Sunday, March 16, 2008
ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN CLEVELAND
Cleveland is the home of the oldest Ohio St. Patrick's Day parade...141 years running. Before the parade is the St. Patrick's Day Mass at St. Colman Church. This year the date falls during Holy Week, and that creates a problem since no celebration of saints' feast days can take place during Holy Week. Around the country many Catholic celebrations were moved to the week that has just ended. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer the event in Cleveland will take place tomorrow:
The celebrant, Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon, will not be wearing green vestments. The congregation will not sing "The Dear Little Shamrock" or other nonsacred songs. And the fifers and drummers, the drill teams and the pompom girls of the West Side Irish American Club will make their traditional march into church in silence, drums muted.
It's a scene you're not likely to behold again, as St. Patrick's Day and Holy Week will not conflict for another 152 years.
"I personally think the silent march will be powerful," said Dan Chambers, the club's liaison with the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. "It shows we're Irish, but we're Catholic first."
The silent march would be powerful if the other marches have been noisy. It might even get some attendees to think about what has taken place in the past, and whether fifers and drummers, drill teams and pompom girls who are not silent are making an appropriate entrance into the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at any time!
Read the article...
