Original subtitles

[ mid-tempo music plays ]

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[ music slows, continues ]

-This is the story of one of the best known

Of all the saints -- patrick.

His story is a mixture of fact and legend,

As it is with so many other saints.

The man who brought the christian faith

To the land of hibernia, now known as ireland,

Came from across the channel, in roman britain.

He was a roman citizen during the period

When the empire was close to its ragged end.

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[ birds chirping, hoofbeats approaching ]

[ dramatic music plays ]

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His name was patrick.

He was born into the christian faith.

He was a young man who did not know the true god,

And he had no idea about salvation.

-[ laughing ]

-Well, if I'm causing any trouble --

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-[ speaking indistinctly ]

-Stand behind me. -You can keep your old hags.

We're here for your store chest and your young one.

[ woman gasps, whimpers ]

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-[ gasps, screams ]

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[ birds cawing ]

[ down-tempo music plays ]

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-They were the gaels,

The pagan inhabitants of hibernia.

The romans never conquered them,

And they considered the gaels barbarians.

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-Not a bad day's work.

Off the boy.

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-[ grunts ]

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[ door closes ]

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[ horse snorting ]

-Get moving. [ horse neighs ]

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-Who will rescue us?

-You're citizens of the empire.

-What empire?

No one's coming to rescue us.

This is our life now.

What's left of it.

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-Follow me.

[ horses snorting, birds calling ]

[ flies buzzing, goats bleating ]

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Sit down.

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Not you.

-He's hungry. Why are you punishing him?

-[ grunts ]

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[ birds chirping, goats bleating ]

-I am milchu.

But you will call me master.

I am glad that you are here, for you are young.

You are strong.

For the next weeks, you will sleep in the hut beyond.

You will do as I tell you to do.

And if I say sit, sit.

Mm.

-Do I have protection as a citizen of rome?

-[ chuckles ]

And what kind of protection do you wish for,

O, citizen of rome?

Is it for yourself or for your fellow roman citizens?

Or are you thinking that your head might stand

On the highest pike?

That will be my decision when the time comes.

Or are you thinking that roman soldiers might come

And rescue you?

Well, the answer is no.

You will speak when I tell you to speak.

You will shepherd one of my flocks.

You will shear the sheep in spring.

These will be your principal tasks as a shepherd.

You will be allowed to kill one sheep each season

To feed yourself -- just one.

If I find that you have stolen from me,

You will be sacrificed to arawn...

The god of the underworld.

Do you understand me?

Now...Sit.

[ down-tempo music plays ]

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[ hoofbeats ]

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[ music builds, continues ]

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[ birds chirping, sheep bleating ]

-You. Come on.

-[ grunts, breathing heavily ]

-What are you doing?

-Taking your sheep for the first season.

-But why?

-Because I can.

-But what am I going to eat?

-Eat the dried meat. There. That's where you take the sheep.

[ sheep bleating ]

[ down-tempo music plays ]

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[ insects chirping ]

-Patrick came to believe

That the ordeal of being abducted into slavery...

Was a punishment for turning away from god.

[ birds chirping, sheep bleating ]

[ down-tempo music plays ]

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[ music builds, continues ]

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[ sheep bleating ]

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[ birds chirping ]

[ wood cracking ]

-[ breathing heavily ]

[ down-tempo music plays ]

-They were the forest dwellers.

These were pagans who survived on what they could forage.

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[ sheep bleating ]

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[ insects chirping, sheep bleating ]

-Months after he arrived in hibernia,

The love of god increased within him,

His sense of awe before god.

His spirit was moved, and he started to pray day and night.

[ birds chirping, sheep bleating ]

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As time went by,

The hunger in hibernia grew worse,

And patrick had to make a choice.

[ sheep bleating ]

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-I offer you this sheep.

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-We give thanks to you.

-May joy rise up to greet you at every dawn.

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-Boy, what are you doing?

I've come for the sheep.

Gather them up and load them into the cart.

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[ body thuds ]

Coward. What's your christ to me?

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-[ sobs ]

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-[ sobs ]

-[ woman vocalizing ]

[ singing in global language ]

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[ singing continues ]

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-My heart is bursting, my lord.

Bursting.

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[ sobs ]

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-[ whispers ] patrick.

Patrick.

Patrick.

Now it is time for you to return home.

A ship is made ready for you.

Go to the shore.

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-May the tides bear you safely on your journey.

May you think of us often as we will think of you.

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-He found his salvation

In the land of his captivity in hibernia.

The revelation came true.

There was a ship.

And after six years in bondage,

Patrick returned to his homeland.

-I became a shepherd.

-To the pagans who took you?

-No, not the ones that took me.

The ones that foraged for their meals,

Who've been driven into the forest.

And I tried to help them to open their hearts

To the lord our god.

-My dear son, you have been through a terrible trial.

-But that was where my heart opened to god, mother.

The trial was the first step in the road.

-Now you're home.

And you can return to yourself.

-Mother, there are souls to save everywhere.

-Your duty is to your mother.

-My greatest duty is to god.

So it is for all of us who have received his word.

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Please forgive me.

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Father, I will no longer look past any man or woman

Who crosses my path.

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I've come to serve god.

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I see that we have no choice

Other than to give all of ourselves to god,

Which means to give all of ourselves to those most in need.

I saw it every minute of the day during my years as a slave.

I was in hibernia.

I was herding sheep for the pagans

Who took me away from my home.

And the people came to me from out of the darkness,

And they cried out for god's love,

Even though they didn't know how to say it.

And I gave them whatever I could of my food,

Of my clothing, of the animals I guarded.

I gave them my love, god's love.

There is nothing else.

Will you admit me?

-Yes.

-And how will I begin?

Will I bring food to the people or...

Or will I take care of the sick?

-You will begin serving god right now...

...By sweeping the floor.

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[ indistinct conversations ]

-Examine your heart.

What is unspoken within you?

-I have no answer.

-But you do.

You're the only one with the answer.

Let it speak within you.

-How long will it take?

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I understand that,

But what are we doing outside of this house?

You're obedient in here.

You need to be working out there with the people.

You're a heartless, godless hypocrite.

-It's always a sin of pride with you.

You speak of love, but never from love.

-We're a community of god, of common faith.

And you always complain about every task

That's required of you for the community.

-My brothers, I am the worst sinner of all.

-Right, again.

-But I mean it because I am a prideful man.

And I apologize to you, my brother, for my harsh words.

But my pride comes from a swelling heart.

And every moment that I'm not doing the work of god

For others, the ones who always come knocking on our doors,

I feel the time is wasted.

-Patrick.

I count one sheep missing from our flock.

You will pray in your dormitory

Throughout your waking hours for 28 days.

And I am now telling you that I will be made bishop.

I have decided to appoint our brother patrick as abbot.

-Your grace.

How can -- how can this be?

After we've heard this man for hours of argument,

Confess before us to the sin of pride.

And after you've just accused him of giving away

One of our sheep, and now he's to become our new abbot?

How can this be?

-That will be for one reason and one reason alone.

Patrick is argumentative, stubborn,

And overflowing with pride,

But his faith is abiding and it is endless.

-Dear lord,

We give you thanks, for we will always offer

Up our hearts towards you and your glory.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

-We beg you to come back and walk among us again.

The one who gave his life for you,

He it is who speaks in you.

Come back to us, holy boy.

Find your way back to the land you love.

Where you found your heart.

Come back to us.

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-My name is patrick.

I am a deacon of the christian church,

And I have returned to bring the faith to hibernia.

-Returned?

-I was a roman slave, captured as a young man.

And brought across the sea to this village to serve milchu.

Six years later, after tending to his sheep in the far hills,

I made my way home.

I escaped.

-And you returned?

-Yes. To pay for my freedom.

-I have no memory of you,

But I'm happy to oblige.

You will pay me with your fine christian head.

Now...Down on your knees.

So eager to die. [ chuckles ]

-Ready to die. Always.

Because I have my god and my savior by my side.

Within me and without me.

Whatever punishment you lay upon me,

Whatever you do to me, into my flesh, you can't really kill me.

God is with me.

The father, the son, and the holy ghost.

-So you came here to die?

-I returned here to hibernia

To bring you the great gift of jesus and his teachings

And the promise of eternal life for all of us.

That includes you.

God has nothing but love for you, and so do I.

-Oh, that is so good to hear.

Cronan.

Off with his head.

Now.

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Do it now. Now!

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-I will not harm a hair on that man's head.

And nor will you.

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-Who has the heart to kill this christian?

Who?

Is there anyone?

Do I have to kill him myself?

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-[ sobs ]

-Why are you crying, brother?

-Why did you come back here?

-To bring you into the light of god.

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-It was where the water suddenly started flowing...

...So many years before.

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-I baptize you in the name of the father,

The son, and the holy ghost.

You are forgiven.

All is forgiven in the light of god.

Dear lord, on this sacred site

We will build our church, the first of many.

And now, with this holy water,

I will baptize anyone who will come forth

And walk in the way of the lord.

-Good woman.

-Bless you.

-I baptize you in the name of the father, the son,

And the holy ghost.

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I baptize you in the name of the father,

The son, and the holy ghost.

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-You answered my call.

-Of course I did. God watches over us all.

He sent his son, who lived among people

Many years ago, and his son's name was jesus.

And he died.

But then he returned from death.

Just like you.

This leaf is the father, god.

And this leaf next to it is the son, jesus christ.

And this third leaf is the holy ghost.

There they are.

All three of them on separate leaves.

But they are together on the same stem

Because they are separate,

But they are one.

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-We found a wonderful place for the church, didn't we?

-Yes, we did.

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-Patrick returned to ireland in 433 a.D.,

And it was said that in the decades that followed,

He established 700 churches and ordained 5,000 priests.

By the time of patrick's death in 461,

What had once been a pagan stronghold,

Was transformed into a beacon of the christian faith.

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We took the bare bones of the story of saint patrick,

And we tried to make a tale of a spiritual awakening

And a spiritual discipline

Which led to his power as a leader in the church.

-I just -- I love that we see somebody coming

To spiritual revelation really out of the hellscape of slavery.

He kind of came to god through those two roads

That so many of us do, through nature.

First being a shepherd of the animals and then through prayer.

-Prayer and the solitude and the beauty of the solitude.

And the only one he can share it with is god.

And the care of the sheep is the metaphor for the whole thing.

-Yeah, and he goes back, which is incredible.

-Yes, he goes back.

-He could have just stayed at home

And said, "that was a terrible time,

I was a slave," right?

-He didn't have to go back to hibernia, but he did.

-Yeah, and so that to me is the part that's the most moving.

-You mentioned solitude.

I love that this episode has so few words compared

To some of the others. -That's right.

-He's by himself.

We think of a missionary as shouting from the house tops,

Urging people to come to the gospel,

But he carries this faith from the continent

On to this island inside,

And he buries it within him in solitude.

But it's still so powerful that it keeps him alive,

The way it's kept so many imprisoned

And enslaved people alive.

-Right. -And he feels sent,

Which is what a missionary is.

"missio" means to be sent.

He feels sent to go back to ireland

And preach by not only words, but by his example.

He must have been incredibly charismatic, too.

And, you know, like saint peter

Before him, a tough guy, as well.

-He apparently was a tough guy,

And was hard headed and caused a lot of arguments.

-In religious communities, we say the saints and the martyrs,

The martyrs are the ones that have to live with the saints.

[ laughter ]

You know, saints are tough people.

They're demanding, right?

And they have to be, and they can be tough to live with

And tough to work with and work for.

-After patrick created

Or helped create the church in ireland,

Ireland was cut off from the rest of europe.

That period of becoming christian

And monasteries actually developing.

In other words, there's two or three people first,

And it becomes bigger, and 20,

And then they make a little monastery.

And then that monastery took upon them

All the literature and knowledge

Of what was left of the western roman empire.

And one monk, one book,

Transferring line by line by hand.

They're the ones who saved so much of western civilization.

And so they had that power, too. The power of knowledge.

-Saint patrick is certainly instrumental.

And as you were saying,

Marty, the development of the monasteries

Is key to understand irish catholicism.

I think what's so interesting is the influence

That the irish church, the irish catholic church,

Had on the rest of the world, particularly the united states.

Right, so not only irish immigrants coming,

But the clergy and the bishops being largely irish.

That small island, right, has this outsized influence

On the rest of the church, and I think still does today.

-We invented a kind of turning point.

Actually, it was inspired by a scene

From ingmar bergman's film "the virgin spring",

Where this act of brutality

Is followed by a signal from the divine,

A sign of grace that kind of leads to redemption.

And that is the water from the stone.

You know, in making films and literature,

There's a tradition of sudden

Spiritual enlightenment.

Fiction and cinema, I think they could give us a model

For considering spiritual possibilities in our lives.

-William james,

He distinguished between once born people and twice born.

And the twice born is the strong convert,

The kind that you're describing here.

-Yes. -And then flannery o'connor

Said, "well, if you're a dramatic artist,

You're going to be drawn to the twice born

Because the shortest line between two points

Is a sudden, violent episode."

-That's right. -Dramatic change in a person's

Life that happens through these experiences.

It's just much more dramatic when it happens,

The man being knocked off his horse

Or what happens in this episode.

Is it artistic license? No.

I think there's something that gets to the heart of

How religion operates.

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