Parishioners talk tradition on St Blaise Feast Day

On Monday, February 3 the Feast of St Blaise was celebrated, patron of throat illnesses, animals, wool combers and wool trading. In Ireland it was also the bank holiday for St Brigid. Parishioners gathered in St Canice’s Church, Finglas Parish for 10am Mass and blessing of the throats afterwards.

Laura Maguire, a parishioner from Ballymun attending Mass told The Irish Catholic she thinks it is very important to keep alive Catholic traditions such as St Brigid’s Cross making and the blessing of throats.

“Especially in this day and age, we need to go back to the old traditions. Don’t fix what isn’t broken,” Ms Maguire said. To keep these traditions alive and passing from generation to generation, it is important to bring more young people to Mass, she believes. A way of attracting young people is “music. [To bring] music into the church. Even the old sounds, old hymns. I enjoy Mass better when there’s music.”

Ms Maguire believes parishes need to advertise more. “Not a lot of people go to Mass, they will go into parades,” like St Patrick’s Parade and St Brigid’s events. She believes the reason is that people don’t know what the parish offers, like the blessing of the throats after Mass. “You only get the newsletter when you go into the church.” For her, the parishes should send the newsletters around by post.

Another parishioner said she is the only one of seven siblings who still attend Mass regularly. “Not even my children do,” she said. Many representatives from the Syro-Malabar community were present for the Mass, many young families with children. The parishioner said that she feels the immigrants are more involved in Church life and “maybe their children will be the ones to teach Irish kids to go back to church.”

One of those young families told this paper they go to Mass in the Syro-Malabar community but travel to Finglas every week for the weekly Mass in St Canice’s. “We teach our children to frequent Mass,” the couple said.