Happy St Paddy's Day!

Yesterday, March 17 was the feastday of St Patrick.

St Patrick is the Apostle and Patron of Ireland. From an earlier life under slavery in his native country, he escaped into Britain, studied for the priesthood and was later on installed as Bishop where, with great profit, he used his God-given talents to convert the whole of Ireland. And thanks to St Patrick, the Irish people have maintained their fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church, just like the legendary saint.

Our St Paddy's celebrations were simple enough to carry out in the midst of all the tail-chasing at the moment - what with the preparations for the trip next week, etc. Actually, the children started the night before by watching a couple of St Patrick movies.

In the morning, we went out to collect Brighteyes' passport, among others - which, I was told, (via email) was actually processed and issued on Monday which is the very next business day after it was lodged last Friday - (Hats off to the Australian Passport Office for getting the job done in no time. Thank God, indeed!!!) Typical me, I initially thought I'd be making a cake from scratch (for our St Patrick's Day celebrations) but eventually opted for the quickest and easiest way and purchased a banana cake, took it home, reshaped and decorated it as our St Paddy's cake.

We whipped a small block of butter with icing sugar and a dash of green food colouring (green being St Patrick's colour) into the perfect yummy frosting and spread it all over our shamrock-shaped cake. Shamrock, of course, is the most popular symbol for St Patrick which is reminiscent of how he, in his explanations about the Blessed Trinity (One God, Three Persons), likened It to a shamrock leaf which has three separate leaflets united by one stalk.

In the evening, we were graced to attend Holy Mass which commemorated the well-known Irish saint. We bumped into a few close friends whom we were able to share good wishes with on this very special solemnity.

Back home, we dug into our little shamrock cake which was topped with our St Patrick figurine and surrounded with green M&M's, with the table laden with a few green balloons.

Finally, being a great activity to fall back on when one has not done much preparations in the way of craft activities, etc., we tackled some serious colouring-in. So to finish off the day's celebrations, we each coloured a St Patrick picture. And yes, even Tatay and Mommy got right into it, too.

Deus, qui ad praedicandam gentibus gloriam tuam beatum Patricium Confessorem atque Pontificem, mittere dignatus es: ejus meritis et intercessione concede; ut, quae nobis agenda praecipis, te miserante adimplere possimus. (collect, Proper of St Patrick)