SAINT PATRICKS DAY

Snakes Alive...

Tis A Great Day For The Irish

Signs of the onset of Spring are abundantly in the air... the birds busily flitting here and there gathering materials for their nests...a golden profusion of daffodils delighting the eyes at every turn...and today the sunshine burst out heralding the promise of even brighter and better to come !This being Ireland though, and with the imminent onset of our National saints day , nothing can be taken for granted.
My abiding memory of St. Patricks day is a rain sodden parade sludging its way down O'Connell street in Limerick, while I stood wet and miserable usually attached to a long suffering adults hand ! In those far off days (not that far really!), the only prospect of raising the soggy spirit was the appearance of an Industrial float festooned with gaudy bunting ! In later years as a teenager the American majorettes leading the visiting bands did a far better job, but that's another story!
So now the question on every ones lips is 'will the weather hold for Paddys day?'
Sadly the expression 'drowning the shamrock' has nothing to do with the precipitation on the 17th of March, and all to do with this country's preoccupation with our destructive national pastime. Alcoholic consumption in Ireland is really high especially amongst the teen/twenties group, where binge drinking is the norm .On Saturday nights, Accident and Emergency units of all our hospitals are jam-packed with this age group suffering in one way or another from the excessive intake of alcohol. How ironical then that on the day we celebrate Patrick, the one attributed with bringing the Christian message to these shores, the occasion itself is almost submerged in a sea of booze!
The message Patrick brought back then in the 5th century ,proclaimed the life-changing power of the One who said at the end of another feast in another place..."“Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” Whether or not the weather holds for next Saturday is any ones guess, but we can be sure that anyone who comes by faith to Jesus Christ will not be turned away or disappointed.
Patrick left behind his written life story called 'Confessio' or 'Confession' in which he recounts how he went away from God in his youth. It was only after he was brought to this country as a slave to mind sheep on Sliabh Mis, that he considered his life and the love and fear of God returned to him. He writes "I was always careful to lead my flocks to pasture and pray fervently. The love and fear of God inflamed my heart,my faith enlarged,my spirit augmented I prayed and prayed by day and night".
Patricks story is a personal account of how God responds when we call upon Him. Never more than now does this generation of the second millennium ,in Celtic Tiger Ireland need to heed Patricks call.

Gerard O'Shea