The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick: Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings
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The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick: Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings
Patrick, Saint, 373?-463?
For I am truly a debtor to God, who has given me so much grace that
many people should be born again to God through me, and that for them
everywhere should be ordained priests for this people, newly come to
the faith, which the Lord took from the ends of the earth, as He
promised formerly by His prophets: "Our fathers falsely prepared idols,
and there is no profit in them, to thee the Gentiles come and will
say." And again: "I have set thee to be the light of the Gentiles,
that thou mayest be for salvation unto the utmost parts of the earth."
And thus I wait the promise of Him who never fails, as He promises in
the Gospel: "They shall come from the east and the west [from the north
and from the south], and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob." So we believe that the faithful shall come from all parts of
the world.
Therefore we ought to fish well and diligently; as the Lord taught and
said: "Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers of men." And
again: "Behold, saith the Lord, I send many fishers and many hunters,"
etc. Therefore we should, by all means, set our nets in such a manner
that a great multitude and a crowd may be caught therein for God, and
that everywhere there may be priests who shall baptize and exhort a
people who so need it and desire it; as the Lord teaches and admonishes
in the Gospel, saying: "Going, therefore, teach ye all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost, even to the consummation of the world." And again: "Go ye into
the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature; he that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not
shall be condemned." The rest are examples. [And again: "This Gospel
of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to
all nations, and then shall the consummation come." And again, the
Lord, speaking by the prophet, says: "And it shall come to pass in the
last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out my spirit upon all
flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men
shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Moreover,
upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour forth my
spirit, and they shall prophesy." And Osee saith: "And I will say to
that which was not my people: Thou art my people: and to her who hath
not found mercy; and they shall say; Thou art my God. And in the place
where I said to them, You are not my people, it shall be said to them,
Ye are the sons of the living God."]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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