A replay of my annual rant: a four-leaf clover is NOT a shamrock!
Here, from a previous year, is a brief biography of Maewyn Succat, aka St. Patrick.
I've mentioned on previous St. Paddy's Days how the confusion of a pagan symbol of good luck- the Four Leaf Clover- with the shamrock, whose whole significance is that Patrick used it to illustrate the Trinity to the Irish, drives me up a wall.
Actually, there isn't an illustration of the Trinity that really works. Whether the skin, flesh and core of the apple, or water and steam and ice, or- well, the shamrock (God doesn't have three heads!), any attempt to explain this mystery finally ends in heresy. Though some illustrations are better than others, and Patrick's shamrock is one of the better ones, IMO.
BTW, the reference to Voltran shouldn't be pushed. The author was just having fun working that reference into the mix.
I've mentioned on previous St. Paddy's Days how the confusion of a pagan symbol of good luck- the Four Leaf Clover- with the shamrock, whose whole significance is that Patrick used it to illustrate the Trinity to the Irish, drives me up a wall.
Actually, there isn't an illustration of the Trinity that really works. Whether the skin, flesh and core of the apple, or water and steam and ice, or- well, the shamrock (God doesn't have three heads!), any attempt to explain this mystery finally ends in heresy. Though some illustrations are better than others, and Patrick's shamrock is one of the better ones, IMO.
BTW, the reference to Voltran shouldn't be pushed. The author was just having fun working that reference into the mix.
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