Popular Traditions
Alongside the church itself, many Irish devotional traditions have continued for centuries as a part of the church's local culture. Holy relics are thought to possess curative powers (through the intercession of the saints), colourful "patterns" (processions) in honour of local saints continue to this day, and in 1985 thousands gathered to pray during the moving-statues phenomenon. Marian Devotion is a central element, focused on the shrine at Knock, where it is claimed the Virgin Mary appeared in 1879. Feasts and devotions such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary (1854) and the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1642), and the concepts of martyrology are still important elements. Respect for mortification of the flesh has led on to the veneration of Matt Talbot and Padre Pio.
An unbroken tradition since ancient times is of annual pilgrimages to sacred Celtic Christian places such as St Patrick's Purgatory and Croagh Patrick.
Read more about this topic: Irish Priests
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or traditions:
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Napoleon never wished to be justified. He killed his enemy according to Corsican traditions [le droit corse] and if he sometimes regretted his mistake, he never understood that it had been a crime.”
—Guillaume-Prosper, Baron De Barante (1782–1866)