If you have been keeping up with our Instagram or if you are really good at remembering feast days, you would know that this past Saturday, February 1, was the feast of St. Brigid. At Clonard, we celebrate her feast day on the Sunday closest to the date, but there is so much preparation that goes into making the celebration special. We get holy water from a well in put it into little bottles for people to take home with them, we cut up fabric into brat bhríde, we put together the script and the music, and of course making crosses out of rushes, or in this year’s case, out of biodegradable black paper straws.
At first glance this may seem like a lot. And it would have been, but we received a tremendous amount of help from so many different people. I don’t think we will ever been able to say how grateful we are. Making hundreds of Brigid’s crosses took one afternoon (there was even a delicious meal provided by Fr. Denis that left me very full). The brat bhrídes did not take long because of Sister Mary’s help. Even filling up 300 bottles of holy water only 15 minutes with the help of our wonderful tea ladies, who clearly have bottle filling down to a science.
The hardest part of the St. Brigid’s Day service, however, is figuring out exactly what it is. Since Clare, Kelly Anne, Andrew, and I are all new this year, none of us knew exactly what to expect. There were a lot of conversations, I felt, where people were talking at us, not with us. I felt like I had to pretend to know what people were talking about when they would ask us questions or give us advice. There is so much anticipation for this celebration that the pressure to not mess up can be overwhelming. However on Thursday night I was blessed with an opportunity to sit back, relax, and take it all in.
Ballyvalloo Retreat Center held their own Brigid’s Day service on Thursday evening. It was a little smaller, but just as beautiful. We provided some of the music and the script. The only other thing we had to do was bring ourselves. Since Ballyvalloo’s service is so similar to Clonard’s, it was nice to use it as sort of a dress rehearsal. Finally, I could picture what people were talking about for months. I could see the cauldron of fire and how the fan blew the ribbons on the tree. I had a sense of peace knowing what was happening and Sunday night was no longer so intimidating.
But this peace was not the beautiful blessing. As the instrumental group was playing traditional music, the music of my childhood, I realized that I will never have this moment again. I won’t be surrounded by this amazing group of people. I won’t be celebrating an Irish saint while sitting next to a man playing accordion. While Brigid’s day is a big deal here, I won’t be able to experience this kind of ceremony back home. These may seem like thoughts that would bring an overwhelming sadness. But the opposite happened. Recognizing the beauty and uniqueness of the moment and this experience caused me to smile and move my head along with the jigs and reels, feeling perfectly happy.
