Tag Archives: holiday

Here and Everywhere Adored

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Thanksgiving Doxology

O Lord we thank Thee for this food,
For every blessing, every good;
For earthly sustenance and love,
Bestowed on us from heaven above.

Be present at our table, Lord.
Be here and everywhere adored.
Thy children bless and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

All that happens becomes bread to nourish,
soap to cleanse,
fire to purify,
a chisel to carve heavenly creatures.

~ Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Gratitude bestows reverence,
allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies –
those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever
how we experience life and the world.

~ John Milton

I would maintain
that thanks are the highest form of thought,
and that gratitude
is happiness doubled by wonder.

~ G. K. Chesterton

Happy Thanksgiving!

originally published 11/25/2008
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St. Patrick’s Prayer

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Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

~  St. Patrick

Happy St. Patrick’s day!  What a man.  What a blessing.
Patrick, Brigit, Athanasius, Columba, Augustine, Ambrose….
some of my heroes, dead and gone, still livin’ on.  

Talking about Work on St. Paddy’s Day

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Ireland’s flag flies from the fence of my next door neighbor.
I think this (partially) atones for the plastic inflatable
Grinch last December, don’t you (wink, wink)?

[regarding the construction Columcille’s House (Columcille = Columba) in the town of Kells, Ireland, built 11th century.  This is where the Book of Kells originated.]


“They didn’t have time to do poor work.”  He was talking about the modern inversion of production standards – the prevalent assumption that we haven’t time, or can’t afford, to work well. But, of course, nobody ever has time or can ever afford to do poor work; that poor work is affordable is an illusion created by the industrial economy.  If bad work is done, a high price must be paid for it; all “the economy” can do is forward the bill to a later generation — and, in the process, make it payable in suffering.


But the real genius of a country, though it may indeed fructify in great individual geniuses, is in the fine abilities – in the minds, eyes, and hands – of tens of thousands of ordinary workers.  Peter called this “the genius of genus.” Columcille’s House was not, like a monument of modern architecture, the work only of one individual genius but grew out of many miles of stone walls around little fields and out of many cottages.


Thus, coming to Ireland has reminded me again how long, complex, and deep must be the origins of the best work of any kind.

                  

   ~ Wendell Berry, Irish Journal essay, included in Home Economics (emphases mine)

* * * * *

And not seldom, after the manner of the apostle Paul, he toiled with manual labor, fishing and tilling the ground; but chiefly in building churches, to the which employment he much urged his disciples, both by exhortation and example.

~ The Life and Acts of Saint Patrick by Jocelin – found in the post The Toiling and Tilling of St. Patrick, by PoiemaPortfolio, a blog I highly value reading.  Thanks, Poiema!

* * * * *

If you have never read through (or sung!) St. Patrick’s Breastplate, also called by its Latin name, Lorica, you have missed a mighty anthem.  On those mornings when despair wants to claim victory, when bleak doesn’t begin to describe your outlook – on those mornings, these are words to strengthen and cheer you. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Put on The Chieftains,  boil some cabbage, cook up some corned beef, dance a jig, say a prayer of thanks for the gift of this man to our world, and do good work today.