14 - The Deer's Cry - St Patrick
Fáeth Fiada a Hainm is the Gaelic name of the Prayer of St Patrick translated both as 'The Deer's Cry' or 'The Hiding Mist'. Once up on a Time, St Patrick was in grave danger on the road to Tara. He prayed for protection as he and his friends were surrounded by the enemy on a pathway through the woods. By a miracle, a mist got up, a great thick hiding mist, and the enemy was deceived, seeing his companions and himself only as a group of deer with a fawn following along behind.
The deer come when we need them, like angels in the holy mist, like the deer who came to save the child Fionnbharr in the woodlands of Cork a little bit later. When Young Barra left his mother to follow Christ, he would have died on the way to the monastery if the deer hadn't given him her milk. Marking him out as blessed. To whom much is given, much will be required.
Patrick was born around about 389 AD on the west coast of Britain. His grandad was a priest, probably at Ravenglass, near where I was born, though other places claim him too. Patrick's father was a church deacon, and a wealthy aristocrat with the Roman civil service.
Britain had been under Roman occupation since 43 AD. Constantine had allowed Christianity in 313 so within living memory a new age of Roman Christianity had begun. Imagine after centuries of being fed to the lions or just sidelined and ridiculed, your grandad is chaplain at the garrison, embedded with the troops. Patrick , in this new and comfortable era, found the freedom to reject family tradition and wasn't a believer.
But the Romans were letting go of Britain. Pirates had taken to attacking the coastline, sensing their weakening power. It was a strange time to be a 'Roman' teenager in Britain. Where did Patrick belong? What was his place and purpose in life?
They say at 16 he was kidnapped and taken off to slavery in pagan Ireland, although Christianity had arrived already, with the earlier saints arriving by boat in the islands south of Cork. They brought with them ascetic monastic traditions which derived directly from the Holy Land.
Ciarán mac Sétnai (d489) was guided by a stag to the place of his monastic foundation on Hare Island, Lough Rhee. He was already sick and dying from the plague, but told the others to be practical:
"Go ye, let my relics bleach in the sun like the bones of a deer; better for you to dwell in heaven with me, than here with my relics.".
It was just a little while later that Patrick, a Romano-British boy used to the luxuries of a Roman life ( like olive oil, fine wine and central heating!) spent six years in the misty Irish hills as a shepherd, or pigherd, until the geo-political tide turned.
He wasn't the only lad to disappear like that. The declining Empire was taking huge amounts of money from local dignitaries, like Patrick's father. One way of sons avoiding the same was to appear to be kidnapped, and slip away conveniently, sensing the Romans would soon be gone.
Whatever it was that happened to Patrick, whether kidnapped and enslaved, or refugee humbly earning his keep, by the time he got back to his family, to the Roman world that he had been part of, the whole lot of the Roman Empire, including the garrison at Ravenglass, had actually packed up and gone.
In his book Confessio Patrick describes finding his faith and turning to God in exile, a tale of great love and great longing. You can still read it, almost exactly as he wrote it. Of course it was a massive turning point. His family wouldn't have been surprised when he finally decided to train as a priest. In a way it was part of coming home to his deacon father and grand father priest. But they might not have expected him then to go back to Ireland, where he had been through such hard times, and become Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, totally dedicating himself to the conversion/reconversion of that country. To finally find himself at home there.
In a dream Patrick is said to have heard the Irish themselves call for him to come and work among them. It was to the north that he turned in the beginning but I can't tell that story now.
Here I want to think about those early years, the searching and the finding of faith, purpose and identity. And the beautiful story of the prayer for protection of St Patrick's Breastplate. After all, my theme is through Carmel eyes. Part of the Carmelite rule, Albert's Way, is to wear the armour of the Lord (St Paul to the Ephesians ch 6). I love the references in the prayer of St Patrick to what strengthens and protects him and us on our way.
When you are in the world concretely, you are in God.
Here is a short version of the prayer taken from a combination of sources. Different versions use the phrase 'bind' or 'fasten' for taking up the armour of the Lord, others rearrange the translation and begin the different sections with 'I arise'. The song of it is from The Deer's Cry by Avo Part.
I bind unto myself today/I arise
I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe
I bind unto myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of the wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of earth,
The strength of rock.
I arise today through
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.
Christ, be 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 where I lie, Christ where I sit,
Christ where I arise, Christ in the heart of everyone 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.
Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of the Christ.
May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.
The full prayer is very long. It anchors the fact that God can and does act through all of His creation in His miracles.
Our soul fits this world, not just the next.
We can wish there were more miracles. But there is hope and strength all around us in adversity, and there are angels, and deer in the mist.
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