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Photo by Jo
Right: Christy Jo, Casey and Michaela Morris pray after
receiving ashes at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist
on February 28. Ash Wednesday began the season of
Lent, the 40-day period of Purification and Enligh
tenment that prepares believers for the celebration of
the Easter Mysteries of Christ’s death and resurrection.
A literary love story
—see page 3
The Rosary Man remembered
—see page 4
Diocesan Education Institute
—see page 6
“Saint Patrick’s Week”
“Turn away from sin
and be faithful
to the Gospel”
Celtic Cross celebrations usher in
Grand Marshal Robert J. McGrath
(holding grandson Dallas Daniel, Jr.)
and Father Joseph Ware at the Celtic
Cross celebrations in Emmet Park.
By Father Douglas K. Clark
Savannah
E ver since the erection of a Celtic Cross in
Savannah’s Emmet Park, it has been custom
ary for Savannahians of Irish heritage to gather at
that cross on the Sunday before Saint Patrick’s day.
A special blessing, a special Mass at the Cathedral
of Saint John the Baptist, a parade and patriotic
talks unfolded in glorious weather for this year’s
celebrations on March 11.
At the Mass, Father Peter Flannery, C.Ss.R., a vis
iting priest from Ireland, called the Celtic Cross
“one of our most potent symbols,” perhaps because
it “is both a Christian and a pagan symbol.” Father
Flannery pointed out that the circle in the Celtic
Cross symbolizes the sun. The cross, of course, is
Christian. “Most Irish people are like the
Cross, he said. “They are a symbiosis of
Christianity and paganism. Both of these, apparently
contradictory things, survive side by side in the Irish
psyche. There are those who say that this is not a
good thing about the Irish. They say that Saint
Patrick did not fully convert the Irish.” Perhaps it
might be truer to say that Saint Patrick “baptized”
the customs and symbols of the people he convert
ed, to make them means of expressing the Gospel.
To Father Flannery, “the Irish travel well. They
bring their distinctive qualities with them. Here in
Savannah, as I befriend people, the more I realize
that the fertile imagination and the rich psyche of
the Celt have taken root in Savannah.”
He reminded the congregation that packed the
Cathedral, a congregation decked out in festive
green, that “today, with the help of an ancient sym
bol, we are keeping in touch with our past. What we
do is a good and wonderful thing. There is a danger
that we will lose touch with the past.”
The fast pace of the modem world and a tendency
to live in the present, with an eye to the future but
none to the past, have combined to weaken the his
torical faith of modem people, perhaps more so in
Europe than in America. Father Flannery notes that
today’s “Irish people are noticeably much less
devout in the practice of their Catholic faith than
they used to be. We may see this as a decline in
Mass going and the practice of prayer.”
“The tragedy goes far deeper than just losing reli
gious practice,” he added. “We, also, lose touch
with Christianity, in gradual stages and almost
imperceptibly. This is a tragedy, because Christia
nity is a way of thinking and a way of being. If we
lose this we lose a great part of what we are and a
great part of how we know ourselves. Alex Haley
said that you can never defeat a man who knows
who he is.”
To the largely Irish congregation, the Redemp-
torist priest said, “The Celtic Cross is a powerful
reminder to us of who we are. We are Irish. Let us
not forget, the extravagant claim we make about
ourselves—half in jest, of course—we are God’s
people.”
Accompanied by the skirl of bagpipes, the crowd
processed to Emmet park, where 200l’s Grand
Marshal, Robert J. “Robbie” McGrath and State
Transportation Director Tom Coleman spoke at the
foot of the Celtic Cross, which stands as a symbol
of the Irish spirit.
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The
Soulhern
Diocese of
Savannah
OSS
Vol. 81, No. 11
Thursday, March 15, 2001
Photo by Jonas N. Jordan