Most people who celebrate on St. Patrick’s day today think of wearing green and enjoying good Irish music with Guinness and dancing at an Irish pub. Others who appreciate Patrick as a saint might think only of the story about him freeing Ireland from snakes.
The green beer and Irish dancing celebrations are great fun. I enjoy the music and Guinness even if I’m not dancing in green.
But it’s easy to forget that Patrick was a robust disciple of Jesus Christ who brought the Good News of the ultimate and eternal liberation through Jesus Christ to the people of Ireland.
When something is too much for us (either too bad or too generous) we often reduce it to what we can deal with easily. So we wear green, 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 many truths of faith) to ideas that we then consider to be optional beliefs 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, (it’s on Wikipedia so it must be true) his primary love was not the earth and the animals. Francis loved God, and gave his life to living passionately in relationship with Jesus. This decision and his life of faith placed him in right 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, 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, wear green, drink Guinness 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!
An Invitation:
- Thinking of the superficial stories told of the saints, what stories do you think they will tell about you at your funeral? What stories would you like them to tell? What would any of these stories communicate to the mourners at your funeral about your Christian faith?
Happy St Pats Day! ☘️
An amazing thing about St Patrick is he went BACK to the Irish who had enslaved him to bring good news…
Utua te kino ki te pai. Replace evil with good (through love)
“Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit!”
Amen! Thank you for your intelligent and generous reminder.
This is a great invitation to explore the Saint’s inspirational lives more deeply, thank you.
Wonderful Father, you never miss hitting the nail on the head. Thank you.
Your “wearing the green”
comment, is TRULY SAD”
how the ways of mankind, have
changed the ‘real truth’.
I would LOVE’ to see your
‘Wearing green’ thoughts, placed in newspapers at the appropriate
Times of the year,
Thankyou Fr John