AS a child, I loved St Patrick's Day. It was the one day in that seemingly never-ending and miserable time call Lent on which life could return to normal - which, in my case, meant I could again eat the chocolate I had been told by my parents to give up and keep for Easter. Suddenly, life was worthy living again...
St Patrick's Day always falls in the season of Lent - that time of the year when we are invited to reflect on our lives in a spirit of abstinence and repentance.
It's a sober time when we are challenged to return to our roots, ask some important questions about our lives and the sort of people we are and what we really believe in. A time for reminding ourselves where we have come from and where in our lives we think we are going. And St Patrick's Day fits neatly into this scenario.
The day itself is also an opportunity for Irish people everywhere to celebrate their rich heritage of culture and traditions, for we Irish have much to celebrate and be proud of.
It's also an opportunity to re-examine the precious gift of faith St Patrick gave us and how it can enrich our lives.
What St Patrick brought to Ireland was something fresh and dynamic, a religion that offered a different value system which did not sit easily with the social and political realities of the time.
The first followers of Jesus, a mere four centuries before Patrick, were known as the People of the Way. Following this so-called 'Way' marked them out as being different from the people among whom they lived.
Indeed, if there was one word which described those first followers of Jesus, it was the word 'different'. And this difference manifested itself in the way they looked after the poorest, weakest and most marginalised in society.
It also influenced how they related to the entire social and political order around them. In short, their allegiance was to Jesus, not Caesar.
Our society today badly needs to reclaim something of that 'difference'.
Living as we do in a fast-changing society, it is easy to get carried away on the prevailing tide of popular opinion, trying to make the Gospel values fit the ethos of the times.
St Patrick was a prophetic person and voice. He taught the values of the Gospel - peace and social justice, reconciliation, forgiveness, compassion and love - whether or not people wanted to hear about them.
We, too, are challenged to be prophetic voices that announce the need for these values in our world, even if, like Patrick, we sometimes seem to be crying in the wilderness.
People should be able to look at us and see that there is something 'different' about the way we live and the values we hold dear.
Someone has said that Christians are those who know where they are going in life because they know where they are coming from. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves of where we have come from in terms of the values of our faith.
And Lent is a good time for such sober reflection and St Patrick's Day a good day on which to renew our commitment.
So let us thank St Patrick for providing us with such a deep well from which to draw inspiration, hope and courage to face the anxious, confused and murderous times we live in.
And let us ask him for his help and guidance in remaining true to those core Gospel values he preached in Ireland all those centuries ago.
Fr Gerry McFlynn is a Down and Connor priest and project manager for the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas. He is based in London with the Irish Chaplaincy.
