St Patrick's Judgement by Bradypus


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St. Patrick's Day 2000 Special Song Challenge: Bob, Corned Beef and The Devil -- Dateline Boston, USA. Some Irish Catholics may have a beef with the church on St. Patrick's Day. This year, the holiday falls on a Friday in Lent, the period when Roman Catholics are encouraged to abstain from eating meat as an act of penance and a reminder of the sacrifices of Jesus. Many Catholic bishops, including Boston's and New York's, are giving dispensation to parishioners who want to partake of the traditional Irish-American meal of corned beef and cabbage. But some bishops are refusing to let their congregations off the hook, like Bishop Sean O'Malley of Fall River, Massachusetts, has not issued a dispensation. As a result, Catholics with a hankering for corned beef on March 17th may be heading to nearby Boston. But even without a dispensation, there is a possible out for those who don't want to ignore the rules but feel a craving for corned beef: They can travel to another diocese where the meal is deemed OK. "Corned beef and cabbage is a mainstay of our menu," says Jerry Burke, owner of Doyle's Cafe, an Irish pub in Boston's Jamaica Plains neighborhood, "And people are going to do it anyway." Mr. Burke expects to sell thousands of pounds of corned beef and cabbage this Friday. Also included in the no-no parishes are those in Rockville Centre, New York and Brooklyn, New York."

St. Patrick's Judgement by Bradypus

Bradypus' Comments: I must admit I almost (sat) this one out. I need to jump across too many traditions to understand what this really means to people - as Flanders and Swann said:

"The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware
And bony, and blotchy, and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And he hasn't got Bishops to show him the way"

Still, to our song, which takes a totally different slant from the previous offerings - Bradypus showing his more serious side this time.

St Patrick sits in judgement
Upon St Patrick's Day
Three Paddies from America
Would hear what he would say

Now here's a problem for you:
Saint Patrick's day's in Lent
What should we eat to keep the feast?
To find out we've been sent

For years to mark this day we feast
On cabbage and corned beef
In Lent we're told that beef is banned –
Now what is your belief ?

What? corned beef banned? You ask me
To say you may eat free
Now let us think this over
To see what true would be.

Well, in my day we kept the fast
No meat for forty days
A time for meditation
Reflection, prayer and praise

And yet our brother Paul has said
To eat we all are free
Not bound by law, or holy days
With that I quite agree

Corned beef and cabbage be to they
Who feast with heart that's true
I hold it not against them
If that they choose to do

But mock not those who keep the fast
They also point the way
For Lent is more important
Than is St Patrick's day.