Further Reflections on Croegh Patrick

Croegh Patrick is a high mountain outside of Westport, Ireland. It is a stark majestic mountain,  stunning in beauty and majesty. Though we climbed only a few feet up the hill,  the view from the mountainside is breathtaking. 

But as beautiful as the location is, the human grandeur of the place is even greater. According to legend this was the place where St. Patrick imitated Jesus by fasting for forty days and nights. Today thousands of people come there either as an adventure or a spiritual pilgrimage to climb it--old and young, crippled and healthy.  To some it's a holiday while others view it as a spiritual quest. Many of the latter group climb it barefoot.

There's a mystery here that neither the hikers nor the devout nor the even we critical Protestants understand.  Why did Patrick do it? Why did our Lord Jesus,  whom Patrick was copying, go up on the Mount of Temptation in Israel? Even further, why have people come here for over a thousand years to copy Patrick's journey?

None of the usual explanations seem to me to explain it.  We Protestants often criticize it, seeing it as  Catholics  trying to atone for their own sins through penitential suffering.  There is some truth in this. There's a plaque at the bottom that declares any Catholic who climbs this hill  receives a plenary indulgence from the Pope.  We Protestants point correctly  that we don't need to climb a mountain to find forgiveness--Jesus has already give us forgiveness.  All we have to do is ask. 

But let's not be so quick to dismiss these pilgrims as guilty people who don't understand forgiveness.  Many of them walk it joyfully, not guiltily. If it were just for penance, then why did St. Patrick do it in the first place?  Moreover, why did Jesus (who knew no sin) climb a similar mountain and fast for forty days in the New Testament? If' it is just for penance, how do we explain our Lord fasting on a mountain? 

It may be true for some that they do it to attain forgiveness for sin and entrance into heaven. If that were the reason, it would be pointless to atone for our own sins. If someone paid the mortgage on the house, it would be foolish to spend the rest of our lives continuing to pay for it.  I no longer have to pay for what is already bought. But I am convinced that most intelligent Catholics understand this as much as Protestants do--and I am certainly convinced that St. Patrick understood this, too. He didn't go up the mountain to pay for what was already bought.

Some of my Pentecostal friends suggest that the reason for this kind of fasting journey is to attain spiritual power.  They point to passage where Jesus says that the some miracles come by much prayer and fasting.  They see this kind of experience as charging up our  spiritual batteries to do miraculous works. 

This explanation is also troublesome.  The Holy Spirit is not a force like electricity. I don't have to "recharge my batteries" to serve God.  His power in me is infinite.  My cell phone or computer has a finite amount of charge,  so I have to keep charging them up. Only a small amount of charge will go into my batteries at one time.  Isn't God in me capable of unlimited power?  The Holy Spirit lives and works inside every Christian. I don't have to charge my faith like I charge up my cell phone.  Besides, this view doesn't explain why Jesus, who was God and had infinite power, climbed a mountain before He began His ministry, nor why Patrick who had already demonstrated great Spiritual power in confronting the pagans of Ireland go and up the mountain, interrupting a work that was already successfully begun.

Here's what I think Patrick was doing up on Croegh Patrick.  He was imitating Jesus.  Modern believers do it in imitation of Jesus and Patrick.  When we want to know someone we imitate what they do.  We don't practice prayer, fasting, or any other good work because of the results it brings in others, but because of the changes it brings in ourselves.  It wasn't to be forgiven, or to get the power to do anything. It was be something--a simple imitator of Christ.

Part of the thrill Ireland for me was walking in the steps of my  ancestors. To walk on their soil was way of getting in touch with them.

Fasting, prayer, feeding the poor,  and even Spiritual journeys are to me a means of imitating Christ. I don't always know what I will get out of them. I don't know why Jesus did what He did fully. But when I imitate Him, I learn about Him. If Jesus found it helpful to go up a mountain without food or comfort to serve the Father, who's to say it isn't helpful for me?  Jesus saw it as necessary to regularly deny Himself comforts and pleasures of this life so He could focus on the Father.  His place in God was secure. He didn't do it to earn the next life, but so as not to become too entangled in this one.  Patrick didn't climb that mountain for the view, but for a place to encounter the Father.

As important as the central Protestant doctrine of justification by faith is, it must also be understood in balance. Jesus did everything for us--but does that mean we should make no sacrifices for Him in return?  Merely sitting and looking up and admiring a mountain peak is great, but not as great as climbing it.  Looking up at Christ on the Cross is awesome, but taking up our own cross and following Him is greater.  Those who climb that mountain on sincere pilgrimage may or may do it for the wrong reasons but I'm convinced that Patrick did it for better reasons.  He did it because Jesus told him to follow, and Jesus went up a mountain to fast, pray, and commune with the Father.

Near the base of Croegh Patrick stand another kind of monument. It's a sculpture of a ship made of human skeletons. It is a commemoration one of the "coffin ships" that left Ireland due to the famine of 1847-1849.   Millions of Irishmen died of starvation, and millions more fled to America. One tenth of the Irishmen who left  died in transit 

What would have happened if the Christians of Europe, those in England in particular, had not looked for reasons but simply imitated Christ by practicing the Spiritual discipline of charity? Many did, but not enough.  More than a million people, located a few miles off the coast of what was then the most prosperous Christian nation on earth,  died of starvation.  It was, at the time, part of their own commonwealth, yet the Christians of England could not find it in their heart or power to launch more serious relief efforts. 

I'm sure they had their motivations. But this may have been the problem We look for reasons when instead we should be engaging in simple imitation. What would have happened if the Christians of England and Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, had simply practiced the spiritual discipline of fasting,  and sent some of what they saved to Ireland?  How much might have changed in Irish history if they had? 

It may have been hard to do it,  to climb a mountain of such incredible need.  Many Christians worked hard to feed them, especially those who ladled out life from the "soup kettles" in the churches. But the imitation of Christ in all things is an essential part of Christian spirituality.  Christians sat back in their comfort and let the people of Ireland starve. 

It isn't an accident that the sculpture of the coffin ship was placed near the base of Croegh Patrick. The imitation of Christ is not just a personal journey. It involved imitating Him in His love as well as in his purity.  Maybe, instead of rejoicing in personal salvation, they could have done more to imitate Christ  their treatment of each other.  I don't know the history of Ireland well enough to know if this were true, but maybe it was.  If they had imitated Christ more then, the history of this country might have been very different.