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Tuesday 17th March 2015<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Good morning. It’s St Patrick’s Day. All over the world people with roots back to our small Island will celebrate Patrick and all over the world things are going green. More than 60 iconic buildings and landmarks will be lit up in green in what is being called Global Greening by Tourism Ireland. The Colosseum in Rome, Sacre Coeur in Paris, Niagara Falls, Munich Olympic Tower, the London Eye, the Armadillo in Glasgoware but a few of these spectacles in green.

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All part of the effort to invite people to our Island to see our sites of natural beauty and share in our chatter. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.

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Today we celebrate a young man who came to our Island to share his faith and who set off a community of faith and hope, followers of God. He tended sheep on the Island’s green pastures and could not have imagined how that green would spread across the world today.

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The colour green is not always associated with what is good or hopeful. We speak of being ‘green with envy.’ In Othello Shakespeare defined jealousy as ‘the green eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on.’

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But today green has a different hue. Hues of laughter and celebration and fun and faith and hope.

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Wherever you see green today may God bless you.

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May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields

and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand. Amen