Imago Fidei

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'They Find it Unacceptable That We Are Irish'

This mother was freed from slavery in a South Asian rock quarry through International Justice Mission intervention in collaboration with local authorities. Photo courtesy of IJM.

"The very next day after my new converts, dressed all in white, were anointed with chrism, even as it was still gleaming upon their foreheads, they were cruelly cut down and killed by the swords of these same devilish men. At once I sent a good priest with a letter. I could trust him, for I had taught him from his boyhood. He went, accompanied by other priests, to see if we might claw something back from all the looting, most important, the baptized captives whom they had seized. Yet all they did was to laugh in our faces at the mere mention of their prisoners. ...

"For myself, I do not know 'what I shall say,' or how 'I may speak anymore' of those who are dead of these children of God--whom the sword has struck down so harshly, beyond all belief. For it is written, 'Weep with those that weep,' and again, 'If one member grieves, then all members should grieve together.' Because of this, the whole Church 'cries out and for its sons and daughters' who so far have not been killed by the sword. For they have been taken far away and abandoned in a land where sin abounds, openly, wickedly, impudently; there freeborn men are sold, Christians are reduced to slavery, and worst of all among the most worthless and vilest apostates, the Picts.

"Because of all this, my voice is raised in sorrow and mourning. Oh, my most beautiful, my lovely brethren and my sons 'whom I begot in Christ,' I have lost count of your number, what can I do to help you now? I am not worthy to come to the help of God or men. 'We have been overwhelmed by the wickedness of unjust men,' it is as if 'we had been made outsiders.' They find it unacceptable that we are Irish. But it says 'Is it not true that you all have but one God? Why then have you, each one of you, abandoned your own neighbor?' "

- From "A Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus," which Patrick wrote to excommunicate soldiers who had kidnapped and enslaved a group of Irish Christians. Translated by John Skinner.

Posted by Susan Wunderink on March 17, 2009 12:00 AM

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