A Joyful Lenten Lesson from St. Pat's Day and St. Joe's Table Day to Make You Smile during Lent

St. Patrick’s Day is March 17.  St. Joseph’s Table Day is March 19.

If you live in a large city in the United States, such as Chicago, where many ethnic groups form their own unique neighborhoods, you cannot miss festivities on these days. Americans sure love to celebrate these feast days with extravaganza, regardless of their religiosity.

St. Patrick’s Day parade and St. Joseph Day Table have been staples in American popular culture.

It is fun to take part in these festivities. But, it is important not to forget the religious traditions that has brought these festivities to today’s secular world.

In my own efforts to stay in touch with the religious traditions from which these festivities that characterize the spring time in America came from, it is inevitable to reflect meaning of these two popular feast days in light of Lent.

Both St. Patrick Day and St. Joseph’s  Table Day fall during Lent.

Just think of what connect Lent and these two festive feasts.

St. Patrick was taken into Ireland as a slave. He was not Irish, as many people mistakenly think, though he become the very first bishop of Ireland.

Though he has been credited for bringing Christianity to then-pagan Ireland, his life in Ireland started as a slave.

Imagine how you would feel about yourself and toward your captors if you were forced to become slave away from your homeland?

That was a set of questions, I am sure, St. Patrick had to deal with, during his years of slavery in Ireland.

The way he answered to these question through his acts that bears Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels.

St. Patrick could have sunk into depression for letting the misery of slavery eat up his soul. But, he did not, as he remained humble and was able to discern grace of God. Through the grace of God, including mercy, he himself made himself as an embodiment of God’s grace and mercy, while keeping his soul safe from negative emotions that includes hatred toward his Irish captors.

No, St. Patrick did not react to his Irish captors with hate-filled anger. Neither he let his soul sink with despair.

The spiritual genius of St. Patrick was to turn his hard time into his motive and opportunity to create joy to share with the foreign people who are the same as his captors. So, he began to shed the light of Christ in the spiritual darkness of Ireland, gradually bringing Christ’s light to the heart of Irish people.

The result is – as everyone knows – Irish people embraced Christianity and made St. Patrick as their founding bishop.

What about St. Joseph?

Of course, Joseph that is celebrated on the feast day of St. Joseph’s Table is not Joseph in the Good of Genesis, a younger son of Jacob and Rachel, sold by his brothers as a slave to Egypt. He is the beloved husband of St. Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Theotokos (the mother of God).

Because the Father of Jesus is the Father of Heaven – because Jesus does not have physical DNA of St. Joseph, though his spiritual lineage is Davidic through St. Joseph,  he is the step-father of Jesus.  Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit that the Father sent to bring Jesus to this world.

Mary’s pregnancy was not the kind of surprise St. Joseph wanted hear, as God already made her pregnant with Jesus in her womb before his official marriage to her.  If Mary were caught for being pregnant out of wedlock, she would have been stoned to death, according to the Law of Moses.

Though Mary’s pregnancy due to a sperm that belongs to someone else did not settle with him, St. Joseph did not react with anger toward Mary. In fact, he really loved this woman. So, he was secretly thinking how he would protect Mary from public humiliation, shame, and execution. And, he did not want Mary to end her pregnancy – though the sperm that made her pregnant was not his. So, he was tempted to let Mary go.

It was that time when God, the Father, the one who made his soon-to-be his wife pregnant, appeared in Joseph’s dream and told him to keep Mary as his wife.  God’s message to anxious Joseph was like saying, “Joseph, don’t worry about Mary’s pregnancy. I made her pregnant. I am your God. So, just take her with the baby already inside as yours. Everything will be alright. Remember, I am God”.

St. Joseph was a very faithful man, just like Abraham. So, he did not question what God told him in his dream.

So, Joseph welcomed Mary as his beloved wife and also received Jesus in her womb as his son to raise with love.

Besides his faithfulness to God and to his beloved wife, Mary, Joseph was a hard-working man. He made living and supported his family, the Holy Family, through his professional trade of carpentry.

It demanded a lot of physical strengths. So, St. Joseph was a strong man, as well.

Though he worked very hard, Joseph’s income did not suffice to make his family called “upper middle class”.  The life of the Holy Family that Joseph shepherded had to endure lots of challenges – materialistically. No luxury. Lots of frugalities to practice to keep the family’s book in balance. But, this family was so rich in love.

Though St. Joseph’s income was rather small, his heart was generous.  He provided both for Mary and Jesus with his generosity in love.

St. Joseph can be characterized with the virtue of generosity.  So, the Sicilians began honoring his generosity as the feast of St. Joseph’s Table, setting the table with varieties of dishes to eat together, extending an invitation to strangers and those who are in need.

An eschatological image of St. Joseph’s Table is the heavenly banquet that God the Father has promised to host, as in Psalm 23. This heavenly communal table feast is hosted by the real Father of Jesus in heaven. Now, here on earth, the Sicilians thought that St. Joseph would treat us to the tableful of various dinners, if he were physically here on earth today.

In light of Lent, both St. Patrick’s legacy in Ireland and St. Joseph’s legacy in the Holy Family inspire us to love as God loves us. And, this was the new commandment that Jesus gave his disciples at his dinner table on the very night before his death – the Last Supper, telling them to love one another as he has loved them.

What St. Patrick brought to the Irish people was not hatred, though he was reduced to a slave in Ireland by his Irish captors. Instead, he brought love to the Irish people, prompting them to convert and come to Christ with him.

We tend to become obsessed with “giving up” for Lent. And, this obsession makes Lent an impression of a sagging spirit. You see how people look down, so that they can be seen as repenting?

Though penance sure is a very important factor for Lent, what is most important is to love more. And, during Lenten, we are inspired to love more than before.

Our Lenten focus is not “given up” in a sense of oppressing our desire in the name of penance. What matters most during Lent is to “giving” in a sense of giving away and sharing. So, this goes along with one of three cardinal Lenten virtues – almsgiving, while other two are prayer and fasting.

As St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, almsgiving without love is meaningless. So, we take a lesson and inspiration for our practice of almsgiving with love, as St. Paul teaches.

It is also about putting others ahead of us, in a sense of these words of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, “hombres para los demas” – being people for others, in our service to others – in our practice of Jesus’ new command: to love one another as he has loves us.

St. Patrick’s Day is not just about parade and drinking green beer. It is about far more than enjoying soda bread, corned beef and cabbage. St. Joseph’s Table Day is not just about filling our tummies with yummy Sicilian and Italian dinners at an ornamented table.

These popular feast days are to joyfully inspire and drive us to give more generously with love, as “hombres para los demas”, that St. Patrick and St. Joseph exemplify.

These feasts days during  Lent should put some smile on our face – if we honor the religious traditions behind these festive days, while some churchgoers are still looking down.

Cheers for joyful Lenten journey!