I'll Drink to that!

http://www.history.com/topics/slainte-st-patricks-day 

 In case you forgot why you drink (I drink to forget)

What are you trying to forget?

That I drink!

Be prepared to toast on St. Patrick's Day!

When March 17th arrives you can raise your glass and toast your Irish friends with one of these traditional phrases.

May your fire be as warm as the weather is cold.

Health and long life to you
Land without rent to you
The partner of your heart to you
And when you die, may your bones rest in Ireland

As you slide down the banisters of life may the splinters never point the wrong way.

May you get all your wishes but one,
So you always have something to strive for

May your blessings outnmuber
The shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you
Wherever you go.

Here's to your coffin....
May it be built of 100 year old oaks which I will plant tomorrow

May your neighbor respect you,
Troubles neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And Heaven accept you.

May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future.

An old Irish recipe for longevity:
Leave the table hungry.
Leave the bed sleepy.
Leave the bar thirsty.

May you live to be a hundred years, with one extra year to repent.

May you never forget what is worth remembering,
Or remember what is best forgotten.

May you be in heaven one half hour before the devil knows you're dead.

May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,
The insight to know where you are,
and the foresight to known when you've gone too far.

May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.

May God bring good health to your enemies enemies

May you never make an enemy
When you could make a friend-
Unless you meet a fox among your chickens.

Who was St. Patrick?

After the Romans had gone back to their own land, the Irish and the Picts, who knew they were not to return, immediately came back themselves and, becoming bolder than ever, captured the whole of the northern and farthest portion of the island as far as the wall, driving out the natives … The enemy pursued and there followed a massacre more bloodthirsty than ever before.  The wretched Britons were torn in pieces by their enemies like lambs by wild beasts (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 1.12).

Thus Bede describes the experience of Britons at the end of Empire.  This was the world of Patrick.  The opening words of his Confession tell of how the end of Empire found dramatic expression in his life:

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age … I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people.

The events in which Patrick was caught up would shook Christian communities across the known world.  In far off Bethlehem, Jerome would weep at the news of the fall of Rome and ask in his commentary on Ezekiel:

Who could have believed that Rome, founded on triumphs over the world, could fall to ruin; and that she, the mother of nations, should also be their grave?

Following this sacking of Rome itself, Augustine would also write his De Civitate Dei, answering those “who now complain of this Christian era, and hold Christ responsible for the disasters which their city endured”.

And yet, as the Empire crumbled and at the remotest outpost of the known world, Patrick in his Letter to Coroticus tells of a growing church:

the flock of the Lord, which in Ireland was indeed growing splendidly with the greatest care; and the sons and daughters of kings were monks and virgins of Christ – I cannot count their number.

His Confessions similarly tell the story of how the church could grow in a time of instability and discord, even at the ends of the earth:

I am greatly God’s debtor, because he granted me so much grace, that through me many people would be reborn in God, and soon a after confirmed, and that clergy would be ordained everywhere for them, the masses lately come to belief, whom the Lord drew from the ends of the earth, just as he once promised through his prophets.

In a time of economic crisis, of the fall of great powers, of a culture of de-Christianisation, the Church in postmodern societies can look to Patrick – to be encouraged that the grace of the Triune God, not the culture of the cities of this world, is the founding hope of our life as ekklesia and koinonia.