Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah is a beautiful, long-time tradition, reflecting the profound influence of the Irish immigrants on our city and on our faith.   The headstones in the Catholic cemetery are filled with Irish names; real people who suffered great hardships to move across the world with their families, and who worked and prayed, and built churches and schools, and loved the Lord Jesus and their Catholic Faith.  

We celebrated the Irish Heritage Mass here at St. Michael’s on Saturday, March 15^th, welcoming our Grand Marshall Jay Burke and his aides.  We are very proud that the Grand Marshall is from our parish here on Tybee Island!  Congratulations to Jay and to his family.

St. Patrick was not originally Irish but his vocation; the call of God for his life, sent him to Ireland as a missionary for Christ!  That missionary life began when Irish raiders invaded his country, and he was taken back to Ireland as a slave when he was only 15.  Those six years of suffering and hardship, as often happens, triggered his deep conversion to Catholic Christianity.  Finally escaping, again his escape orchestrated by God in a dream, he returned to his homeland in Britain and became a priest and a bishop.  How surprised (and afraid) he must have been when, in another dream, he was told by God to go back to Ireland, this time as a missionary to bring Jesus to the Irish and the Irish to Jesus!  

Savannah will be festive on Monday as thousands of people crowd the streets dressed in green, to be present at the famous parade led by our Grand Marshall!   It is great fun, a huge social occasion and such a blessing for our city.  However, it behooves us to remember that, like almost all of the great festivals in the world, it traces back to Jesus Christ. 

St. Patrick was His priest, and His bishop.  St. Patrick is a Saint because of the heroic way he lived Christianity, and the heroic way in which he brought Christianity to others.  St. Patrick brought Jesus to the Irish and the Irish to Jesus!  I am very grateful to St. Patrick as I, and most of us, are Christians because of his work.   

Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day!  

Fr. Brett Brannen

Pastor