Saint Patrick’s Day

We wish all Irish people, wherever they are, Many blessings on this day.

Our Foundress, an English woman, wrote this poem in 1872:

IRELAND

O Erin! – not my own, yet loved

Almost with childlike heart-

In all thy joys and sorrows sore

I’ll ever bear my part.

To thee I owe my glorious faith,

More precious far than life,

Which gives me courage to sustain

The combat and the strife.

From Irish lips I first have heard

Of Mary’s spotless frame;

Found her, my Mother and my Queen,

And glory in her name.

And then – oh, greatest gift of all! –

By Irish hands was given

The Bread of Angels to my soul –

The Lord of earth and heaven!

And, Erin, friends I owe to thee

Who worth I’ll never know

Until I meet them all above

Where joys eternal flow.

Then, kneeling at my Lord’s dear feet,

I’ll count them o’er like gold,

And thank Him for them every one,

Until the sum be told.

Erin, I will ne’er forget

The debt I owe to thee;

But strive to save thy children poor

From sin’s dread misery.

Whene’er in London’s streets so vast

I meet sweet “Irish eyes,”

I’ll strive to save those little ones,

And train them for the skies.

For love of thee, and oh, still more,

Far more, for love of Him

Who shed His precious Blood to save

The whole wide world from sin!

The time’s at hand – ‘twill soon be here –

Finish’d earth’s tears and moan:

The nations all shall be as one

In our Eternal Home.

SMM

(Mother Magdalen Taylor, Foundress of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God)

Ireland, August 1872