Happy St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish.

Saint Patrick ,is a Roman Britain-born Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. When he was about sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family.

While back in his homeland of Britain, Patrick decided to become a priest and then decided to return to Ireland after dreaming that the voices of the Irish people were calling him to convert them to Christianity. After studying and preparing for several years, Patrick traveled back to Ireland as a Christian missionary. Although there were already some Christians living in Ireland, St. Patrick was able to bring upon a massive religious shift to Christianity by converting people of power. St. Patrick is credited with converting the nobles; who set an example which the people followed.

But Patrick's desire to spread of Christianity was not met without mighty opposition. Patrick ran into trouble with the local pagan priesthood, the druids: and there are many stories about his arguments with them as well as his survival of plots against them. He laid the groundwork for the establishment of hundreds of monasteries and churches that eventually popped up across the Irish country to promote Christianity.
Saint Patrick is also credited with bringing written word to Ireland through the promotion of the study of legal texts and the Bible. Previous to Patrick, storytelling and history were reliant on memory and orally passing down stories.
Patrick's mission in Ireland is said to have lasted for thirty years. By the eighth century he had become the patron saint of Ireland. It is believe he died in the 5th century on March 17, which is the day St. Patrick's Day is commemorated each year.

Your education lesson is completed for the day. Since I have children, it is important that I know more than them about- well, almost everything- haha!

Since we are celebrating the color green today, I am cooking an artichoke for the first time. I am using the website called Simply Recipes. If you click on the artichoke picture, you can see what I will be doing this evening.