HSPD

Fr dear Fr: How is the traditional Feast of St Patrick celebrated in your house? Anything of note?

St Patroclus as we like to call him in our village after the hero of the Siege of Troy who was brave enough to fight the mighty Hector defender of Paris was a Roman citizen from a multi-ethnic background before he was kidnapped by the Western Sea Empire of the Celtic Druids and the like and then he escaped and slipped over to Roman Gaul, friendly territory for a Roman citizen, but not before receiving a vision to go back there in time after ordination and evangelise the peoples he once served as a slave and a shepherd hersdman and thus lived with. The rest is history. So in our house back at the hacienda of the High Chapparel on the hills among the Chilterns overlooking the river Lea rivulette valleyette, my folks despite their great grande old age will always cook a special lunch for the Feast Day and this year it consisted of salad and roast chicken and pork pies and Scotch eggs, where normally in the past it features more traditional customary food from that unhappy wintry island such as a Gammon of Bacon, cabbage, and potatoes, much like the haggis, tatties, and neaps of the Burns’s Night supper for Scots.

Lunch follows a special private mass in the music room out back in the sunlit sunshine conservatory area with a short sermon on the life and history of St Patroclus, plus notes on its relevance for today and how he inspired the modern church in Ireland to go underground nowadays what with an aggressive violent media always yapping and nipping at her heels. This year the conversation at table over lunchtime fell to discussing each and everyone around the table’s favourite pieces of church music, the best of church music for each one of us. The guy with American College connections liked “Abide With Me”, the lady with Irish College connections liked Allegri’s “Miserere”, the boy from the English College liked the “Solemn Tone Salve Regina”, the guy from the Portuguese Lusitanium College liked the “Benedictus of the Mass of the Armed Man” by Sir Carl Jenkins, the other guy at table from the Anima liked the “Wachet Auf” anthem from Baroque Music, the guy from the Scots College up at the Tomb of Nero liked the anthem for Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus” as maybe the best of all the ones mentioned, and so on. So it was a nice way to spend St Patrick’s Day. We recalled that the life and times of Patroclus were a long way from our own but that this was a nice way to spend the day, with some musical appreciation. Nice. We had begun our ponderings in the music room and so music was considered a nice way to continue the thematics.

The lady above connected to the Irish College said it was sad to see the way that Ireland had gone as a social science-based island, what with various trendy innovations, but the celebrant reminded her that the Feast is designed for us to see a larger Ireland evolve in a more pluralistic Eurozone, and not the smaller establishmentarian old-style Jansenist island of past times. Ireland has improved enormously as a happy island to live in. It also features much by way of some hi-tech innovations too. A different place but not unblessed by the likes of Patroclus. The Western Sea Empire of Niall and the Nine Hostages can rise again. Hibernia Rising.