Saint Patrick's Day Quotes

Corned beef and cabbage and leprechaun men. Colorful rainbows hide gold at their end. Shamrocks and clovers with three leaves plus one. Dress up in green—add a top hat for fun. Steal a quick kiss from the lasses in red. A tin whistle tune off the top of my head. Friends, raise a goblet and offer this toast— 'The luck of the Irish and health to our host!'

They gave Saint Patrick his own day and what did he do but run out a bunch of snakes. Why, Thomas Edison lit up the world. If it hadn’t been for him we’d all still be sitting here in the dark, with nothing but a candle,

[God] watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.

Shamrocks And roses In an ever green flock Now Up to your noses Turning into a high stock! People nice and seen All around you green! These lucky streams Realizing major dreams. In strives, when in pain Call oh call up my name, Know it isn't in vain...

But I will tell you another misery that is not to be denied. In the common, natural course of events physicians, surgeons and apothecaries are faced with enormous demands for sympathy: they may come into immediate contact with half a dozen deeply distressing cases in a single day. Those who are not saints are in danger of running out of funds and becoming bankrupt; a state which deprives them of a great deal of their humanity. If the man is in private practice he is obliged to utter more or less appropriate words to preserve his connexion, his living;and the mere adoption of a compassionate face as you have no doubt observed goes some little way towards producing at least the ghost of pity. But our patients cannot leave us. They have no alternative. We are not required to put on a conciliating expression, for our inhumanity in no way affects our livelihood. We have a monopoly; and I believe that many of us pay a very ugly price for it in the long run. You must already have met a number of callous idle self-important self-indulgent hardhearted pragmatic brutes wherever the patients have no free choice.

Legend tells us that the High King of Tara, who ruled supreme over all the Kings of Ireland, looked out from his castle one day during the festival of Eostre and saw a fire blazing away on a far hillside. Furious with this obvious disregard for the law, for which the penalty was death, he sent out soldiers to arrest the guilty party. When the soldiers arrived at the hillside they found St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, piling wood onto his fire and immediately seized him. Standing before the King he was asked why he disobeyed the law, and he explained that his fire was a sign that Christ had risen from the dead and was the light of the world. The King so admired Patrick’s courage that he forgave him and became a convert to Christianity!

May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your field. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand. Today in celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day, we welcome some traditional Irish blessings. May these gentle prayers settle into your soul like a sweet, soft mantra of comfort and serenity.

We are coming upon a time when conglomerates push out the idea that Irish are drunks and always fighting. It’s on shirts, mugs, you name it, and it takes place annually in the name of a saint. If you want to get toasted while wearing green, so be it, but do remember it is a sacred day of culture to some. I am not Irish, but I am of Welsh descent, and cannot imagine if St. David’s Day was reserved for mockery and mischief by the dominant culture. I know Irish partake in St Patrick’s Day and it is a communal thing, and that’s fine, but the sale of the culture is what saddens me. Every year the products roll out, and they sell it to our children: teaching it is okay to offend cultures just as long as it’s part of the mainstream.

That was the end of my adventure in Central America. By the lakeshore in Granada, Nicaragua, I decided to turn for home. I wondered what Cortes would have said if, when he set out in the wake of Columbus, he had foreseen the beach outside Granada. He knew in his bones of the glory to come, would he have known about its eclipse? A Church without the True Cross, unable to protect its buildings from earthquake or idolatry; the gold and silver mines exhausted; the children of the Conquest reduced to beggary, placing their trust in the redundant theories of a Victorian economist; the empire overwhelmed by its own pagan and monstrous child. What a fool time has made of Cortes and his pretensions. He should have turned back to Cuba, to his dice and his saints and his women, and left the Indians with the Gods they honour, against all the odds, to this day.

A Prayer for Grace and Illumination Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You. You know how easily I abandon You. Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often. Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without fervor. Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness. Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will. Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You. Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much, and always be in Your company. Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You. Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I wish it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of Love. Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close, and life passes, death, judgment, eternity approaches. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is getting late and death approaches. I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile! Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers, I need You. Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart. Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by Communion, at least by grace and love. Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation, because I do not merit it, but, the gift of Your Presence, oh yes, I ask this of You! Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for. Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more. With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity. Amen. —Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

One eye-witness reported that: '...it seems more like the celebration of the orgies of Bacchus, than the memory of a pious saint, from the drunken quarrels and obscenities practised on these occasions. So little is there of devotion, or amendment of life or manners, that these places are frequently chosen for the scenes of pitched battles, fought with cudgels, by parties, not only of parishes, but of counties, set in formal array against each other, to revenge some real or supposed injury, and murders are not an unusual result of these meetings. It is hard to believe that many of those who took part in the fighting had originally gone in a spirit of pilgrimage to a holy well. But very often the two went together, at least in Ireland, and a seriously intended pilgrimage was often followed by boisterous and aggressive behaviour. Dr. Patrick Logan, who has made a modern study of Irish pilgrimages, commented: 'Pilgrims in any age are not noted for their piety, the Canterbury Tales make that clear, but anyone who has ever gone on a pilgrimage knows it is a memorable and enjoyable experience, something which is part of the nature of man. These days pilgrims may be called tourists.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy…. —Psalm 67:4 (KJV) My wife was poring over a map of Europe. “Look, Danny. My homeland is a tiny little country. I had no idea it was so small.” “I know, you could put maybe half a dozen Irelands inside the state of Texas.” It may be small, but Ireland has made a huge impression on the world. More than a dozen US presidents and some thirty-four million Americans trace their roots to Ireland, including my own auburn bride. Officially, Saint Patrick’s Day honors the missionary who came to Ireland about 1,600 years ago. There he started hundreds of churches and baptized thousands, thus raising the moral profile of Ireland. But most of his life is a mystery and forgotten. Unofficially, Saint Patrick’s Day is everybody’s opportunity to be Irish for a day, regardless of religion or nationality. By the simple act of wearing green, I can be lucky or bonny or practice a bit of blarney. In short, I can be happy for a day. There are many ways to celebrate the day. Some daring types dye their hair green or wear shamrock tattoos. Others march in parades or attend Irish festivals, where they dance an Irish jig or enjoy an Irish stew. More serious types demonstrate for green causes or go to spiritual retreats, where they pray for missionaries. Yes, I will wear green today, so I don’t get pinched. And I will listen to some fine Irish music, starting with my favorite, “Danny Boy.” I will also pray for some of my former students who are currently missionaries in Ireland. Most of all, I will try to be happy for the day. That’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? And if I can be happy for one day, why not every day? There is much to be happy about, God. Help me find a reason to sing with joy every day. —Daniel Schantz Digging Deeper: Ps 16:9; Is 55:12

That settles it,” said Mr. Trapwood. “We’re going back to the pension. We’re going to pack. We’re going to be on the Bishop first thing tomorrow. Sir Aubrey will have to send someone else out. Nothing is worth another day in this hellhole.” Mr. Low did not answer. He had caught a fever and was lying in the bottom of a large canoe owned by the Brothers of the São Gabriel Mission, who had arranged for the crows to be taken back to Manaus. His eyes were closed and he was wandering a little in his mind, mumbling about a boy with hair the color of the belly of the golden toad which squatted on the lily leaves of the Mamari River. There had, of course, been no golden-haired boys; there hadn’t been any boys at all. What there had been was a leper colony, run by the Brothers of Saint Patrick, a group of Irish missionaries to whom the crows had been sent. “They’re good men, the Brothers,” a man on the docks had told them as they set off on their last search for Taverner’s son. “They take in all sorts of strays--orphans, boys with no homes. If anyone knows where Taverner’s lad might be, it’ll be them.” Then he had spat cheerfully into the river because he was a crony of the chief of police and liked the idea of Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood spending time with the Brothers, who were very holy men indeed and slept on the hard ground, and ate porridge made from manioc roots, and got up four times in the night to pray. The Brothers’ mission was on a swampy part of the river and very unhealthy, but the Brothers thought only about God and helping their fellowmen. They welcomed Mr. Trapwood and Mr. Low and said they could look over the leper colony to see if they could find anyone who might turn out to be the boy they were looking for. “They’re a jolly lot, the lepers,” said Father Liam. “People who’ve suffered don’t have time to grumble.” But the crows, turning green, thought there wouldn’t be much point. Even if there was a boy there the right age, Sir Aubrey probably wouldn’t think that a boy who was a leper could manage Westwood. Later a group of pilgrims arrived who had been walking on foot from the Andes and were on their way to a shrine on the Madeira River, and the Brothers knelt and washed their feet. “We know you’ll be proud to share the sleeping hut with our friends here,” they said to Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood, and the crows spent the night on the floor with twelve snoring, grunting men--and woke to find two large and hungry-looking vultures squatting in the doorway. By the time they returned to Manaus the crows were beaten men. They didn’t care any longer about Taverner’s son or Sir Aubrey, or even the hundred-pound bonus they had lost. All they cared about was getting onto the Bishop and steaming away as fast as it could be done.

The sheer joy in the life of one saint during this festival is utterly inconceivable, but multiplying the millions of saints who will be sharing the same joy with each other, and perfectly, in ways we do not understand, through the Spirit, both sending and receiving our joy to our Groom, the Lord and Savior, must be the absolute expression of the divine. I have no doubt but that all of history will look back to this time, even as every generation of his faithful ones have longed for, and looked forward to this great event. History will meet prophecy, and will become one on that glorious day!

Eugene Peterson speaks of the “God-dominated imagination” that developed in David as he spent his days and nights watching sheep on the Judean hillsides.19 It appears that something similar happened in Patrick. In the lush, green hills of western Ireland, in the towering clouds that rolled across the big sky, even in the most inclement of weather, Patrick sensed the presence of a Creator who hadn’t seemed very real or relevant or necessary in his earlier life of ease. For all its disadvantages, the shepherd’s life leaves plenty of time to think and pray, and Patrick used his time to great advantage. Far from wallowing in self-pity, Patrick celebrated his enslavement, the very shock he needed to bring him to his senses. Throughout his Confession, Patrick’s language is shot through with the confidence that, whatever his circumstances, God was doing good things in his life. He viewed his kidnapping and slavery as God’s direct work; this work, however, was not merely punitive but remedial, not evidence that God had forsaken him, but that God wished to draw Patrick to himself. So rather than growing bitter, Patrick allowed God’s chastisement to do its work in him. His enslavement, he believed, was a hard mercy, but a mercy nonetheless. From the very beginning of the Confession, we get a glimpse of Patrick’s indomitable joy. His tone echoed that of Paul, who wrote from prison,

59. And if at any time I managed anything of good for the sake of my God whom I love, I beg of him that he grant it to me to shed my blood for his name with proselytes and captives, even should I be left unburied, or even were my wretched body to be torn limb from limb by dogs or savage beasts, or were it to be devoured by the birds of the air, I think, most surely, were this to have happened to me, I had saved both my soul and my body. For beyond any doubt on that day we shall rise again in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ, made in his image; for we shall reign through him and for him and in him.

When I started doing community organizing in Boston's neighborhoods, working on all the issues that had affected my family - violence, poverty, guns - I realized that the sooner the Irish of Southie came to better understand their history as an "inferior race" by English standards and learned what it meant to be Irish beyond the happy-go-lucky tunes and bloody fistfights of Saint Patrick's Day, the sooner they would acknowledge Southie's poverty and its manipulation by gangsters and politicians. And maybe even work with black people in neighboring Roxbury on common issues, like the fact that both neighborhoods had been declared "death zones" by sociologists. I also became obsessed with the connection between the work I was doing and personal recovery from trauma, as I got close to a number of mothers whose kids had been murdered in the city.

Armando prepared like they were going to war, armed with corned beef and Guinness stew. He barked out orders to the kitchen staff as they sweated and chopped. The whole restaurant smelled of coriander and cloves and oranges as Armando made his signature orange whiskey glaze for the top of the corned beef. It was the perfect sweetness to balance out the salty meat. Once you had Armando's corned beef, you didn't want it any other way.

I climbed out of the car, and before I turned back, I waited for it to disappear over by Port-Royal. Truth be told, I didn’t actually live in Val-de-Grâce, but a bit farther down in a building at 85, boulevard Saint-Michel, where I had miraculously found a room when I first arrived in Paris. From the window, I could see the dark façade of my school. That night, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that monumental façade or from the great stone stairs of the entrance. What would they think if they found out I took those steps almost every day and was a student at the École Supérieure des Mines?

Unruly Scots were also packed off to Barbados in the early days, and the numbers of the original Redlegs or, as they are alternately styled, the Mean Whites, were steadily augmented by the deportation of convicts from England to the West Indies, who lived here in the same loathsome circumstances as the slaves, and when their sentences had expired, often settled here. It is significant of the gulf that yawns between them and the other white islanders that even in this colony where a white complexion is considered to be of inestimable and intrinsic merit, they seldom rise in the world, or play, as the Negroes do, a rôle in island politics. These pale, Nordic people, standing barefoot in the dust with loads of sugar-cane on their heads and gazing listlessly as the trim limousines go bowling past, are pathetic and moving figures, and their aspect has none of the cheerfulness of the inhabitants of the Saints or of the pleasant solidity of the whites of the Guadeloupean hinterland. They look like poor devils and nothing else.

The Irish loved their cabbage. The Germans pickled their cabbage and the Italians made spaghetti sauce and listed to the opera.

Chicago honors a saint: Patrick. But unlike the San Giovanni Festival honoring John the Baptist, St. Patrick’s Day is less about the saint, and more about dyeing everything green--hair, beer, the Chicago River--watching the parade take over the city, and getting wasted. You even get physically assaulted if you don’t wear something green the entire day. You’re supposed to just get pinched, but some of the guys at school take it a little too far. And if you forget to wear green, you can’t get by with the excuse that your underwear is green, because they’re not shy about asking for proof.

My “boyfriend” at the time (let’s call him Mike) was an emotionally withholding, conventionally attractive jock whose sole metric for expressing affection was the number of hours he spent sitting platonically next to me in coffee shops and bars without ever, ever touching me. To be fair, by that metric he liked me a lot. Despite having nearly nothing in common (his top interests included cross-country running, fantasy cross-country running [he invented it], New England the place, New England the idea, and going outside on Saint Patrick’s Day; mine were candy, naps, hugging, and wizards), we spent a staggering amount of time together—I suppose because we were both lonely and smart, and, on my part, because he was the first human I’d ever met who was interested in touching my butt without keeping me sequestered in a moldy basement, and I was going to hold this relationship together if it killed me. Mike had only been in “official” relationships with thin women, but all his friends teased him for perpetually hooking up with fat chicks. Every few months he would get wasted and hold my hand, or tell me I was beautiful, and the first time I tried to leave him, he followed me home and said he loved me, weeping, on my doorstep. The next day, I told him I loved him, too, and it was true for both of us, probably, but it was a shallow, watery love—born of repetition and resignation. It condensed on us like dew, only because we waited long enough. But “I have grown accustomed to you because I have no one else” is not the same as “Please tell me more about your thoughts on the upcoming NESCAC cross-country season, my king.

There is evidence to support claims that 962 years prior to Columbus setting foot in the Bahamas, Saint Brendan, an Irish monastic priest known as “Saint Brendan the Navigator,” looked for the “Isle of the Blessed.” What island he found has been lost to history and is still unknown; however, legend names it “Saint Brendan’s Island.” Many believe that in his journeys across the Atlantic Ocean he actually landed in America in 1150, or 342 years prior to Columbus’ discovery.” Note: Saint Patrick ’s Day was the day of my parent’s anniversary.

Latter-day Saints must find a way not simply to coexist with but to truly embrace the diversity that already exists within the family of God. To that end, believing Mormons must come to understand that disbelief is possible. People can have genuine reasons for opting out of the church without being dissolute sinners (at least, not any worse than the rest of us). Disbelievers can be good, solid people who love their spouse and children and live ethical, productive, meaningful lives. At the same time, disbelievers must understand that educated, informed, and sincere people can believe in the reality of Joseph Smith's revelations, the truth of the Book of Mormon, and the divine inspiration behind the church. They are not covering up secret doubts nor are they victims of false consciousness when they bear testimony. There are informed people who genuinely believe in and belong to the church. I am one of them.

On Saint Patrick's Day, it is customary to wear shamrocks, green clothing or green accessories. Saint Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish.[34][35] This story first appears in writing in 1726, though it may be older. In pagan Ireland, three was a significant number and the Irish had many triple deities, which may have aided St Patrick in his evangelisation efforts.[36][37] Roger Homan writes, "We can perhaps see St Patrick drawing upon the visual concept of the triskele when he uses the shamrock to explain the Trinity