A Toast to the New Year

Hello Knox Community!

I have been enjoying reading "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill over the break. The premise is that the transition from the Classical to the Medieval Era is a somewhat misunderstood or completely missed-altogether time period in which Western civilization as we know it would have been quite altered had not the obscure and primitive Celtic peoples of Ireland been recently converted and brought into the Christian fold without the Romanization that affected the Christianity of the rest of the empire. 

As the story goes, St. Patrick missed out on some formative years of normal Roman education in the collapsing empire because of raiding bands of Irish slave-traders that attacked the British coast and took him captive to become a lonely, starving shepherd in Ireland. As his "Confession" indicates, this several years of slavery brought him to a place of faith, and he credits divine intervention to his eventual escape and return to a relatively different Britain than he had left. Patrick was taken captive in 401 AD, the same year in which St. Augustine publishes his "Confessions." In 406, Rome experiences its greatest invasion of Germanic barbarians. In 409, the Roman garrison in Britain is abandoned, and in 410, Alaric the Goth sacks the city of Rome.

With the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Christian world experienced a massive identity crisis, one which St. Augustine addresses directly with his monumental book "The City of God" which juxtaposes Babylon with the New Jerusalem and gives its readers a sense of hope, while they watch their world collapse around them. Meanwhile, Patrick, who never experienced the level of Romanization that his peers and family had, since he was taken as a slave at an impressionable young age, instead experienced a missionary call back to Ireland. 

In the book, Cahill emphasizes the rarity of such a call in the early church, drawing attention to Apostle Paul as the only other before Patrick (though he acknowledges that church legend indicates men like the Apostle Thomas went to India). In any case, after seminary and ordination, Patrick returns to Ireland with a passion to bring them the gospel, and because his identity is less in Rome, or even Briton, but more Irish than anything else, Cahill draws attention to the joy, excitement, and beauty that comes of the Christian culture birthed in Ireland. 

At a time when the rest of the Western world was moaning the end, the primitive Celts of Ireland were experiencing the civilizing force of a Christian faith that was not also intricately attached to the structure of the reigning Roman empire, and Cahill shows how this Irish Christianity varied from that on the continent and influenced monastic movements throughout Europe on into the Middle Ages, producing, manuscripts such as the Book of Kells. Such Irish manuscripts are the centerpieces of history museums throughout Europe today.

I'm not done with the book yet, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the history lesson. The culture of the Irish people, retained from the primitive Celts, is something that Cahill spends a long time discussing and contrasting to the decadence of Rome in decline. I am fascinated with how important St. Patrick was to the West's retention of a love for classical literature. With their new-found hope and joy in life, the Irish managed to keep stories alive - everything from Scripture to classical literature to their own pagan history was precious to them as they saw the God of time working through history and creation to bring them to the Christian faith. 

I hope that the rain this holiday season has been a blessing for your home, bringing coffee, reading, and inspiration together, along with lots of quality family time...and, of course, studying for the upcoming Spelling Bee! 

May the Lord bless your home this New Year. May His word find good soil in you and grow deep roots in your life and your home. May He give you wisdom in the coming year to build firm foundations in the lives of your children, and may He grant our children the virtues to build strongly upon them. And may He give his continued grace to Knox Academy and to all of us families as we strive to build together. Here's to a great 2025!

On Monday, we are supposed to have sunshine. 

Thank you for your friendship.