What would Saint Patrick say about Saint Patrick’s Day? He probably wouldn’t approve.
The “Kiss me, I’m Irish” green-beer event that gets celebrated these days – often in rather ribald ways –is so far removed from the life of the man himself that it’s hard to know where to begin.
For starters, though, Patrick wasn’t Irish but rather a fifth-century Roman Britain named “Patricius.”Captured during a raid by Irishmen, he was sold into slavery as a teen and found God while tending his master’s livestock for five years.
Escaping, Patrick returned home, obtained some education then felt God’s call to return to Ireland. For the next 40 years he traveled throughout that land as a bishop, baptizing thousands and converting the Irish from pagan and Druidic practices to Christianity.
But Patrick did more than bring Christianity to Ireland. He started a tradition of Celtic saints who spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every corner of the British Isles and Brittany in France.
Saint David is another good example of a Celtic saint – and another whoseMarch feast day is a celebrated event, although certainly not on the scale of Saint Patrick’s Day.
Known as“Dewi Sant”in Wales, where he is the patron saint, David was a Celtic priest and bishop who founded a dozen or more monasteries in Wales and England during the sixth century. He and his monks lived highly disciplined lives, pulling their own plows, eating no meat and drinking only water.
Leeks have a place in Welsh tradition, stemming from a battle between Saint David’s men and pagan Saxon invaders. David ordered his soldiers to fix leeks to their helmets as a way to distinguish them from their enemy.
Dydd Dewi Sant – Saint David’s Day – is his feast day, the national day of Wales, and falls on March 1 each year. On this day good Welshmen and Welshwomen put leeks in their caps (daffodils also are acceptable) and celebrate Wales’ rich traditions inmusic and poetry. For Saint David’s Day events here within the Alleghenies, where many Welsh immigrated during the mid-19th century, visit StDavidsSociety.org.
While you’d have to look long and hard to find a Saint Piran’s Day celebration here in the United States, you’d have trouble avoiding one on March 5 each year in Cornwall on the southwestern tip of England.
Piran was an Irish missionary priest who carried the faith to that part of England and neighboring south Wales during the sixth century. Strongly Celtic in heritage itself, Cornwall has its own flag which features “Saint Piran’s Cross” – a white cross on a black field.
Saint Winwaloe was a fifth century monk born to a Cornish family living in Brittany, France. His monastic lifestyle consisted largely of a diet of herb-flavored water, barley bread and boiled roots; his habit was made of goatskins; and his bed consisted of tree bark with a stone for a pillow.
Perhaps that explains why Winwaloe’s feast day of March 3 doesn’t seem to stir much celebration – even in Brittany.
Seventh-century bishop Saint Cuthbert was known for his missionary zeal in the northeastern corner of England, the then-kingdom of Northumbria. A Scot, educated in the Celtic traditions at the Irish-founded monastery at Lindisfarne,Cuthbert helped to establish Northumberland as a center for Christianity in England.
There are quite a few other Celtic saints with feast days outside of March, but Saint David, Saint Piran – and especially Saint Patrick – focus our attention on rich strains of Celtic culture in unique and celebratory ways.
If I may venture a guess, these intensely focused disciples of Jesus Christ might be pleased to know that they’ve become inseparably linked with Welsh, Cornish and Irish cultures in ways that we can experience 1,500 years later.
But they probably wouldn’t wear a “Kiss me I’m Irish” button. And their green drinks would consist of herb-flavored water.