Life's like a Bowl of Stamps: Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! In honor of St. Patrick's Day, here are some fun facts:

St. Patrick’s Day is observed on March 17 because that is the feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is believed that he died on March 17 in the year 461 AD. It is also a worldwide celebration of Irish culture and history. St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday in Ireland, and a provincial holiday in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The actual color of St. Patrick is blue. Green became associated with St. Patrick's Day during the 19th century. Green, in Irish legends, was worn by fairies and immortals, and also by people to encourage their crops to grow.

St. Patrick did not actually drive snakes out of Ireland; the snakes represent the pagans that he converted to Christianity.

St. Patrick used the shamrock to explain the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. The Trinity is the idea that God is really three-in-one: The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. St. Patrick demonstrated the meaning of the Three-in-One by picking a shamrock from the grass growing at his feet and showing it to his listeners telling them that just as the shamrock is one leaf with three parts, God is one entity with three Persons.

Saint Patrick was familiar with the Irish language and culture, because of his time as a slave there. When Patrick went back to Ireland to convert the Irish to Christianity, he was successful because he didn't try to make the Irish forget their old beliefs. He combined their old beliefs with the new beliefs. Saint Patrick added the sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that the new symbol of Christianity would be more natural to the Irish.