Just Three More Days!

Three days left of Fringe salon's fundraising raffle for Jordan, Lacie & Kyrie! For a list of the goods you could win, look here. Just $5 a ticket or six for $25. It's a really great way to help this family with the giant bills that are starting to roll in.

And with the raffle ending on St. Patrick's Day, I started thinking about that guy. As a teenager, he was kidnapped from Great Britain and taken to Ireland to be a slave shepherd. Six years later, he escaped and took up studies to become a priest with the intent to return to Ireland to teach his former captors about God. Talk about love thy enemies! It's hard to comprehend the strength it took to follow a call from God, study when he'd been educationally stunted through slavery and then to pursue his mission in a constantly warring, pagan land that still practiced human sacrifice.

The prayer of St. Patrick, popularly known as "St. Patrick's Breastplate," is supposed to have been composed by him in preparation for this victory over paganism. Here is part of it:




Christ shield me this day:
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every person who thinks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

Isn't that what you want everyday? Just to be spiritually loved and protected?

This is my prayer for Kyrie today.