St. Brighde of Ireland

Shamrocks Blossom Forth by Our Kitchen Window

Warm greetings to you as we begin our 5th week of Great Lent!

In Irish Gaelic, the post’s title literally means, Happy Feast Day of St. Patrick, and pronounced in English: Law Fay-lah Paw-rig sona ghit.

Today (March 30/17), on the old style Julian calendar, we celebrate St. Patrick the Enlightener of Ireland.

Icons of 5th Century St. Patrick often show him with or holding a three-leafed shamrock growing on a single stem. When he was asked to explain the Mystery of the Holy Trinity in a simple manner, St. Patrick picked a tiny shamrock (a low growing plant of the clover family) and with its three lobed leaves on a single stem, demonstrated how God the Father-God the Son-and God the Holy Spirit, are the Holy Trinity – One in Essence, and Undivided… Our One God in Three Persons!

Please see this fascinating material from the Royal Irish Academy about St. Patrick, written by the 7th century monk Muirchú.

The 2019 Youth Choir sing a very abbreviated version from The Breastplate of St. Patrick.

Through the prayers of St. Patrick the Enlightener of Ireland, may God bless you and give you help!

My Sweet’n Savory Irish Beer Bread Recipe (Lenten)

Forest in Ireland
by Josip Rmc from Pixabay

In your patience possess ye your souls. ~ St. Luke 21:19

It is a virtue and a prize to listen patiently to and put up with insults for the sake of God ~ St. Brigit of Kildare

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ~ St. John 15:13

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:13

Greetings on the Forefeast of the Meeting of our Lord!

Today (Feb. 14/1) is also the Feast Day of St. Brigit of Ireland and St. Valentine of Rome. St. Brigit is one of my favourite saints, and St. Valentine is the first western saint I heard of, as a child. I delight in how instrumental St. Brigit was implementing educational and artistic centres… How she founded the spiritual community that bettered their county and country – through charity, hospitality, and medical support. I love how St. Brigit perceived Christ in everyone she met, and through the strength of her great faith and pure heart, performed – and continues to this very day… working miracles!