In the spirit of today, St. Patrick's day, my blog post is about what this day used to mean to people and how much it has changed over time. St. Patrick's day is an Irish holiday every year on March 17th. It is considered a religious holiday that marks the anniversary of St. Patrick's death. This has been a religious holiday to the Irish for over a thousand years. I started thinking about how Irish families would typically attend church in the morning and celebrate at night but how now it is hardly viewed as being such a religious holiday. In recent years, St. Patrick's day has become less of a religious day and more of a celebration. The way I view St. Patrick's day ,because its how everyone else around me views it, is a night to go out with your friends and basically party. St. Patrick's day is still and will always be the celebration of being Irish but has lost its religious importance.
This also made me think about other holidays and how the tradition of them has changed over time. For Christmas, Easter and other Christian holidays, my family and I would always attend church in the morning. As I got older though I stopped going to church including on holidays. Christmas and Easter became just another reason to get together with your family and friends, have a big meal, and celebrate.
I feel this is exactly what we have been talking about in class and how religion has become less and less important over time. Wolfe states, "American Society is a nonliturgical society, its pace of life too fast, its commitments to individualism too powerful, its treatment of authority too irreverent, and its craving for innovation too intense to tolerate religious practices that call on believers to repeat the same word or songs with little room for creative expressions" (Wolfe).
Our traditions have changed over time and because we live in such a fast pace society and it is hard for people to find the time to be as committed to their religion as people were in the past. It is easy to see the differences in how we view religious holidays and the affect the decreasing religious beliefs have had.
Works Cited
Wolfe, Alan. The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith. New York: Free Press, 2003.
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I definitely agree. Our modern culture takes holidays and special occasions and blows up the idea of them without the idea's behind them. It fits more conveniently with our always moving, materialistic, consumer nation.
ReplyDeleteIt is very true that some holidays have lost their religious meaning, like the day set aside to celebrate the resurrection of Christ and how he turned into a rabbit that hands out candy in plastic eggs. (I'm kidding of course). But it's not all that negative. Most of us spend time with family and friends during those holidays and have an enjoyable time even though the religious significance of that day is no longer remembered.
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