St. Patrick, One of our Favorite Missionaries

After a trip to Ireland one fall, we fell in love with the Irish people and the stories of St. Patrick even more if that were possible.

During our visit to the Emerald Isle, there was some Blarney Stone-kissing involved. A small piece of bark made it back from the grounds and was placed in our leprechaun cottage centerpiece.

So on St. Patrick’s Day we celebrate the great missionary and our Irish heritage with a meal we make every year. This year we were fortunate to share with our friend Linda and the LDS missionaries in our ward. With traditional Irish music playing in the background we dined on our favorite mustard-glazed corned beef, potatoes, cabbage and scones, with other favorites.

And a few green decorations…

The Hoodie Bears from Christmas, got to stay on because they are wearing green 🙂

The shamrock was used by St. Patrick to teach about the Trinity.

Mom’s pencil tree is decked out every year with the symbols of St. Patrick, and royalty representing the King of Kings, Jesus Christ who St. Patrick represented. And the traditional Irish prayer, sending good cheer (drawn and framed almost 30 years ago.)

Did I mention how much I love Carolingian Uncial? The script used for for the prayer with “Celtic” letters. Actually developed in Germany for King Charlemagne, this standardized alphabet was designed to unify the multiple cultures, languages and alphabets of the people in his kingdom.

From the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee “The upper and lower case letters we are used to today, along with spaces between words, punctuation, and enlarged initial letters, were a development of the late 8th century known as the Carolingian Minuscule. This manuscript hand not only established a uniform book hand that would be used throughout Charlemagne’s sprawling empire, but it also established the kinds of letter forms that would serve as the models for every Western typographic design to our current day. Today, we essentially read and write in the Carolingian Minuscule.

The Carolingian Minuscule itself developed from the insular uncial scripts and partly from the Roman half uncial that were used at Irish and Anglo-Celtic monasteries that had been founded all over Europe by the late 6th century. The insular monks who founded these monasteries also brought the traditions of word spacing, punctuation, and initial letters with them to the continent. The uncial scripts themselves derived from the late imperial Rustic Capitals, which themselves seem to have been based on Roman epigraphic letter forms.” Family history.

However you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, remember that Jesus loves you and that His messengers carry wisdom and truth that can bless your life. Don’t pinch missionaries. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!