Happy Saint Patrick's Day
In one of the all-time great planning moves by the Catholic Church (and there are lots of them), they put the feast of Saint Patrick right in the middle of (or this year, towards the end of) Lent. For those who didn't grow up Catholic, Lent is a time of preparing the believer -- through prayer, penitence, alms-giving and self-denial -- for the annual commemoration of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. It's supposed to represent the forty days Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by Satan.
Yeah... let's schedule a festival of drinking and parties while a reasonably large contingent of our community is practicing self-denial (like giving up drinking). That makes perfect sense.
Then again, if you knew my pastor growing up, it was perfect timing. Because it gave him one more reason to call everybody sinners and point out how we were failing at self-denial because they got (best of all, he usually had at least a half-bottle of sacramental wine or sherry under his belt when he did that). It was yet another reason for most people to go to confession (now called the "act of reconciliation" because it's not as harsh).
Scheduling Saint Patrick's Day during Lent is a lot like baking a cake for somebody on a diet. It's just plain cruel.
Fortunately, I don't observe Lent anymore. Then again, I don't really drink either.
But I still appreciate really good irony.
Yeah... let's schedule a festival of drinking and parties while a reasonably large contingent of our community is practicing self-denial (like giving up drinking). That makes perfect sense.
Then again, if you knew my pastor growing up, it was perfect timing. Because it gave him one more reason to call everybody sinners and point out how we were failing at self-denial because they got (best of all, he usually had at least a half-bottle of sacramental wine or sherry under his belt when he did that). It was yet another reason for most people to go to confession (now called the "act of reconciliation" because it's not as harsh).
Scheduling Saint Patrick's Day during Lent is a lot like baking a cake for somebody on a diet. It's just plain cruel.
Fortunately, I don't observe Lent anymore. Then again, I don't really drink either.
But I still appreciate really good irony.