Saturday 12 October 2013

St. Patrick and the Supernatural

The druids and magicians put forth all their strength and employed all their incantations to maintain their sway over the Irish race, but the prayer and faith of Patrick achieved a glorious triumph. The druids by their incantations overspread the hill and surrounding plain with a cloud of worse than Egyptian darkness. Patrick defied them to remove that cloud, and when all their efforts were made in vain, at his prayer the sun sent forth its rays and the brightest sunshine lit up the scene. Again by demoniac power the Arch-Druid Lochru, like Simon Magus of old, was lifted up high in the air, but when Patrick knelt in prayer the druid from his flight was dashed to pieces upon a rock. The foregoing is per the Catholic Encyclopedia.

The book, "Evansing - Heart of the Irish Kingdom" has a number of supernatural events. St. Patrick himself appears in the book. Just as there are dark forces that move supernaturally so there is supernatural power that flows from the Creator who lives in unapproachable light. St. Patrick and his companions are recorded as having transformed into deer in order to escape a pagan king: St. Patrick was reciting his Breastplate prayer (the "Deer's Cry") on the way from Slane to Tara on Easter Sunday. King Laoghaire had stationed soldiers along the road, expecting to intercept St. Patrick before Tara. The Tripartite Life says, "St. Patrick went with eight young clerics and St. Benen with them, and St. Patrick gave them his blessing before they set out. A cloak of darkness went over them so that not a man of them appeared. Howbeit, the enemy who were waiting to ambush them, saw eight deer going past them, and behind them a fawn with a bundle on its back. That was St. Patrick with his eight, and St. Benen behind them with his tablets on his back." (The Tripartite Life was an eighth century book in three parts to be read in the three day celebration of St. Patrick's Day.) This excerpt is from The Real St. Patrick, Bishop of Ireland.

The supernatural events from divine sources in the book indicate the limitlessness of capacity for good things that are available to each of us. "Evansing - Heart of the Irish Kingdom" is available at createspace and Amazon.com.

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