Celebrating St. Patrick -- the real guy

As we've noted, we like to take every opportunity to celebrate days that point our own hearts, and those of our families, to the Gospel -- and St. Patrick's Day provides just such an opportunity!

Even though our culture has co-opted this saint's day and turned into a greenish haze of beer and partying, the original roots of the day are much more holy than that.  Patrick, actually, was a pretty fascinating person. To begin with, he was a non-Irish, rebellious teenager from a Christian home who was kidnapped, then later escaped, and then decided to go back to be a missionary to the very folks who had captured him.  What kids (or adults) wouldn't like to hear that story?

Here are a couple short articles that provide more information about Saint Patrick:
"Who Was St. Patrick?"
"7 Things You Might Not Know About St. Patrick"

Over the years our family has celebrated this holiday in a variety of ways.  We always take some time to talk about the real man behind the holiday and how his life can be an example to us.  Beyond that, we have some fun with the basic traditions -- making some variation of corned beef and cabbage or green foods, dancing Irish jigs, writing on babies' heads with green markers, and definitely dressing in green.

A few years ago, I was feeling too lazy to do much food-wise on St. Patrick's day, but my young daughter pleaded to have "Patrick food" for lunch "so that we can learn about Jesus."  So I quickly took the opportunity to serve some green foods -- and talk about Jesus.  That's what it's all about after all!

In our house we are thankful that Patrick lived long ago, sharing Christ's love with even his enemies, and giving us a reason to celebrate a special day many years later.