green beer
While I don’t believe in luck, my family does come from strong Irish roots. I believe in blessing, so when I go for the “wearin o’ the green” so that I don’t get pinched, I choose something with an Irish blessing on it instead of a “lucky horseshoe” to adorn my green. There are many Irish Blessings, and my favorites are the ones that emphasize that blessings come from God, not from luck. These days, Sait Patrick’s Day celebrations have little to do with the original purpose of the day. The day was originally a day to honor a man…Saint Patrick, who was known as the “Apostle of Ireland.” He was considered the primary patron saint of Ireland.
Saint Patrick originally came to Ireland very much against his will. He was about sixteen, when he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland. He writes that he lived there for six years as an animal herder before finally escaping and returning to his family. You might have thought that after such an ordeal, he would never want to go back, but after becoming a cleric, he returned to spread Christianity in northern and western Ireland. Saint Patrick went on to become a bishop, but little is known about where he worked. Nevertheless, by the seventh century, he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. To think about what he went through, and then the very fact that he returned, definitely makes him a saint to me.
While partying and drinking green beer, parades and bars, and wearing green clothing all seem to be the 
normal way of celebrating these days, the reality is that this is technically a very religious holiday that is all about forgiveness, and a love of the people of Ireland. Some places hold parades and go all out with a party, but some people still feel more reserved about the day. Time changes things. It used to be that in Ireland, Saint Patrick’s Day was “celebrated” with church services, prayer, and a feast, but in modern times, there are a variety of types of celebrations, and while partying tends to cause a loss of the real reason for the day, it is a sign of the times, I suppose. However you celebrate, I hope you all have a great holiday. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone.
Most days in our lives are normal…ordinary. We get up, go to work, cook meals, got to sleep. It’s all ordinary, and it could be boring, if we let it. I suppose that might be why we have a few special days that are all about fun. Saint Patrick’s Day is one of those days…at least in the United States. Here it is party day. The day of green beer, and a green Chicago River. It a day of wearing green, and getting pinched if you forget. It’s a day for green fingernails and green hair. It’s really just a day to party and have fun. There has to be a few of those kinds of days in life, or it all gets too dull.
Saint Patrick’s Day always reminds me of Spring, which is just a few days away. I suppose that is the main reason…that and wearing green. The days are getting longer, and normally 
there is less snow. This year seems a little more like April Fools Day to me, however. With a record snowfall of over 26″ and up to 38″ in Colorado, 2,300 flights were cancelled, and pretty much everything was shut down. People began to dig out of their homes and driveways, but where would they go then? The joke was definitely on all of us, but that is a story for another day, say…April Fools Day.
Of course, Saint Patrick’s Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th century and is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion (especially the Church of Ireland), the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Lutheran Church. It is the day that commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity 
in Ireland, and celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish in general. Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, dances, and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. It is also a time when Christians who belong to liturgical denominations attend church services and historically the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol were lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday’s tradition of alcohol consumption. That the day is tied to the church is not surprising, but the fact that the day is far more celebrated in the United States than it is in Ireland, is at the very least, a little bit strange. Nevertheless, for all who celebrate, Happy Saint Paddy’s Day!!
Most of us think of Saint Patrick’s day as a day to celebrate being Irish, and to celebrate even if you aren’t Irish. But this day is actually dedicated to a man who was considered legendary by the Irish people. Born in Great Britain, probably in Scotland, to a well-to-do Christian family of Roman citizenship, Patrick was captured and enslaved at age 16 by Irish marauders. For the next six years, he worked as a herder in Ireland, turning to a deepening religious faith for comfort. Following the counsel of a voice he heard in a dream one night, he escaped and found passage on a ship to Britain, where he was eventually reunited with his family.
Much of what is known about Patrick’s legendary life comes from a book he wrote during his last years, called the Confessio. According to the Confessio, while in Britain, Patrick had another dream, in which an individual named Victoricus gave him a letter. The letter was entitled “The Voice of the Irish.” As he read it, Patrick seemed to hear the voices of Irishmen pleading him to return to their country and walk among them once more. After studying for the priesthood, Patrick was ordained a bishop. He arrived in Ireland in 433 and began preaching the Gospel, converting many thousands of Irish and building churches around the country. After 40 years of living in poverty, teaching, traveling, and working tirelessly, Patrick died on March 17, 461 in Saul, where he had built his first church.
Since Patrick’s passing, countless legends have grown up around him. The Irish made him the patron saint of Ireland. They say he baptized hundreds of people on a single day, and that he used a three-leaf clover…the famous shamrock…to describe the Holy Trinity. He is often portrayed in art as trampling on snakes, a picture that came with the belief that he drove those reptiles out of Ireland. For thousands of years, the Irish have observed the day of Saint Patrick’s death as a religious holiday, attending church in the morning and celebrating with food and drink in the afternoon. It was a day to be thankful for the man who bought them to the Lord. As holidays often do, the ways of celebrating changed over the years. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Ireland, but the United States, when Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City in 1762. I’m sure they were doing their best to keep with the tradition of their country. As the years went on, the parades became a show of unity and strength for persecuted Irish-American immigrants, and then a popular celebration of Irish-American heritage.
The rest of the world observed it differently…probably due to the Irish tourism’s efforts to promote their country. The party went global in 1995, when the Irish government began a large-scale campaign to market Saint Patrick’s Day as a way of driving tourism and showcasing Ireland’s many charms to the rest of the world. Today, March 17 is a day of international celebration, as millions of people around the globe put on their best green clothing to drink beer, watch parades and toast the luck of the Irish, but it was never really about luck, you know…it was about blessing. Happy Saint Patrick’s day…and cheers!!
Once a year, on March 17th, the world takes a day to celebrate the wearin’ o’ the green. Saint Patrick’s Day, is really just one of the more fun holidays, that for most of us means nothing more than pinching ayone caught not wearing green, eating corned beef and cabbage, or drinking green beer and celebrating with our friends.
If we lived in Ireland, the day would be very different. That is because in Ireland, Saint Patrick’s Day is a day to celebrate Saint Patrick, who was the patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick lived in Ireland in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, but he wasn’t Irish. He was was a Romano-Briton who was captured by Irish raiders and taken to 
Ireland as a slave. Saint Patrick was the kind of man who, made lemonaid out of the lemons he found himself with. While he was enslaved in Ireland, he made it his goal to become a missionary there, and he is credited with bringing Christianity to the country, as a result. In Ireland, that makes the holiday a religious holiday, similar to Christmas and Easter. These days you can find Saint Patrick’s Day parades, shamrocks, and green Guinness beer in Ireland, but it’s mostly there for the tourists who think that is the right way to celebrate the day. For most of the Irish, however it would not be that way, and in fact, up until 1970 Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on Saint Patrick’s Day. That is a stark contrast to the way the day is celebrated here, but it doesn’t mean the same thing to Americans.
Like many people, I like to eat corned beef and cabbage and pinch those unsuspecting people who have forgotten their green, and while I don’t drink beer…green or otherwise, I like to have fun with the day. But, I also like to reflect a little bit on my Irish roots. I have several parts of my family who came from Ireland, including my Grandma Byer’s family. She wanted to get in touch with her Irish roots too, and so she and her siblings took a trip back to the old country, where they saw the castles, and cemeteries, kissed the Blarney Stone, and visited all the other sites, and I believe they met some of the family who still lives there too. It wasn’t Saint Patrick’s Day when she went, but they really had a good time.
Ah, here it comes…the wearin’ of the green, corned beef and cabbage, and green beer for those who like that…Saint Patrick’s Day. It’s a day for partying…and pinching for those who forget to wear green. Most people look at Saint Patrick’s Day as just another party day. And I enjoy the pinching games and the corned beef and cabbage, but I’ll leave the green beer for others.
One thing that Saint Patrick’s Day does make me think of, however, is my Irish background. I think most of us have a little Irish background, and some have a lot. You can usually find it by the last names, like Bob’s grandmother, whose name before her marriage was Leary, or my great grandmother, whose maiden name was Shaw. Many of these ancestors really never knew very much of their Irish roots, because their families have been in the United States for centuries. I don’t remember either of these grandmothers ever mentioning Irish roots, or being particularly Irish.
Still, many people whose Irish traditions, or any other traditions common to their countries, 
have been passed down from generation to generation, feel a deep attachment to the past and to their roots. Anytime you look back at your family history, you can’t help but feel the beginnings of an attachment to a different time and a different place. It’s easy to envision what life might have been like then. Days before cars and planes, when people traveled by horse and buggy. Days when moving to a new country meant leaving your family behind forever…never to see them again.
Travel wasn’t so easy then. And yet brave people like our ancestors, who wanted to have a better life, set out into the unknown. They had no idea what they would find out there, but they set aside their fears and went anyway. They were pioneers, and were it not for them, we would not be where we are today, or have what we have today. They are also the inventors. Someone had to come up with all of the modern conveniences that we have today. They were people with that same pioneer spirit. What would our world be like without those people and people like them. People who 
carried their traditions into a new world, or people who came to the new world and started traditions of their own.
Much of my background is German and English, but there is some Irish, and the Irish family members that I have had the pleasure of knowing were very much a treasure as valuable as the emerald colored hills of the old country. So I’ll carry on the tradition today. Wearin’ the green, and pinching those who forget, and eating corned beef and cabbage with loved ones. Because, today…everybody is a little bit Irish. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to all.
