Among the saints are the Irish Trinity, Saints Patrick, Colmcille, and Brigid. These three were among the first Christian leaders and holy figures in the history of the Church in Ireland and remain centrally prominent today. This Wednesday, the first day of February, was once the ancient feast of Imbolc, which celebrated an ancient harvest goddess known as Brigid, whose patronage included wisdom, poetry, and healing. Brigid’s springs and wells remain sacred places today for how the deity was incorporated into Irish Christianity through the person of Saint Brigid, perhaps a real holy woman named for the goddess who converted in those first generations after St. Patrick’s arrival, or perhaps a reinterpretation of the goddess herself into a saint.

Either way, I don’t honestly mind. St. Brigid represents for me the continuation of the oldest of rituals, the most ancient of memories, into the modern day. Her feast marks the beginning of Spring according to tradition, a time of year which I do yearn for with how cold it’s been here in Kansas City of late. My own faith is open to the reality that it has a variety of sources, both biblical and traditional. In my lifetime I’ve heard here and there of efforts either by the Vatican or by other Catholic authorities to soften the devotions of certain saints deemed mythic, like St. Brigid, St. Barbara, or St. Christopher. I get where they’re coming from, after all who’s to really say if these people ever lived? I for one can’t prove it. Yet I disagree with this assessment because there are truths about life and nature we can learn from saints like Brigid.

The one catch about honoring a saint like Brigid who is so tied to Ireland and the environment of that island country is that some of these traditions don’t entirely make sense here in America. To say that Spring begins at the start of February is laughable here in the Midwest. The forecast today calls for highs of 36ºF (2ºC) and lows of 16ºF (-9ºC), far from Springtime temperatures that would be expected for the first day of Spring. True, we have had some nice days of late, days when I’m comfortable walking around without a hat or gloves, but they’re becoming fewer as January ends and February begins. I hope that February will see warmer temperatures return, heading into what might be a lovely March. But enough of the weather, to my point I find it hard to follow some of these traditional understandings of saints from back in Europe because the world of the Americas is different enough to make the experience of trying to say “Spring’s begun” when it’s snowing laughable.

Perhaps a better way to think of St. Brigid’s Day as an Irish American is to consider it as one of the last winter holidays which began with Advent in December. These winter festivities are marked by their sense of mystery, earned through the long dark nights this time of year and all the unknown things that can go on when the Sun remains down for longer hours and so much of our native wildlife sleeps in their burrows. St. Brigid’s Day means the winter is coming to its climax, and soon will fade into the first whisperings of Spring with its rains and lush greenery. If St. Brigid’s Day is the beginning of the end of Winter, then St. Patrick’s Day is the beginning of the height of Spring, a time when here in Kansas City sure it could snow, but it could also be warm and comfortable for parades under the Spring Sun. So, to all my listeners who feel like commemorating the story of St. Brigid, Lá Fhéile Bhrigid shóna daoibh! Happy St. Brigid’s Day!