A young man is taken from his family at an early age. He is subjected to a life where no decision is his own. He is forced to do work that would not be of his choosing. His freedom is removed from him. He is taken to a foreign land, whose language and customs are not his, he lives for six years in the hope that the situation will change. It does and he gains his freedom, finds his way back to his family and home, resumes his education and settles into a stable leadership role in his community.

This in essence describes the life of Patrick before his coming back to Ireland as a missionary. He has been wounded by his first experience in Ireland. He constantly makes references in the Confession to his lack of education and how that has affected him. This was probably due to the fact that he was always playing catch up because of his enslavement in Ireland and missing out on his educational formation. Patrick carried scars, but he did not let his past experiences get in the way of his future destiny.

Patrick was a realist, he didn’t pretend that what had happened to him was of no relevance, he did not deny the past; he did not even forget the past. Patrick found an ability to forgive and go back with a message of hope to the island which had damaged him so much. He is not claiming to be a Christian superhero though, he says, ‘It was not my own grace, but god who put within me this sincere care in my heart, that I should be one of his hunters and fishers of souls, whom God had long ago foretold would come in the end of days.

Patrick refers to himself as living among foreigners, as being a stranger, and being an exile for the love of God. It was probably a daily exercise for him to forgive and to cope with his circumstances; again he was separated from his family, his life was in danger constantly. He says poignantly, ‘I have given up my homeland and my family, and even risked my very life unto the point of death.’ Patrick had forgiven to the extent that he even funded his ministry in Ireland and did not demand anything from those who had wronged him, ‘But I have traded my noble birthright, without shame or second thought, for the advantage [benefit] of others’.

There are a number of keys to Patrick’s ability to forgive and the fruit that came form that. He exclaims,’ Could I have come here, to Ireland, without the guidance of God, or for reasons that were human and secular? Who compelled me on this mission? It is because of the Holy Spirit that I am bound to remain forever separated from my family. Does this forgiveness that I have shown to the very people who once enslaved me and pillaged the male and female servants of my father's household come from within me?’…..’ In a word, I am Christ's slave; I serve Him by ministering to foreign tribes for the sake of the indescribable glory of eternal life that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Patrick was compelled because of his experience of and relationship with God to return to Ireland. It did not come from within him. It could not come from within him. He chose to make himself a slave to God and his purposes.

Patrick was moved by compassion for the people who had once wronged him, after his vision of the man exhorting him to come and walk in Ireland again, Patrick said, ‘And I was quite broken in heart, and could read no further, and so I woke up. Thanks be to God, after many years the Lord gave to them according to their cry.’
It was Patrick’s confidence and trust in God that made forgiveness part and parcel of whom he was, ‘Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity, or whatever it may be; but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God Almighty, who rules everywhere, as the prophet says: Cast thy thought upon God, and He shall sustain thee.’

Patrick’s attitude towards forgiveness and how to appropriate it and walk in it could have something to teach us today. Could we see the kind of forgiveness that Patrick experienced and released to those around him manifest itself on a large scale in Ireland again? Has the experience of the saint anything to teach us in how this might happen, or what is required?