Rather than looking out for No. 1, St. Patrick’s Day celebrators should “make a toast to his name” on his feast day, Bishop Lee Piché suggested, and “honor him by doing an act of love for a stranger.”
The auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis offered the challenge at the annual St. Patrick’s Day Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul March 17. The liturgy is sponsored by the local division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
In his homily at the Mass, Bishop Piché said that when he thinks of Irish what comes to mind is “a deep human longing for peace and hope for freedom — faith, family, hard work, friends.”
While St. Patrick is known as the Apostle to the Irish for his evangelizing efforts on the Emerald Isle, the greatest lesson St. Patrick taught was that human beings are never alone, the bishop said.
“Jesus promised, ‘I am always with you,'” he said. “We have God and we have in one another brothers and sisters who are all God’s children,” and he said all must “open our hearts to that connectedness and be a sign of the truth of the social gospel.”
Bishop Piché challenged, “Journey from selfishness, from looking out for No. 1, to being more engaged with others, to become other-centered to learn what love is all about.”
The bishop, who acknowledged, “I am French,” commended the assembly of an estimated 1,200 for starting their celebration of St. Patrick’s Day with Mass. Noting that there are two kinds of people — the Irish and those who wish they were — he showed off the green cincture he was wearing as part of his priestly garb, “to keep me mindful of my Irish desires,” he joked.