Saint Patrick's Day, celebrated
on March 17th, in the dioceses of Ireland it is a solemn
and holy day of obligation and is officially called Saint
Patrick's Feast Day. The original color associated with Saint
Patrick was blue, but over time the color association changed to
green and green ribbons and shamrocks were worn in celebration of the
day was early as the 17th century. The phrase “the
wearing of the green”, which means wearing a green shamrock on
clothing comes from a song
of the same name.
Saint Patrick is a national day in
Ireland, but Irish in Europe have been celebrating it since the 9th
century; and later became known as the patron of Ireland. The Feast
Day was officially listed in the liturgical
calender in the Catholic Church, influenced by Luke
Wadding, a Franciscan
scholar in the early 17th century. A solemn ceremony in
the Roman
Catholic Church, it is a great feast day in the Church
of Ireland.
In 1940, when St. Patrick's Day falls during the Holy
Week, it is changed to April 3rd, so not to
coincide with Palm Sunday. It occurred again in 2008, and changed to
be observed on March 14th. St, Patrick's Day will not fall
within the Holy Week again until 2160.
However, Saint Patrick's Day did not
become an official public holiday in Ireland until 1903. James
O'Mara introduced the bill to the Parliament and later
introduced another law that required pubs and bars were to be closed
on March 17th because drinking became a problem – the
latter was repealed in the 1970s.
The first Saint Patrick's Day parade
occurred in the Irish
Free State in Dublin in 1931. In the 1990s, the government of
the Republic of Ireland began a campaign to use the day to represent
Ireland and its culture and the government set up a group called St.
Patrick's Festival; the first being held on March 17th
1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event and by 2000, a four-day
event. It became so popular that in 2006 it became a five-day
festival and in 2009 there were more than 675,000 people attending
the parade. Over the five-day celebration in 2009, there were almost
one million visitors taking part in concerts, outdoor theatre
performances, and fireworks.
Other countries that celebrate Saint
Patrick's Day in one form or another besides the United States:
Argentina, Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Malaysia, Montserrat,
Russia, South Korea, and Switzerland.
In 2011, astronauts aboard the
International
Space Station celebrated the festival with Catherine
Coleman, an Irish-American, playing a 100-year-old flute
while floating weightless in the space station.
Saint
Patrick is certainly a popular
saint in many nations. In case your behind in his biography, here
is a brief one …
Patrick was a Romano-British Christian
missionary and bishop in the 5th century. Born into
nobility about 400 AD in Britain, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates
at the age of 16, raised in a religious family. It is said that he
was an atheist early in his life, but after spending 6 years as a
slave, he escaped captivity in Ireland and returned home. At 22 it is
thought he studied at Lerins, off the French coast and spent years at
Auxerre, France and consecrated bishop at age 43. After an inspiring
dream about Irish children he took that as a revelation to be a
missionary in pagan Ireland. Of course he ran into many problems,
especially with the pagan druids, but still managed to ordain many
priests, divided Ireland into dioceses, held Church councils, founded
several monasteries. Because of his dedicated efforts, Ireland became
deeply rooted into Christianity, so much so that missionaries were
sent to mainland Europe to Christianize pagans there.
Few writings from Saint
Patrick survived, and the authentic work entitled Confessio
is considered to be the best.
Saint Patrick joins St.
Nicholas and St.
Valentine as the secular world's favorite saints.
He died at Saul, the place he built the
first Christian church in Ireland on March 17th, 461.
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