Happy St. Paddy’s Day!
Yes, I’m wearing green. I had to rifle through the laundry to find a green shirt, but I am wearing green. This is essential as, being partly Irish myself, I am of course eligible to be pinched should I fail my solemn duty to reflect this most important colour in my attire on this day.
Not that green is the point of the day, mind you. The day is named for a saint who did nothing less than liberate the people of ancient Ireland from the bondage of Drudism.
It is believed that St. Patrick was born in fifth-century Britain to Roman parents.
When he was sixteen, he was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland. There he was sold as a slave. His owner sent him to tend his flocks on the mountains. Patrick had very little food and clothing. Yet he took good care of the animals in rain, snow and ice. Patrick was so lonely on the hillside that he turned often in prayer to Jesus and his Mother Mary.
His life was hard and unfair. However, Patrick’s trust in God grew stronger all the time. Later, when he escaped from Ireland, he studied to become a priest. But Patrick always felt that he had to go back to Ireland to bring that pagan land to Christ. At last his wish came true. He became a priest and then a bishop.
It was while St. Celestine I was pope that Patrick went back to Ireland. How happy he was to bring the Good News of the true God to the people who once had held him a slave. Right from the start, Patrick suffered much. His relatives and friends wanted him to quit before the pagan Irish killed him. Yet the saint kept on preaching about Jesus.
He traveled from one village to another. He seldom rested, and he performed great penances for those people whom he so loved. Before he died, the whole nation was Christian. Despite such great success, St. Patrick never grew proud. He called himself a poor sinner and gave all the praises to God.
Patrick died in 461. “How did so great and salutary a gift come to me, the gift of knowing and loving God, though at the cost of homeland and family?”
New Advent has a more detailed history of the saint, who has since come to be associated with the colour green and the symbol of the shamrock which, so legend has it, Patrick used as a tool to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to the people of Ireland.
Of course, what feast celebrating something Christian would be complete without an attempt by other segments of society to remove any and all references to Christianity from the observance of the day?
Some folks are trying to transform the name of Tuesday’s holiday from St. Patrick’s Day to “Shamrock Day.” Card shops have banners proclaiming the occasion; the Disney Channel is using the term; and some places in this country have changed the name of their community celebrations of Celtic heritage to the “nonoffending” terminology.
One notes that this move actually undermines the secular position more than it advances it. That’s not to say that it’s a good thing which should be encouraged, but still: calling it Shamrock Day naturally invites the question of what makes the shamrock so significant as to merit a day all its own, replete with green beer, parades, and Disney Channel specials.
That’s the sort of question that can only end deep inside what is among the most beautiful of the many doctrines of the Church.
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