Happy St Patrick's Day!
Whether you are Irish or not, I hope just the thought of St Patrick's day gives you a reason to smile. It might be the sea of green that we will see this weekend, your love of Irish soda bread, sugar cookies bathed in green sugar, coffee with whipped cream (and a little something extra perhaps?), parades, fun music, and general merriment. Any one of those things is enough of a cause for late winter joy.
Even as a full blooded Italian I love to celebrate this day. I often think I'm Irish by "friendship", so many of my dearest friends both now and when I was younger are of the Irish persuasion. When I finally got to visit Ireland a few years ago I discovered for myself what I've always heard was true, folks on the Emerald Isle are some of the kindest, most welcoming people I've ever met.
A word about St Patrick. Whatever is true or whatever is legend, surely he is an example for us of superb evangelization. He brought Christianity to a people who had not yet known who Jesus Christ was. He used simple tools he found around him to teach great lessons of faith. He lived with and worked with the people he came to teach. He is a missionary par excellence!
What does the story of St Patrick teach us today?
Do we accept people where they are?
Are we proud of our faith and are we willing to acknowledge what and who we believe in?
As we move into our second week of Lent, may St Patrick be an inspiration for us to find God in the simple moments of life all around us. Be it all the stars in the heavens, or the transforming power of love and friendship, God is with us always, in big and small ways. May we have the eyes to see!
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