How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. [Psalm 1:1-3 (CSB]
When we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, I suspect the revered bishop who brought Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century wouldn’t recognize this day in his honor. Originally a religious feast, it’s now a day for parades, sales, “Kiss Me I’m Irish” t-shirts, corned beef and cabbage, music, dancing, and lots of green (including hair, cookies, the Chicago River, milk shakes, and kegs of beer). St. Patrick, however, would recognize the common symbol of the day: the shamrock. Of course, to Patrick, the shamrock, with its three leaflets bound by a common stem, was a metaphor for the Holy Trinity. The shamrock’s three leaflets also came to symbolize faith, hope, and love.
“The luck of the Irish” may trace back to the thousands of superstitions in Irish folklore. (Getting married in May is bad luck but seeing a white horse in the morning is good!) The “lucky” four-leaf clover has its origins in ancient Celtic folklore. Irish and Celtic myths and legends also tell of fairies (Aes Sídhe) and pesky goblins (Púca) who were known to hand out both good and bad luck to humans. Nevertheless, it’s hard to see how a people who were invaded by Vikings, suppressed at the hand of England, suffered mass starvation during the Irish Potato Famine, failed at every revolution, and were treated like third class citizens upon their arrival in the U.S. could be called “lucky.”
According to Edwin T. O’Donnell of Holy Cross College, “the luck of the Irish” originally was a derogatory phrase here in the United States. During the silver and gold rush days of the 19th century, some of the most successful miners were Irish or Irish/American. Saying a miner’s success was “just the luck of the Irish” meant that it was mere happenstance and had nothing to do with the hours of drudgery the miner endured, the danger he faced, the sacrifices he made, the loneliness he suffered, or his skill with a pick and shovel.
Anne, a woman in my Bible study, mentioned her daughter’s recent school assignment. The girl and her parents were to paste pictures of the things that made them lucky on a large green construction paper shamrock. A woman of faith, Anne didn’t want to be one of those parents who make a mountain out of every molehill encountered in public school. Nevertheless, she credits God (not luck) with her family’s blessings, so she and her daughter pondered how to proceed with the assignment in a way that honors God. They pasted photos of their family on their “Lucky Family” shamrock and then wrote these words: “No luck involved! We are blessed by the grace of God to be a happy family!”
Attributing their happy family to luck would be as insulting to God as saying the success of a miner who’d struggled in difficult circumstances to stake his claim was just “the luck of the Irish.” Nevertheless, that construction paper shamrock with its three leaves also symbolizes what enables Anne’s family to live with joy, peace, forgiveness, and confidence: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who govern and fill their lives. Moreover, the happiness of her family has to do with their faith, hope, and love (both for God and for one another). There was no “lucky” fourth leaflet on their shamrock because luck has nothing to do with it; God, however, does!
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. [James 1:16-17 (CSB)]
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A firm with whom we do business sends us a newsletter every month. After asking their associates what accomplishment in the last year made them most proud, January’s newsletter shared some of the answers. One man was proud that, after reading up on motors, he managed to repair the family boat by changing the starter motor, another was proud that he expanded his horizons by hiking and rock climbing in various national parks during the year, and a third man was proud that a case he pled had been cited in several law review articles.
With just one week until Christmas, we may find ourselves sorely tempted to repeat Scrooge’s “Bah, humbug!” We’ve been busy with planning, cooking, baking, cleaning, decorating, shopping, wrapping, packing, and shipping; chances are that our expectations have become unrealistic and impossible to achieve. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in doing and getting that we forget the purpose of this wonderful holiday.
When writing about nitroglycerin recently, I realized there’s something else in our lives much like this strange chemical that is both helpful and harmful. Like nitroglycerin, man’s capabilities are a dichotomy between good and evil, constructive and destructive, and beneficial or detrimental. The same mind capable of creating a vaccine that saves thousands of lives is capable of creating a nuclear bomb that can take those lives. James speaks of this incongruity when writing about the way we use our words, “We use our tongues to praise our Lord and Father, but then we curse people, whom God made like himself. Praises and curses come from the same mouth! My brothers and sisters, this should not happen.” [3:9-10]
The early Christians often marked anniversaries of the martyrdom of Christ’s followers. By the fourth century, however, there’d been so many martyrs that there weren’t enough days to honor them all and the idea of one feast day honoring all the martyrs began. In 609, Pope Boniface IV established an All Saints’ Day in May. After Christianity came to Ireland, however, the Roman church attached the Feast of All Saints to the pagan holiday of Samhain (a celebration of the end of the harvest and precursor to Halloween). In 847, Pope Gregory IV formally rebranded this pagan Celtic festival as All Saints Day. Saturday, November 1, is All Saints’ Day and, regardless of your denomination, it remains a day to commemorate all of the saints, not as determined by any Pope, but as defined in the Bible.
It’s been nearly 50 years, but I’ll never forget that day when, out of anger and fear, I vowed, “I’ll never forgive him!” My husband and I had taken our three children shopping for school clothes. While I was busy with the eldest, my husband said he’d take the other two for a walk through the mall. Unknown to me, the three-year-old had convinced his father that he’d stay at the store, sit quietly in a little crawl-through hole by the store’s entrance, and wait for his dad’s return. Unfortunately, my husband never told me of that decision. Having the attention span of a gnat, the little guy quickly grew bored watching shoppers. After wandering into the store to hide in the clothes racks, he looked for his brother and me. Not seeing us (since we were in a changing room), the independent guy decided we’d left without him and calmly went looking for us in the mall parking lot. While I was paying for our purchases, my husband returned with only one child in tow. Almost simultaneously, with panic in our voices, we asked one another, “Where’s Scooter?” My imagination went wild with all the horrible things that could have happened to the youngster. In an instant, I decided I’d never forgive my husband for his carelessness and that our marriage would be over!
Devotions of the Heart 