I’ve never been too focused on St. Patrick’s Day. Although I have some English and Scotts heritage on my mother’s side of the family we were taught, “If we have any Irish ancestors, they would have been Protestant and would not have been into wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day.” On the other hand, our father was a John Deere dealer when I was in elementary school and I had access to plenty of clothing with green and yellow logos. Wearing green on St. Patrick’s day was a good way to avoid being pinched and enough motivation for me to pay attention to the day.

As I grew older, I didn’t pay much attention to the holiday. In our first parish, I worked part time at a small town radio station. My boss there had an Irish name and Irish heritage and loved to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I usually found something green to wear for the day, but I wasn’t much for the parties held at the local bars. A minister entering a bar would have raised eyebrows at that time in that small town.

Over the years I just haven’t paid much attention to the holiday. However, this year, I am prepared to wear green for St. Patrick’s day. After Christmas this year, I did a bit of shopping for clothing and ended up purchasing a few new dress shirts. I’m not sure why it captured my imagination to buy new dress shirts. I don’t have many occasions to dress up now that I am retired. I do generally dress up on Sundays, however. Although casual dress is the norm in the church we attend, I enjoy an opportunity to dress up a bit. I decided to purchase dress shirts that were solid colors in the liturgical colors. One of those shirts is a green shirt. Green is the color of the season following Pentecost, commonly known as ordinary time. Green is the most used liturgical color. When we were active pastors we ended up with more green stoles than other colors simply because we wore green the most often. Having a new green shirt, I noticed a sale on St. Patrick’s ties while looking at an online advertisement for a tie company with which I have done business over the years. On a whim I ordered a tie with shamrocks on it and suddenly I have an outfit for St. Patrick’s Day. In retrospect, I am wondering about the wisdom of purchasing the tie. I’m not sure that I will often have occasion to wear it. It seems a bit too specific for everyday use. St. Patrick’s Day doesn’t fall on a Sunday very often. So, it seems like I need to wear it today in order to justify the purchase.

It isn’t the first time I’ve wasted money and clothing that didn’t get worn very often and, frankly, a tie is a minor fashion accessory. On the other hand, these days it isn’t hard to spend more on a tie than I spend on a shirt.

There is another reason to pay a bit of attention to St. Patrick’s Day. We now have a grandson who is named Patrick. His father’s family are Roman Catholic and the days of saints were emphasized in his growing up. Our grandson’s other grandfather has emphasized St. Patrick’s Day with cards and greetings for Patrick.

Saint Patrick was a Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland during the fifth century. He lived before the current laws of the Catholic church in regards to the formal recognition of saints and therefore never went through the canonization process. He is a saint by tradition rather than formal church processes. He is credited by some as having driven all of the snakes out of Ireland, though there is no evidence of snakes being present before his time. He is also credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland though there is evidence that he wasn’t the first to bring or practice Christianity in Ireland.

He wrote a biography titled Confessio. In it he reports being taken from his home in Britain as a slave when he was sixteen. He worked there as a herder before escaping and returning to his family. after he became a priest and returned to Ireland where he spread Christianity in northern and western Ireland. He later served as a bishop, but little is known about where he worked. However, within a couple of hundred years of his death he was widely recognized as the patron saint of Ireland.

As is the case with other saints, the day of celebration of Patrick is the reported day of his death. March 17 is celebrated in Ireland and among Irish people worldwide as a religious and cultural holiday.

One spring when we lived in Chicago a group of students from our seminary too a trip to present a workshop in a congregation in Kansas. We traveled to and from that church in a rented car. It fell to me to be the one to return the rental car. The location of the return was in downtown Chicago and the day was St. Patrick’s Day. I hadn’t thought much about the holiday until I was trapped in heavy traffic trying to reach the rental company. St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal in Chicago. They paint the center stripes on the streets green in honor of the day. They pour die into the Chicago River to turn it bright Kelly green. After the annual parade, the downtown area of the city turns into one large street party. It took hours to return that rental car. When we got on the train to go back to our university apartment, however, our train was nearly empty. Everyone, it seemed, was going the opposite direction.

It has been a long time since that occurred. I’ve told the story so many times that it feels worn out. So perhaps I need a new St. Patrick’s story. Maybe the story of purchasing a St. Patrick’s tie and wearing it with a green shirt to church can be the beginning of that story.