Naomh Pádraig setting the stage for saint patrick

Neither a lamb nor a lion, today is a bland though grey day in Seattle - but a Seattle spring is approaching. So begins the countdown to the biggest day of the year: Saint Patrick's Day.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be sharing Saint Patrick's Story with you in a five act play.

We begin with prologue – the already in motion story Patrick is born into.

Without mentioning anything else of the background, we must start where Patrick does: God. In his Confession, he writes, “God himself is the beginning of all things, the very one who holds all things together, as we have been taught.”

Stepping out of this universal yet intimate beginning, we encounter his family:
Patrick’s grandfather, Potitus, was a priest , basking in the recent ecclesiastical freedom and privilege initiated by Constantine and owning land both in the city and one the countryside.

His Father, Calpornius , was also clergy, a deacon, and a imperial tax collector.

Patrick’s family foreshadows greatness – but not the type which Patrick’s journey leads him to.

Taking yet a step further, we find the prologue making room for a small Roman town on the Western coast of Britain named Bannaventa Berniae. The town, like his family, likely prepare to provide Patrick luxury and safety. Walled, as most cities were in that place and time, and supported by slaves, also fitting the place and time, the city offered Patrick the start he achieved: “An atheist from childhood.”

With one last step, we conclude the prologue: Patrick was born into a Roman Britain at time when the British proudly referred to themselves as Romanus and when Christianity freely existed and had been made the only legal religion by Theodocius.