17/02/2025

Today is the feast of St Patrick who is credited with bringing the Good News to Ireland which became the land of "Saints and Scholars". 

In the Gospel Jesus commissions 72 men to go to various "towns" throughout Israel and repeat the message that they had heard him preach and to cure the sick. 

We hear later that they returned amazed by their own success which prompts Jesus to warn them that even if devils fled from them in this world, their biggest success was that they were recorded in the "The kingdom of God" which they had proclaimed.

As we read the Gospel narratives we are focused on Jesus and we move on with him through Galilee, Jerusalem, and the Decapolis. Lots of people did follow him but most who had witnessed his miracles and heard his words remained in their own towns. 

The "Jesus focused revival of faith in IAMIAM" must have been greater than it seems to have been as remembered in the Gospels. Seventy two is a very large number to have taken on the mission given to them by Jesus. It is no wonder that the authorities were worried by this "Jesus movement" which had such a charismatic leader.

In my youth I thought of Ireland as a charismatic place especially blessed by God to hold out  against the power of the British Empire and the Protestant Reformation. I have been amazed by how quickly the Church has lost its authority in Europe and the USA but the collapse of St Patrick's Church in Ireland, for me, has been truly horrific.

On his way to Calvary Jesus warned some of his grieving followers to reserve their grief for themselves and their children. When I first attended a public "Stations of the Cross" devotion some 80 years ago none of that congregation had even an inkling that mammon and hedonism were to take over the moral leadership of this world and that Our Lord's words applied not only to the women of Jerusalem but also to the Church in which I was to place all my faith and hope for salvation.