Begorrah! Tis March the 17^th, 2017. St. Patty’s Day!

          Which to me, being Irish, is all rather silly.

          St. Patrick’s Day, like so many religious holidays that have oozed up within the Catholic Church, has become something totally different than what it was intended to be. Christmas has people exchanging gifts and drinking rather than really focusing on the birth of Christ. Fat Tuesday has people involved in debauchery rather than preparing mind and soul for the Lenten season. Easter has the giving and consumption of candy and the eating of a great ham to somehow commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus, who never would have eaten a ham. St. Valentine’s Day has people buying diamonds and chocolates and flowers and cards to honor a man for whom nothing is really known, except that he died for his faith in Christ. And St. Patrick’s Day, a day to participate in the drinking of green beer, parades and being involved in the drunken pub crawls, is to remember the man who brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Ireland.

          Patrick didn’t have an easy life. Stolen as a boy, he spent six years in slavery. As a man with a calling to share the Gospel to the Irish people, he battled paganism on every side. While he lived, Patrick was a hated figure. He was trying to lead people away from what they thought to be truth. His life was under threat at all times. His selflessness as a man who loved a people who hated him eventually began to allow him to accomplish his life’s work. Hardly seems fitting that such a man is remembered in the way he is remembered.

          Not that I didn’t try to use St. Patrick’s Day to my own benefit when I was younger. Before I was married I would say to a pretty girl on St. Patrick’s Day, “You know, lassie, anyone can be Irish on St. Patty’s Day. But a girl kissed by a true son of the Irish sod is herself Irish for the whole week!” Pretty smooth, right? It never, ever got me kissed. But it was the effort that counted, I suppose. I was young and foolish in a lot of things.

          I don’t drink or brawl or parade for St. Patrick’s Day. And I don’t wear green for St. Patrick’s Day, either. Irish Catholics wore green, Irish Protestants wore orange. I don’t wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day. Doesn’t look good on me.

          But I have thought a lot about Patrick. A fifth century evangelist who gave far more of himself to the service of the Lord than he gave of himself to the Church. A man despised by the people he was reaching out to and still reacting with love and compassion. A man of courage, but one who shunned violence. A great man.

          He died in 461 AD at the age of 76. He never knew anything other than hardship. And now, he walks with Christ. Not because the Catholic Church says so, but because he was a believer in Jesus.

          Doesn’t seem right to knock back a brewski in remembrance of such a man, does it?