I am snickering behind my hand. If I were living in Elizabethan times, I would be snickering behind my fan.
St. Patrick's Day has to be cancelled!
Okay, not cancelled. Moved.
I'm hoping that the move will confuse everyone and rivers will not turn green. Many people could be spared from up chucking their socks up because they are not used to drinking so much beer, especially beer that is green.
This year St. Patrick's Day lands right smack dab in the middle of Holy Week. Monday of Holy Week to be precise. Okay, the beginning of Holy Week. That hasn't happened since 1940. I don't know what they did about it in 1940, but this year the Bishops have firmly requested that St. Patrick's Day be moved to Friday the 14th.
I'm not really excited about this plan either, as that puts the celebration on the last Friday of the Fridays in Lent (by the time we get to Good Friday, it is no longer Lent), which throws the whole corned beef dinner thing into a tizzy, just for starters. We have no business having a party on the Last Friday of the Fridays of Lent. Drinking beer until we are blind and spinning isn't in keeping with aligning ourselves with the suffering of Our Lord. Having to sleep with one foot on the floor is nothing to offer up for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, who would probably love to have a cold one. We shouldn't be eating corned beef on any Friday in Lent, either.
We occassionally do have St. Patrick's Day land on a Friday in Lent, in which case you can get a special dispensation from your bishop to have your corned beef dinner, but not at your house, at the church fund raiser.
I have mentioned before that I am no big fan of St. Patrick's Day. I have
nothing against St. Patrick himself. I am just disappointed that this great saint has been reduced to an excuse to vomit up your socks and miss work the next day. And on a national level.Some cities have already complied with the Bishops' request. Not because they are happy to comply. They just don't want a stink raised by the "War on Christmas" crowd. Fine. Whatever works.
So here's a head's up! Get down to the drug store and snap up your fuzzy shamrock a
few days early this year! Plug in your red nosed leprechaun night light before Holy Week! And mark your calendar for the next time St. Patrick's Day lands in Holy Week--in 2160.
19 comments:
St. Isidore of Seville is also the patron saint of the Internet, computer science and databases. :)
I actually had somebody say to me "I wonder who the patron saint of St. Patrick's day is?"
St. Patrick's Day is my favorite holiday because of the saint and shamrock trinity thing. I've never been a big drinker but I love me some corned beef cabbage and green lemonade no matter how commercialized that is.
And there there's my mother, who once put green food coloring in our oatmeal and then wondered why we wouldn't eat it. (Where was my sense of adventure? I'd eat it now!)
Sarah
I put a few drops of food coloring in the bottom of the children's cups, and then pour milk into it and it 'miraculously' turns green. We'll have our corned beef and cabbage on Sunday I think.
I put a few drops of food coloring in the bottom of the children's cups, and then pour milk into it and it 'miraculously' turns green. We'll have our corned beef and cabbage on Sunday I think.
Yes it's a shame about all the drinking..I'm very familiar with it being totally Irish..
Sorry to interrupt but let me tell you that in the "land of the free" (to do whatever you like) Saint Patrick's Day is a much bigger event than it is in Ireland.
We are only catching up with you people in America.
I promised "babybreederbabe" that I would not comment on this blog anymore and this is indeed my last comment. I did promise to write something about the first commandment and the first instalment is now on the "blog" for what it is worth.
I hope this does not sound bigheaded.
I am sorry to say sister that like so many other Catholics who have the nerve to write about the One True Faith (including me)this blog is just another case of fiddling while eternal Rome burns. We will all have to answer for our words - written and spoken.
Catholics are busy trying to save the branches while the axemen are busy hacking the last remaining roots.
Do you not know that those people you call the "anti-Christmas" crowd are, according to your renegade pope, your "elder brothers in the faith"?
As a Vat 2 Catholic they may indeed be your elder brothers in the faith but they are certainly not elder brothers of us Vat 1 catholics.
Maybe you could encourage your readers to take this up with Rabbi Ratzinger.
God bless and I wish you good health.
My former high school has moved their annual St. Patrick's Day fundraiser to the week after Easter, when it will be more appropriate to have plenty of meat, beer, and dancing. They're not calling it a St. Patrick's Day thing, just an Irish thing.
I saw on the news tonight that some city actually had their St Patrick's day parade today cuz of Easter coming early this year.
Poor St Patrick just gets his day shoved any which way LOL but I am sure he doesn't mind cuz he was a kindly Saint.
Hi sister. I'm not sure where one leaves a question, so I'll try here:
I'm a junior in high school and am very active in my church youth group. The other day, I and another boy from the youth group were asked if we would like to help lead the high school confirmation retreat (we normally have confirmation in 8th grade, but there are always a few older ones who end up in their own group.) We said that we would love to and were each handed a copy of a retreat script that the youth leader would like to use as a basis. The other kid and I agree that it is Religion at its fluffiest. We want to take the other kids to Mass and Confession (which was not in the original plan,) but we aren't sure what other discussions/activities/talks we could have. Any suggestions? It's four hours with about seven 14-16 year old kids.
God bless,
Hannah
So many folks I know are all in a dither over the whole moving St. Patty's day thing, but no one seems to care two hoots about St. Joseph, whose day (the 19th) also had to be moved (to Saturday). Where are the priorities?
I'm right with you on the St. Patrick's day abuse thing - I love the sign though, "I see drunk people". LOL!
anonymous, they are in a dither over in Italy about having to move the feast of St. Joseph. St. Joseph is the patron saint of Italy and gets the St. Patrick treatment over there on his feast day.
Although, I'm not sure St. Joseph's feast day in Italy is the booze fest St. Patrick's Day is here. Parades and carpentry, I suspect.
aaron, I was talking about Isidor the Farmer, not Isidore of Seville.
Alas, St. Joseph does not get such treatment over in Canada, of which he is also the patron saint...
Hmmm....
Not sure where you are getting that St. Joseph is the patron of Italy. Traditionally, if you can speak of a "national" patron (always problematic in a country of recent construct like the Italian nation), you would refer to the official co-patrons, Catherine of Siena and Francis of Assisi.
The feast of St. Joseph took on great significance among immigrant groups who came to the US and other nations from particular regions in Italy where Joseph had special reverence. And quite frankly, it is a bigger deal with these immigrant communities outside of Italy specifically because it grew as a "counterweight" to the perceived ethnic exclusivity of St. Patrick's Day in immigrant countries with people from varied backgrounds.
And people celebrate Giuseppe by eating (of course!)...special pastries (like sfingi) are prepared. Some Italian immigrant communities in the South of the US create elaborate tables with decorative breads to celebrate the feast.
Dear Sister Mary Martha,
I have changed my mind about commenting on your blog. I promised "babybreederbabe" that I would not make any more comments because it is not "good manners." Jesus Christ was also lacking in "good manners" when he described the hierarchy of his day as a brood of vipers and whited sepulchres.
I am a Vatican One Catholic and you are obviously a Vatican Two Catholic. In other words we are not in communion. We are not part of the same mystical body. There is only one mystical body and therefore one of us is a dead branch unless we can be grafted onto the True Vine.
The question is, which of us is the dead branch. I will not be asking you which saint I should pray to for insect infestations. God help us all. There must indeed be tears in heaven.
What in heaven do the saints think of the church militant on earth!
If only, say, Padre Pio and the cure d'Ars could come back and run the red army of militant atheists from the Vatican what a wonderful prospect would be in sight for the world.
Please do something worthwhile for Jesus Christ this Holy Week and ask all your readers to do the same.
Tell Rabbi Ratzinger that you would prefer that, this year, during the stations of the cross on Good Friday that there be no reference to the Jewish Holocaust or any other holocausts for that matter, other than the holocaust that was the redemption offered to all human beings by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross on Good Friday.
The way people behave on St. Patrick's Day drives me nuts. What's funny is, until very recently in Ireland itself, the day was a solemn religious affair. There were no parades, no massive drunkenness (at least, not more than on any other day), no wild celebrations. The holiday as we know it is an American invention, on of many duch dubious ones.
And that's coming from an Irish-American named Patrick, mind you.
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