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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. $.50 PER ISSUE §o Cj§ w & __ in s; © L. E. Qj CD O CT> Go X o R) DO O . CO gog ^ Q. co The Soulhern Diocese of Savannah OSS Vol. 81, No. 11 Thursday, March 15, 2001 Photo by Jonas N. Jordan