Did you know how Saint Patrick came to be in Ireland far from his home town of Dumbarton on the river Clyde in Scotland?
From his early confession we learn that, at the age of sixteen, he was captured by a band of Irish pirates, who sold him as a slave to a Druid chieftain in Northern Ireland. Until his captivity Patrick had no real experience of God or salvation even though he had been raised in a Christian home, where his grandfather was a minister of the gospel. Here are his own words, “I was sixteen and knew not the true God, but in a strange land the Lord opened my unbelieving eyes and I was converted.” He realized that God in His mercy had allowed his captivity to take place so as to lead him to a new and better life. With the sufferings of exile had come the understanding of salvation.
