Of Saints and Swallows

“…The miracle of the “swallows” of Capistrano takes place each year at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, on March 19th, St. Joseph’s Day.”



“As the little birds wing their way back to the most famous Mission in California, the village of San Juan Capistrano takes on a fiesta air and the visitors from all parts of the world, and all walks of life, gather in great numbers to witness the “miracle” of the return of the swallows.”
from http://www.sanjuancapistrano.net/

Yesterday, at the conclusion of our monthly local ministerial, Deacon Michael, lay minister at the St. Boniface-St. Joseph-St. Peter’s Catholic cluster and native born son of Ireland, proudly announced in his wondeful Irish lilt that it was the Feast Day of St. Brigid, and therefore the first day of Spring. Unlike the far more famous St. Patrick who was born elsewhere, she is the only native born patron saint of Ireland and her feast is celebrated on the anniversary of her death, February 1. On the Emerald Isle the day is also known as Imbolc, the ceremonial first day of spring, which celebrates the renewal of the earth, the hope of new growth and all that pagan-stuff.





We're gonna make it...

 In Chetek, however, saints and swallows aside, we are very much still in the dead of winter. Spring won’t arrive until sometime in mid-April regardless of what the calendar says. So we who live in these northern climes have to hang on to other hopeful moments during the six months of winter we generally experience. Take our local Dairy Queen for instance which closes right before Thanksgiving. Every year it reopens on February 1. Though I’ve never been to the mission in San Juan Capistrano, for me the day the DQ reopens is like the swallows returning, a harbinger of spring, a sign that we are going to make it through the long, dark winter of our souls. So last night, as it has become our tradition, after dinner our family drove down to Dallas Street to enjoy our first DQ treats of the season. Ah…the sweet taste of my small Midnight Truffle delighted my tastebuds. Perhaps St. Brigid would have approved.

The Chetek Bakery reopens next week, another sign that winter’s grasp on us will not endure. Hope springs eternal. And so, though my line of Irish descent is not as pure as Deacon Cullen’s in his honor and in the Saint's life and legacy that he celebrated yesterday, here’s the hymn that was dedicated to her sometime after her death:

Christus in nostra insula
Que vocatur Hivernia
Ostensus est hominibus
Maximis mirabilibus
Que perfecit per felicem
Celestis vite virginem
Precellentem pro merito
Magno in numdi circulo.
(from www.newadvent.com)

Don’t know much Latin (except perhaps, “etc.”) but I do plan on having another Blizzard soon (probably a Chocolate Extreme) and raise a medium "glass" to Ireland’s other patron saint.