The CatholiCity Message

Volume IV, Number 6 – March 17, 2000

Dear CatholiCity Citizen,

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Look, we won't keep you long from this rare chance to party guilt-free on a Friday during Lent. Today we'll give you a brief reflection on Saint Patrick, and a quote from himself. And what could be more appropriate than a poem or two about the Emerald Island and her people?

1. YOU PROBABLY OWE HIM BIG TIME
Saint Patrick has always been an inspiration to us because his life affected the lives of so many souls–literally hundreds of millions of souls since his death. Think of how faithful the Irish had been to the Holy Catholic Church during six centuries of religious oppression under the bigoted, brutal, and hypocritically "Christian" English. Along with the Italians, it was the Irish Catholics who had the biggest impact on the flourishing immigrant Catholicism in the United States. It was the Irish who have sent the most missionary priests and nuns around the world, bringing Christ to the poorest of the poor. How many of us have grandparents and great grandparents from the Old Sod? Would we be Catholic today if it wasn't for the slave boy named Patrick? Has any Catholic of Irish decent ever helped you experience God's grace? Probably. You owe the guy, and if he were whispering in your ear right now, he'd probably be a-downplayin' his impact, and pointing toward Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Raise your glass with us in a toast to Saint Patrick!

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"In a single day I have prayed as many as a hundred times, and in the night almost as often."
Saint Patrick

Thy sorrow, and the sorrow of the sea,
Are sisters; and sad winds are of thy race:
The heart of melancholy beats in thee,
And the lamenting spirit haunts thy face,
Mournful and mighty mother!
-from "Ireland," by Lionel Johnson

For the Great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
-from "Ballad of the White Horse," by G.K. Chesterton

"Who says the Irish are fighters by birth?"
Says little Dan Crone
"Faix, there's not a more peaceable race on th' earth,
If ye l'ave 'em alone."
-from "The Peaceable Race," by T.A. Daly

Yours in Christ,

Your Friends at CatholiCity