When most people think of St. Patrick’s day they think of the saint who freed Ireland of snakes. Many people celebrate this day wearing green and enjoying good Irish music, Guinness and dancing at an Irish pub.

Such a celebration is great. I enjoy the music and Guinness even if I am not wearing green.

But it is easy to forget that Patrick was a robust disciple of Jesus Christ who brought the Good News of ultimate liberation through Jesus Christ to Ireland. When something is too much for us (either too bad or too generous) we reduce it to what we can deal with easily. So we wear green and drink Guinness and go no further, forgetting what the beer and colour is helping us to remember.

We reduce the lives of the saints (as we do the Truths of faith) to ideas that are optional and which don’t require us to leave our comforts or to face our fears.

The same reduction has happened with many other saints.

We reduce the feast of St. Francis to pet day at school or animal farm at Church.  Francis would be scandalised at the reduction. While Francis did have an interesting encounter with a wolf, his primary love was not the earth and the animals!  Francis loved God, and gave his life to serving God. This decision and his life of faith placed him in relationship with the poor, the lepers, the animals and all of creation.

To diminish the life of Francis by focussing on animals or on creation is the same tragic misunderstanding as reducing Patrick to beer and music.

And then there is Valentine.  Valentine’s day has become a feast of secular romantic love. We know little about the life of this saint.  Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century named  Valentine among the saints “… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.”    We do know that St. Valentine was a martyr. He gave his life for God.  It is reasonable to assume that Valentine is a bit upset and seeing his sacrifice remembered only in anonymous gifts of chocolate and red roses.

The reduction of the lives of these saints is the pattern of a secular world where even the feast of the Incarnation of the one true and real God is more about the mythical Santa Claus.  And the greatest feast of the passion and resurrection of our Saviour at Easter is reduced to hot cross buns and chocolate eggs.

Back to Patrick.  On the anniversary of the death of St. Patrick, let’s drink good Guinness, wear green and rollick to the Irish music. But let’s also take a moment to remember that Patrick is a forefather in faith who taught us that all the colour of dancing, beer and good music cannot begin to match the joy of living with Jesus Christ, now and forever.

Amen!