Faith & Spirit Quote by Saint Patrick

A hard-earned humility runs through this line, the kind that isn’t posture but strategy. Patrick isn’t claiming “worth” as a birthright; he’s bargaining for it through service. That conditional opener, “If I have any worth,” reads like Christian self-abasement, but it’s also a preemptive defense from a man who knows his status is contested. He’s speaking as an outsider missionary in Ireland, someone whose authority can’t rely on lineage or local power. So he grounds legitimacy in vocation: God’s call, not social rank.

The phrase “to teach these peoples” carries the edge of late antique evangelism: education as salvation, instruction as conquest without swords. It’s pastoral, yes, but also administrative. Conversion required literacy, rituals, and a new moral order; “teach” is how you build a church and, eventually, a polity.

Then comes the bruised aside: “even though some of them still look down on me.” Patrick lets resentment leak in just enough to make the sanctity feel real. Saints’ lives often sand down ego; here, the ego shows up as a wound, and the wound becomes proof of sincerity. He’s positioning himself as the servant who persists under contempt, turning social humiliation into spiritual capital. The subtext is clear: you may despise me, but my endurance marks me as chosen. That reversal - low status as authority - is exactly how early Christianity sold its counterintuitive power.