Pilgrim’s Progress
Back in Dublin a few weeks ago, we saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral. His name conjured up the usual “American” images of parties on March 17th and drinking too much green beer. However as we’ve traveled around Ireland, we keep running into him again and again, and so we’ve learned a little more about him.
He arrived here in the 400s and proceeded to convert the country to Christianity. He visited a lot of sites on the island because there are connections to him everywhere. One of these places is now called Croagh Patrick mountain, where he climbed and spent the 40 days of Lent fasting on top. We followed in his footsteps and made the steep trek ourselves, along with quite a few people making a pilgrimage (there are rules for them to follow and places marked to say Hail Mary’s). I made it to the top with a little encouragement from an old man hiking in dress shoes and slacks tucked into his argyle socks. If he could do it, I had to.
Among all the other things that St. Patrick was busy doing at the time, he is also credited with casting out the snakes from Ireland. This might not be a hard as it sounds because no one is sure that there ever really were snakes here.
Here’s the rocky path to the top.
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