Philip Jensen has a helpful piece based on Patrick.
… the problems of saints and saint’s days should not stand in the way of remembering with gratitude, those whom God has used in the past to spread the gospel and contribute to the welfare of the world. We are to remember our leaders and in particular ‘the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).
So what do we know of St Patrick?
Read St Patrick, The Irish Evangelical, at Philip Jensen.
David Mathis at Desiring God writes in a complimentary vein, remembering Patrick the missionary:
But Patrick knew such an approach had good precedent. The one who saved him while a nominal Christian and an Irish captive was once called a “friend of tax collectors and sinners,” and said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).
Instead of acquiescing to the religious establishment, he took the gospel to the uncouth, unreached Irish. And instead of coasting to a cushy retirement, he gave 28 years to the nation-changing evangelization of Ireland.
Read The Mission Of St Patrick at Desiring God.
Jonathan Rogers takes up the same theme at The Rabbit Room.
In reaching out to the heathens of Ireland, Patrick was up against not only the hostility of the Irish themselves, but the hostility of his own Church. But the very thing that drove his superiors crazy is what the Irish loved about him. In bringing them the gospel, this Roman Briton left their Irishness intact. He was making Christians, not Romans. In the Western tradition, at least, the Irish were the first people ever to submit to Christianity without first submitting to the Roman Empire.
We could hardly overestimate the uniqueness of Patrick’s work among the Irish. As a pioneering missionary, his only real precedent was the apostle Paul. When Patrick took it upon himself to make disciples among the Irish, he became, so far as we know, Western Christendom’s first missionary to the world beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire. Paul’s journeys were an astonishing achievement, but even Paul never ventured beyond the empire of which he was a citizen. For that matter, Paul’s travels rarely took him even a hundred miles away from the Mediterranean Sea, the center of the Roman world. In reconciling Jew and Greek, Paul already had his work cut out for him; the barbarians hardly figured into the equation for him. For Patrick to reach out to the barbarians as he did was almost as radical as Paul’s outreach to the Gentiles.
Read On The Greatness Of St Patrick at The Rabbit Room.
And here’s a video on Patrick’s life.
Well, as much as anyone knows, anyway.
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