Feast Day: March 17

Saint Patrick was born in Great Britain about the year 385. As a young man he was captured and sold as a slave in Ireland where he had to tend sheep. Having escaped from slavery, he chose to enter the priesthood, and later, as a bishop, he tirelessly preached the Gospel to the people of Ireland where he converted many to the faith and established the Church. He died at Down in 461.

Devotional Prayer:

O God, who sent among us your blessed servant, Saint Patrick, who like an Saint Elias breathed into your people the splendid hope of Christ's second coming and infused into his heart so great a share of your own tenderness, charity and zeal: listen to the prayers we now offer up in union with the prayers of this great man of faith, and grant through his intercession the intentions of this novena, and the grace rather to die than offend thee.

Great Saint Patrick, pray for us!