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WHO WAS SAINT PATRICK?
St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. Irish people are very attached to this saint and celebrate it wherever they are.
Born in Scotland in 385 d. C., learned the Gaelic language spoken by the Irish 16 years old when he was kidnapped by Irish pirates. He was from a wealthy Roman family and was able to return only after six years after the kidnapping, later became a deacon. Later became bishop, having good knowledge of the Gaelic language, Patrick was sent by Pope Celestine I in the land of the Celts for converting the Irish people.
St. Patrick love the people and the respect for their traditions, gave life to Celtic Christianity that favored the merger of many pagan ideas with those of the Gospel; Irish therefore found with the arrival of the bishop-missionary on their land, only more enriched with good concepts and lost nothing of their roots.
Legends related to this saint are many. It is said that in Ireland there are more snakes, since he ousted them all into the sea; is also famous legend of St. Patrick's well where it is said that this missionary came down often to show purgatory's doors, to those who behaved badly; a legend then tells that he explained to the Celts the complicated concept of the Christian Trinity, picking up a shamrock, the leaves of which you know, they are all tied together by a single stem.
The veneration of St. Patrick had become with time the shamrock a national symbol of Ireland.
The patron of the Irish died March 17, 461 and therefore from that distant day, he is remembered every year with large parties where the predominant green clover on clothes used.
FAGR-Editore
Falsi d'Autore Giulio Romano
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