 |
| How great we make our gods when we deify and glorify human beings like Paddy, Terry, and even Zeus (Maha Brahma) and his "sons" (putras like Jesus, Sakka, Michael) as seen here looking in all directions in Thailand (raredog/flickr) |
Who
was Saint Patrick? Really, who was
he? [He was n]ot the mythological story we tell
to our children each March 17 in sing-song voices:
"Saint Patrick wore a
green suit, talked to leprechauns (he was probably drunk at the time), and while
trying to convert the pagans with a shamrock, he marched all the snakes out of
Ireland." Will the real
Patrick please stand up?
His
real name was Maewyn Succat, born around 385 A.D., somewhere in Scotland, or
possibly somewhere else, as there is conflicting historical data on his exact
date and place of birth. His baptismal
name was Patricius [aristocrat, patrician].
Around
age 16, he was sold into slavery in Ireland and worked for the next six years as
a shepherd. Keep in mind that human
slavery, as well as human sacrifice, was considered normal for those times.
After
his six years in slavery, he believed that an angel came to him in a dream,
prompting him to escape and seek out his homeland. He actually walked about 200 miles to the coast, where his dream
indicated a ship would also be waiting for him. He successfully escaped, and spent the next 20 years of his
life as a monk in Marmoutier Abbey. There he again received a celestial
visitation, this time calling him to return to the land where he’d been
enslaved, though now with a mission as a priest and converter [not unlike Constantine, who created "Catholicism" by the sword].
Patrick
was called to Rome in 432, where Pope Celestine bequeathed the honor of Bishop
upon him before he left on his mission.
Patrick
returned to Ireland not alone, but with 24 supporters and followers.
They arrived in Ireland in the winter of 432. In the Spring, Patrick decided to confront the high King of Tara,
the most powerful King in Ireland. More
Ex-nun shares her heart out about life in Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity
Ellen Snortland
("An Unquenchable Thirst," March 14, 2013)
 |
| Not a saint yet; needs more miracles |
Sharing a birthday with Mother Teresa, an international female
icon, made me more aware of her than most of my non-Catholic friends.
Mother Teresa is regarded as one of the greatest women on the planet by a
lot of people who generally wouldn’t revere a religious leader. I’m not
one of them.
There’s such a dearth of recognizable female leadership
that Mother Teresa, who was really one of the world’s biggest tools of
global patriarchy, gets conveniently trotted out as a beacon of women’s
leadership whenever needed. How tragic! To me and other feminist men and
women, using Mother Teresa, a key player in rolling back reproductive
rights, as a role model for women is akin to Rush Limbaugh being made a
poster boy for feminist causes.
When friend
Carol Franzblau, newly transplanted from the East Coast, mentioned that
her dear friend,
Mary Johnson, had written a revealing book about her [many years] as a sister of the Missionaries of Charity (MC) [in the Bronx and Calcutta, India], my anti-Mother
Teresa radar clicked on. During Women’s History Month, Johnson, who
joined Mother Teresa’s order in 1979, has included Pasadena in her
national tour to promote the paperback version of her book,
An
Unquenchable Thirst.
More
