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March 17, 2021Dominicans and others can learn quite a bit from the life of St. Patrick. Far from how he is commonly celebrated by our culture today, St. Patrick was a humble, yet bold missionary preacher sent by God to a culture on the periphery. He preached Christ and called people to repentance and conversion.
After being kidnapped and kept as a slave in Ireland, Patrick later escaped. Inspired by his faith and recognizing that Ireland was in desperate need of the eternal hope offered by the Gospel, Patrick discerned that through his experience in Ireland, God had prepared him especially for that mission. While it is all too easy to incline toward what is comfortable, Patrick chose to put into action the exhortation our Lord gave to Simon in the Gospel reading for today’s feast: “Put out into deep water!”
As preachers, Dominicans are also called to preach where the culture is dying. We are challenged to venture to the periphery where many are afraid to go, to “put out into deep water”. May this Lenten season be a call to action to each of us to continually discern where the “deep water” is and what God wants us to do to faithfully preach the Gospel.