That would raise the Mass of the Day above a Memorial or a Feast into the Big Time with occasions like All Saints, Assumption and Ascension. We'd say the Gloria and Creed. The day would even have its own Vespers the night before.
The author of this proposal is Fr. Neil Xavier O"Donoghue. The impulse is to take a Catholic day that is observed more in green beer than in evangelization and restore it. He quotes Pope Francis, who has written similar thoughts about Valentine's Day. Father O'Donoghue means it:
The Catholic Church in the United States has had her difficulties over the last few years and I think a fuller celebration of this feast can help the U.S. Church find herself. St. Patrick was a Christian who lived through very difficult times and inaugurated an evangelization of a people outside the Roman Empire. It is true that for many it is a feast that has more to do with green beer than anything Catholic. But Patrick is not a myth, we have his Confessio or spiritual autobiography and it is still possible for Christians today to encounter the man behind the legends. In a time when many people are enslaved to fears and darknesses of various kinds a renewed devotion to this great saint can help people rediscover the Christian message.There are problems, large and small, that Father O'Donoghue doesn't address. One, which Rita Ferrone pointed out in the responses on Pray Tell, is that 48 hours after St. Patrick's Day comes an established Solemnity, St. Joseph. (When we lived in Milwaukee and South Bend we got used to the St. Joseph's Day blizzard that arrives on that day.)
As Rita said, it doesn't seem right to add another solemnity during Lent. (I'd note that the Annunciation arrives on March 25, and one could hardly move that without also moving Christmas. If we did, the Church would demonstrate even less knowledge of human reproduction than what it is already known to lack.) We could solemnize our way completely out of penance during the penitential season.
That objection noted, I don't think we have ever lived in a diocese where the bishop didn't automatically give dispensations to drink beer and eat corned beef on St. Patrick's Day. And it has been a rare parish that hasn't figured out how to raise money with the British (cq) saint.
We can't raise money here because one of he seminary's biggest fund-raisers is its annual Joe-Pat Party. In the current situation, any fiddling with dates will face the combined wrath of Irish-American and Italian-American Catholics. There is strength in alliances.
I suggest we all rise on the 17th, recite or sing (if we have the chops for it) the Breastplate (a/k/a Deer's Cry) and honor the good British (cq) saint in our hearts.
Even as you speak Tom, Peter Quinn gives a sound assessment of the latest on the Great Man, St. Patrick. Once again, it turns out that he really existed....unlike St. Ita.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.commonwealmagazine.org/captive-saint
I saw that in my print copy of Commonweal. Quinn can't write anything I won't read immediately. "Poor Banished Children of Eve" is a great novel. His review almost sent me back to re-read E. A. Thompson's biography, which I recall covered some of the same issues Roy Flechner deals with, but, alas, Thompson was lost in the Great Purge.
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