“Today the world commemorates St. Patrick’s Day by heavy drinking and imagining leprechauns. But St. Patrick (389-461), the great evangelist and hero known for Christianizing the nation of Ireland, deserves better remembrance. After being enslaved and taken from his home in Britain by roaming Irish, God called Patrick to become a bishop and to eventually call the land where he had been a captive to repentance.

Ireland at that time was religiously controlled by the pagan Druids, who sacrificed newborns during the Fall Harvest, to please their bloodthirsty idols (Ezekiel 16:20-21). According to tradition, the Druids and king assembled for an occult festival celebrating the Spring Solstice, at which no other fires were allowed to burn but their own. St. Patrick and a few other Christians ascended a hill (like Elijah before the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18:22) and defied the law by building a massive bonfire that all could see.

Patrick was brought before the king where he professed the blood of Christ as the sacrifice for all time and condemned the Druid sacrifices. The queen and many in the court were converted and Patrick baptized thousands. Patrick’s brave testimony effectively ended human sacrifice and slavery in Ireland. Even today, abortion — child sacrifice to the idol of convenience — remains illegal on the Emerald Isle.**

He wrote, “daily I expect to be murdered… But I fear nothing, because of the promises of Heaven.”

His desire was that Christ be remembered, “in the heart of every man who thinks of me; Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me, Christ in the eye that sees me, Christ in the ear that hears me.” With the same courage that Patrick drew upon to confront the evil of his time, let us rise to confront the evils of ours with the Word of our testimony and the blood of Lamb, so that Christ’s name is proclaimed over all (Revelation 12:11). Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!”

Written by Josh Craddock, Former Editor-in-Chief at Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (used with permission).

**This post was originally published on March 17, 2015 before Ireland legalized abortion.