Tuesday Morning: St Ninian and St Patrick: Discipleship and Mission
The Gospel crosses the Channel
Ancient tradition suggests that Joseph of Arimathea, a tin trader, took the Gospel across the channel to Glastonbury in Britain. An early historian has written:
‘Britain received the bright beams of light in the reign of Emperor Tiberias’. (He died in AD 37)
Roger Ellis and Chris Seaton in their book ‘The New Celts’ write:
‘While there is nothing other than circumstantial evidence to suggest that Joseph of Arimathea himself brought the Gospel to Britain, it is certainly true that there was a vigorous trade route between the Eastern Mediterranean and the British Isles. What’s more, the great Tertullian of Carthage in AD210 wrote of “regions of Briton inaccessible to the Romans but subject to Christ”.’
(The New Celts; Roger Ellis and Chris Seaton page 37)
Did the Gospel cross the channel with the Roman Legions in AD 43? We do know that Alban, the first Christian martyr in Britain, was martyred in AD 209. So now we can begin to reflect on the lives of two of Britain’s early Christian missionaries, Ninian and Patrick. Both were pioneers in taking the Gospel across the boundaries and borders which was a great strength of the Celtic church.
Read Luke 10: 1-9
Ninian
Born in about AD390, his father was a local chief living in the borderlands between present day England and Scotland. At a young age Ninian came to faith and later travelled to Europe where he was greatly influenced by the life and teaching of St Martin. After some years studying in Rome and ministering there he was ordained. Later he was consecrated Bishop and returned to his homeland. He established a mission centre at Candida Casa (White House) and modelled his life and ministry on Martin of Tours. He evangelised the Picts and his mission centre at Whithorn had considerable influence on Celtic speaking people in British Isles.
A monk from Whithorn wrote thus of Ninian:
‘God omnipotent, who had scattered shining lights upon the world, gave many bright stars to his people in Britain. Brilliant among these was Ninian. He was outstanding in strength derived from heaven, in miracles, in eloquence and reliance on the gift of God. People came together in vast crowds and opened their hearts to believe in Christ and to follow his teaching.’
(Written by an 8th Century monk)
Ray Simpson quoting other sources writes:
‘Ninian used to go to a cave to meditate on heavenly wisdom, he could understand books in different languages, and he was a powerful teacher and preacher. By his eloquence the hearts of the faithful grew strong as he spoke of the true joys of eternal life.’
‘……..He visited people in prison. He took food and drink to those who were hungry and thirsty during times of famine. He was like a father to the orphan and a protective judge to the widow. He exercised an authority to be feared by wrongdoers but he was loved by all who did good.’
(Celtic Daily Light; August 30th)
Celtic graphic
Patrick
While Ninian and his community were preaching the Gospel and discipling believers, Patrick was born in North West England in 414. This was a significant time in history of the British Isles as the withdrawal of the Roman legions began in 410 opening the way for Anglo Saxon invaders.
Patrick grew up in a Christian home. His grandfather had been a priest and his father a deacon in the church. At age 16 Patrick was captured by a raiding party from Ireland and sold as a slave to a minor king in Armagh.
Many years later, Patrick wrote in his ‘Confessions’:
‘I Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and least among the faithful, and most contemptible to many, had for my father, Calpornius, a deacon, a son of Potitus a presbyter, who dwelt in the village of Bannavem Taburniae, for he had a small farm hard by the place where I was taken captive. I was then nearly sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God: and I was taken to Ireland in captivity with so many thousand men, in accordance with our deserts, and we kept not his precepts, and were not obedient to our priests, who admonished us for our salvation.’
(Walking the Edges by David Adam)
At some point in his life as a slave in Ireland Patrick came to faith in Christ Jesus and he describes his conversion as follows:
‘I know this most certainly, that before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in deep mud; and He who is mighty came, and in his own mercy raised me, and lifted me up, and placed me on top of the wall. And hence I ought loudly to cry out to the Lord, to return also something to the Lord for all his His so great benefits, here and in eternity, which benefits the minds of men cannot estimate.’
(Walking the Edges by David Adam)
Map showing the arrival of St Patrick
Despite his captivity as a slave Patrick’s faith deepened and he later wrote:
‘After I came to Ireland, and so tended sheep every day, I often prayed in the daytime………up to a hundred prayers and at night nearly as many, and I stayed in the forest, and on the mountains and before daylight I used to be roused in prayer in snow, and in frost and rain, and I felt no harm, nor was there any inclination to take things easily in me, because as I see now the Spirit seethed in me.’
(The Cry of the Deer; David Adam)
Notice Patrick’s perseverance in prayer and sense of God’s presence. Patrick later escaped and directed by God went to Europe. His faith blossomed and later he was ordained to the priesthood. He returned home where his family rejoiced to receive him after so many years. They would have loved him to stay but:
‘Ireland had already captured him in other ways; he had dreams in which he seemed to hear his friends and the Irish calling him; ‘We pray thee, boy, to come and henceforth walk among us.’ In spite of pleas from his kinsfolk, and the dangers of being put to death as a runaway slave, Patrick was determined to return as a missionary to Ireland.’
(The Cry of the Deer; David Adam)
Partick worked tirelessly among the Irish. He baptised those who came to faith, he planted churches and established numerous monasteries. He trained and ordained priests throughout Ireland . Both Ninian and Partick, like Martin before them and those who followed after them, were bold in confronting witchcraft, idolatry and opposition in proclaiming the Gospel. Both model for us the spirit of adventure, faith, boldness and willingness to go wherever God might point or lead them to share the Good News of the Gospel.
Some stories:
Martin’s confrontation at Pagan shrine (Celtic Daily Light, Nov 15)
Ninian’s experience of Tudvael’s expulsion (Celtic Daily Light, Aug 27)
Patrick’s confrontation at Tara (Walking the Edges, pages 93-95)
Bede writes of St Cuthbert:
‘He was wont to resort unto those places and preach in those hamlets lying afar off in steep and craggy hills, which other men had dreaded to visit, and which from their poverty as well as uplandish rudeness, teachers shunned to approach, tarrying in the hilly part, he would call the poor folk of the country to heavenly things with the word of preaching as well as the work of virtuous example.’
(Venerable Bede, History 1V 27)
Perhaps we need to ask ourselves, where are those places around us which ‘other men dread to visit’ and to which we’re being called.
Columbanus
On foot and across the ocean the Celtic Christians spread the Good News of Christ Jesus.
See (1) The Woven Cord by Michael Mitton, pages 87-88;
(2) A new book: Columbanus: The earliest voice of Christian Ireland by Kate Tristam; and
(3) Killian: The Celtic Year by Shirley Toulson, page 183.
Read
A Prayer of St Brendan 6th Century:
‘Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home?
Shall I turn my back on my native land, and my face towards the sea?
Shall I put myself wholly at the mercy of God, without silver, without a horse, without fame and honour?
Shall I throw myself wholly on the King of Kings, without sword and shield, without food and drink, without a bed to lie on?
Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Christ’s yoke?
Shall I pour out my heart to him, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks?
Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land?
Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict?
Shall I take my coracle across the wide, sparkling ocean?
O King of the glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?
O Christ, will you help me on the wild wave?
(Brendan’s voyage has been documented and took him and his fellow Celtic monks seven years.)
(See Atlas of the Celtic World, pages 158-159)
White martyrdom: Renouncing the world for Christ in daily living.
Green martyrdom: Journey of penance for sin, restoration in Christ and leaving one’s native land to become an ambassador for Christ.
Red martyrdom: Shedding one’s blood for the sake of the Gospel.
Picture of Coracle and Wild Goose (Restoring the Woven Cord page 158)
Ian Bradley writes:
‘The Celtic church did not so much seek to bring Christ as to discover him: not to possess him but to see him in friend and stranger; to liberate the Christ who is already there in all his riches.’
(The Celtic Way, Page 75)
I think that I learned something of that spirit in my years with Operation Outreach. As we walked from hut to hut, shack to shack and house to house there was a sense of anticipation as we looked forward to discover Christ and to meet Him already there that we might point to Him who was already in our midst.
Bishop Ian Harland writing of the Church of England:
‘We are coming to the end of the parish phase of the church……..’
And…. ‘Systems, projects, meetings – that is church. Lord I long for church to be family, presence, meeting.’
(Quoted by Ray Simpson in ‘Church of the Isles’ Page 191)
Can we capture again in our day the same spirit of adventure, boldness, faith and freedom to reach our generation with the Gospel?
Read quote from The Aidan Way (Issue 63) ‘A tide turns in Ireland’.
