St Patrick

Hi folks, this week we are meeting at the Crescent Club, from 8.00pm, I hope you can make it.

This weeks’ topic is St Patrick, the patron saint of silly green hats, leprechauns, shamrocks and Guinness – oh yes, and Ireland. I don’t think I need to say too much about him, the basics of his story are fairly well known: Born in Britain around 400AD, taken to Ireland as a slave when he was 16, became a Christian, escaped back to Britain, studied to be a priest, returned to Ireland and converted everyone, rid Ireland of snakes, used shamrocks to explain the Trinity.

He was also a man of prayer, and wrote “Faith grew, and my spirit was moved, so that in one day I would pray up to one hundred times, and at night perhaps the same. I even remained in the woods and on the mountain, and I would rise to pray before dawn in snow and ice and rain.”

There is also a prayer/hymn that is attributed to him, the most well-known part being:

Christ with me,

Christ before me,


Christ behind me,

Christ in me,


Christ beneath me,


Christ above me,


Christ on my right,


Christ on my left,


Christ when I lie down,


Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,


Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,


Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,


Christ in every ear that hears me. 

Some questions:

How many times a day do you pray?

Have you ever seen the film Snakes on a Plane? What’s your favourite Samuel L Jackson film?

What are your views on sending missionaries to other countries?

Is being known as a Christian a positive thing these days?

Do you feel the closeness of Christ that Patrick describes in his prayer?

Peace, Glenn