Fiestas Patrias at St. Patrick's Catholic Church...

 Our church, St. Patrick's Catholic Church, celebrated Fiestas Patrias this past weekend. Fiestas Patrias is actually a set of holidays celebrating the anniversary of the revolution in 1910, the call of Mexican Independence from Spanish rule in 1810, Labor Day and the birth of President Juarez in 1806. Cinco de Mayo is the holiday that celebrates victory over the French at the battle of Puebla in 1862. 

While Cinco de Mayo seems to have grown a life of it's own with tequila and tacos St. Patrick's as well as the Hispanic Catholic Churches in Diboll and Nacogdoches are the only places I know around town that actually has a celebration to to honor Fiestas Patrias.    

As we get older our parts in these festivals have decreased from the St. Patrick's Festivals of the early 90s which me and Cathy were chairmen of where we rented the Expo Center, moved every chair and table in the parish, raffled a car and played music to this weekend where we played music for the Mass, Cathy counted the money raised to benefit education programs at the church and I help put up chairs and tables and gave out a few balloon animals that Mary and Miguel made in the kid activity area. 

We don't get to play music around the church much anymore. I guess you can call us semi retired or fired depending on who might tell the story but even though I feel a bit rusty with the music it's fun and the people that show up to sing with us, some who who have been in the group since they were teens and some good young musicians make it a gathering of like minded people. 

The music we did was bilingual and though Mass times were changed a bit in an effort to combine the English and Spanish Sunday Masses I would say the congregation was 98% Hispanic. Maybe slightly more Anglos came out for the festival itself which was good to see. Interest had tailed off in gathering a big group of volunteers for the St. Patrick's Festival and this event is not a fund raiser but just a potluck dinner these days. Fiestas Patrias is our church festival. We had Sri Lanka and Filipino food to go with all the tasty Mexican dishes and all cultures should come and celebrate their heritage.

That's a novel idea, all gathered together working for a common good. I have heard arguments for and against this. Guess which one I'm making now.   

Raising money can be done many ways. You can sell something, you can give a donation which seems to become the way of the world, no inconvenience other than monetary involved or you can work together to have fun and build a community. 

And dance, don't forget dancing! 

All these people pictured here are my friends. I'm proud of my parish, the worship, the work and the fun.