The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-03-19
"THE DAY WE CELEBRATE"

ST Patrick's Day is primarily religious ami
versary concentrating the life of a Great saint
whose years and labors were devoted to the con
version of the Irish race 1t is also the accepted
national anniversary of the Irish and the descend
ants of the Irish, the world over So that for
Irishmen, st. Patrick's day is national as well as
a religious observance. The best would be if its
national aspect were given, as with a people so
intensely religious it ought to be given the religious
prominence as the dominant mark of the days
Observance For, even to this day, in Ireland, God
and the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Mother of
God and the saints of God and the Holy Spirit have
their national home earth and their abiding place
in the hearts of its people Fidelity, through good
and Ill, to Catholic thought and Catholic practice
constancy with her religion, is Irelands peerless
privilege and her greatest glory, and no power on
earth can constrain her, no wealth can bride her,
to tear down the temples of God or sacrifice her
faith on the affairs of passion
Other countries have their annual commemora-
lions and national holidays to preserve the mem
cries of their political acknowledgements, their mil
itary triumphs some glorious achievements in
their history.
But the Irish true to the instinct of faith
dwelling in their hearts, honor and venerate St.
Patricks day signalling the greatest and most
venerable event in their history
To the devotion which the Irish people cherish
for the faith preached by their patron saint is
welded their attachment to the cause and principle
of Irish nationality. The two principles are fused
into one, that even Froude, the bitterest of
English writers, was constrained to acknowledge
that, it not for their religion the Irish race
would long ago have been subiugated, and the at
tachment to Irish nationality entirely stamped
out"
And let it never be forgotten that the bishops
and priests of Ireland have, at all times in her his
tory, been intense patriots well as holy priests
And this fact may go far to explain the singular
if not unique, reverence of the Irish people for
their clergy.
Their priests, sprung from the people, sharing
in their trials their sorrows their poverty misfor-
tunes and reverses uniting too in their joys, their
hopes and aspirations, could have no ambitions
alien to those of the Irish people, who we're bone of
their bone and flesh of their flesh
The entire tragedy and the glory of Irish his
tory spontaneously appear in the pupits and on the
stage on this annual commemoration, coming down
from the time
when her kings, with standards of green unfurled
Led the Red Branch Knights to danger,
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of stronger"
down to the golden period of her annals when her
colleges, monasteres and seats of learning were
filled with students from all parts of Europe
race or nation that has preserved its faith, its
manhood and national aspirations that endured
desolation by fire and sword, by famine and the
scaold, by exile and Imprisonment that has fought
down and outlived the lies of history, the calum-
mics of its enemies, and the atrocious Ebels of a
subsidized press and bitterly hostile literature.
must continue to live. 1t cannot but live for it is
a Providential race
Now that the morning of a brighter day is
dawning for them, that from all the vicssitudes of
the past they have emerged with unbroken spirits
and dauntless courage, they may sing with the Is
raeites returning from captivity
"The Lord hath done great things for us: we are
become joyful. We sowed in tears, we are reaping
in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their
seed.
"But coming they shall come with ioyfuIness.
carrying their sheafs"
WHERE THE TPTcu r0MF TINT