The Apostle of Ireland: A Life of Saint The Voice of the Irish: How God Made an Apostle Out of a Frightened Boy, Book 1, (Paperback)

Saint Patrick was the missionary bishop who carried the Gospel to Ireland. How does a comfortable boy from a Romano-British household become a captive in a foreign wilderness, only to discover the God who would send him back to his captors?

At sixteen, Patrick was seized from his prosperous family at Bannavem Taburniae and carried across the sea by Irish raiders. Set to work as a captive shepherd in the freezing uplands of Mayo or Antrim, he began to pray out of sheer desperation, finding an unexpected grace in the silence. A voice in the night directed his escape to a waiting ship, leading him through a Gaulish wilderness and eventually back to Britain. Yet the safety of his family could not quiet the recurring dream of a man named Victoricus, bringing letters from the very people who had enslaved him. The narrative closes on the shore of his departure, as Patrick stands ready for consecration as bishop, answering the call to walk among the Irish once more.

• Unearned grace: the comfortable, faithless youth of a deacon's son before his sudden capture.
• Clerical formation: his immersion in scripture and liturgy on the Continent despite the lasting shame of his rough Latin.
• Betrayed confidence: a secret sin from boyhood used against him by a close friend on the eve of his consecration.
• Night vision: the decisive dream of Victoricus that drew him back to the land of his captivity.

Book One of The Apostle of Ireland: A Life of Saint Patrick. This text details his youth and captivity before handing the historical record over to I Live Among Barbarians, a volume chronicling thirty years of perilous pastoral work and the establishment of his flock at Armagh.

Readers seeking an introduction to this missionary bishop that does not skip his period of forced servitude, his silent prayers on a cold hillside, or the recurring dreams of his captors.