishop of Ireland preached at the Cathedral on the legacy of St. Patrick.
Archbishop John McDowell, primate of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland, preached on Sunday about what we can learn from a saint that, in fact, we know so little about:
Perhaps the one thing that distinguishes the Church of the New Testament, and the early Church in general, from the Church of our day (and almost every other day) is this sense of the nearness of the end time and the return of the Lord. They expected it to happen, they wanted it to happen and they prayed for it to happen. For all sorts of reasons, good and not so good, we find it impossible to share in those expectations. We are rather tied into the world as it exists in our day.
Indeed it is largely for that reason that the Church introduced and developed the season of Lent, as a time to take time to examine our desires – what it is we want most – and to see if our desires line up in any way with what God desires. The Christian life is a great drama of desire – a great unfolding, even a great battle of whose will shall be done. We do not need to expect that the end of the aeon will come the Friday after next to know whether our “God is our belly” or whether our citizenship – our belonging – is in heaven.
However, a bit of self-examination might help. And that will require some self-suspicion and a little humility, and the Spirit of the living God, and much courage. It will be rather like those brave people who cross rivers and seas and mountains all over the world to live in a new country. They may not know the language or the customs very well but there is something very deep inside them that tells them they were made for freedom so they risk much to go on their pilgrimage.
Patrick of course went one stage further. He did not come to Ireland on the second occasion to be free. He was already a freeborn Roman citizen of the Empire and more importantly he came as a servant of Jesus Christ, “whose service is perfect freedom.” Instead he came to proclaim the Gospel so that the Irish people could be free.
Perhaps we too need a bit more of the spirit of Patrick and of the refugee and the sojourner; to travel a bit lighter and perhaps even a bit slower; and to be prepared to learn a new language. And perhaps that language will condition our thoughts to see through that mist of tears (which is the true gift of the Celtic twilight) and to catch a glimpse of the Son of Man, the foregone conclusion of all history, drawing us towards himself, even as he comes to meet us and is placed into our hands at this Eucharist, as we say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”.