St. Patrick Drives The Snakes Out of Ireland
The forecast for this day will take us into double-digit temperatures, a lovely way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. A hundred people gathered at St. Paul's church Saturday evening for a St. Patrick's dinner and entertainment. The gang included children and seniors and everyone in between. It was meant to be a fun evening, although we began with worship.
I spoke briefly about the love of the Celtic saints for the natural world, the created world. Many of those saints lived as hermits, away from the monasteries and convents. There are many legends of the cooperation between these holy men and women and the animals that inhabited the woods and the lakes.
I mentioned the tradition that an otter would bring St. Kevin salmon on a regular basis and even dove into the lake where he lived to retrieve his prayer book after it slipped out of the saint's hand! True? Obviously not, but the legends speak to a Christian tradition which honours creation rather than abusing it. This Celtic Christianity can still be a model for a world which has become much more complicated but still needs to be imbued with a spiritual respect for the balance of our ecological systems.
Our United Church creed includes the words "to live with respect in Creation" and St. Patrick's day can be one occasion when we renew the commitment.
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