ACTION ITEM! 9 Sept – International Buy a Priest a Beer Day!

UPDATE 9 Sept:

The wonderful ladies who do some cleaning in the building, which includes the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue in which I live, brought me a cold beer today!

They are the best.

_____

A reader asked:

“When is buy your priest a beer day?

I thought it was a great idea last year. it was in Aug/Sept. Wondering if you remember when it was so we can start a tradition….”

Around here we are all for tradition.

Last year I posted on this important day, HERE.

Tuesday, 9 September is International Buy A Priest A Beer Day!

As posted last year:

At the blog of The Catholic Gentleman:

International Buy a Priest a Beer Day!
Did you know that this coming Monday, September 9, [last year, 2013] is International Buy a Priest a Beer Day? On this festive day, faithful Catholics all over the world take their priests out for a beer and get to know them better. It’s a beautiful Catholic tradition that goes back to the time of St. Hopswald of Aleyard, the first man to take his priest out for a beer.

Okay, if you’re getting suspicious by now, there’s a good reason. Buy a Priest a Beer Day is not a real holiday. But I would argue that it should be! [Do I hear an “Amen!”?]

Believe it or not, priests are real people, and they enjoy socializing over good food and drink as much as anyone. They also have a thankless and difficult job, a job that we couldn’t get to heaven without. Priests are the lifeblood of the Church, and they deserve some appreciation.

[…]

If you can’t take me out for a beer, you can always use my donation button and add a beery note!  Or a stout or ale-ing note, for that matter.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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25 Comments

  1. Back pew sitter says:

    Surely it should be a Holiday [sic] of Obligation with many indulgences attached to it?

    [So long as there isn’t too much indulgence.]

  2. Supertradmum says:

    Father Z., great idea and if I could, I would take you to the Ye Olde Mitre in Holborn, one of my favorite pubs when I was young and living in London. They serve fantastic ales, It was built by the first Anglican “bishop” of the area, Thomas Goodrich, who destroyed the great shrine of Etheldreda, except for the small church one sees today.

    Of course, the pub is right near this little St. Etheldreda’s Church, the church of my principle patron on the blog, a woman who most likely drank ale! She founded the spot in 673. I really love her. She is an example of how the Church encouraged strong women to be leaders in their spheres.

    The famous lines of Shakespeare are said at Ely House, in Richard II.

    This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
    This Earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
    This other Eden, demi-Paradise,
    This fortress built by Nature for herself
    Against infection and the hand of war,
    This blessed plot, this Earth, this realm, this England.

    After a beer and sausage and other good food, we could walk to the great Carthusian House of St. John Houghton et al, just down the road. One can feel the holiness of the place outside where the altar use to be.

    I would have iced tea, however, as I gave up beer until a family member stops drinking. It was about time to DO something and not just pray.

  3. Wiktor says:

    I’m brewing mead! Is it appropriate for wine blessing on the feast of St John? (perhaps not, not exactly wine..)

  4. KM Edwards says:

    “By God’s love and man’s sweat, beer came in the world!” – St. Arnulf of Metz

  5. KM Edwards says:

    “By God’s love and man’s sweat, beer came into the world!” – St. Arnulf of Metz

  6. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Mead is usually associated with the feasts of the various saints associated with beekeeping and honey, either because of events in their lives, their names, or their feastdays being close to harvest time. So there’s St. Ambrose of Milan (allegedly had a swarm of bees sit on him as a baby, without stinging him – Dec 7), St. Bartholomew (in England), St. Gobnait (Irish beekeeper nun – Feb 11), St. Bega aka St. Bees (also an Irish beekeeper nun who did missions in Scotland and Northumbria – Nov. 7 or Oct 31), St. Mo Domnoc (Ulster beekeeper monk, learned beekeeping in Wales – Feb 13). The OT saint Deborah’s name means “bee,” so her feast would also be very suitable.

    Also, a lot of the brewer and vintner saints also cover mead and cordials: St. Solange, St. Arnold, St Wenceslaus, etc.

  7. Suburbanbanshee says:

    The old feast of St. Bartholomew’s Day was on August 12 (today it’s the 24th), and apparently there was a mead blessing done on that day in a town in Cornwall up until the 1950’s. It was a traditional treat at London’s St. Bartholomew Fair to eat honey-coated apples, like we eat caramel apples. So that’s pretty clearly a harvest thing, although St. Bartholomew was patron of a lot of painful skin things on account of being martyred by flaying; so beestings may be involved.

    Other saints in on the action: St. Bernard of Clairvaux (in France), St. Valentine (another Feb saint), St. Gregory (associated with spring flowering time), St. Benedict (in many parts of Europe), and St. Kharlamii (Bulgarian bishop with heavy use of honey for medicines). But of course the patron saint of your parish, etc. is also a great choice for a mead blessing day. Or the day you get the mead done and ready to drink is also good, especially if you’re going to donate some mead to your parish priest. :)

  8. vetusta ecclesia says:

    Supertradmum: I think that the strawberries from the Bishop of Ely’s London palace are also mentioned in Shakespeare. And the present church is the only pre-Reformation London church still in Papist hands.

  9. Nicholas says:

    May one who is underage bring root beer?

  10. Wiktor says:

    @Suburbanbanshee – thank you for comments.

  11. VexillaRegis says:

    I misread the headline as “Buy a priest a beer a day”. That would not end well!!!

  12. I recommend a delicious and substantial Korbinian’s Doppelbock. It’s not just a beer, it’s a meal in a bottle! (Those old Benedictine monks new a thing or two about getting through a long day’s work in the fields, although they probably didn’t allow beer in the scriptorium.)

  13. John Nolan says:

    The blessing of beer in the Roman Ritual has ‘Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisiae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es; ut sit remedium salutare humano generi …’

    So beer is good for you, official! Interesting that only Spanish and Portuguese derive their word for beer (cerveza, cerveja) from the Latin (cervisia, cerevisia).

  14. irishthree says:

    How about a pistol rematch to go with the beer next time you are in Detroit?

  15. RAve says:

    Dear Father, I think you and your readers will enjoy this blessing for beer and wine in latin and English. I hope you like the translation. http://avemarialiving.com/2013/09/06/when-you-buy-that-priest-his-beer-on-monday/

  16. APX says:

    Wiktor,

    Our Holy Mother the Church, has given us a blessing for beer.

    There’s a growing group of young adults at our EF Community who goes out for beer and food every week with our priests to one of the local
    Pubs after Evening Mass. Father, always being prepared, has gotten out the stole and holy water to bless our beer on more than one occasion.

    As humorous as some people find this concept, I do honestly believe we need to take the time thank our priests more often. (I am curious how often we actually thank our priests for what they do? I think a poll would be a bit sobering).

    A small gesture of appreciation can go a long way. I think too often we wait until our priests get transferred to tell them how much we appreciate them, but until then we don’t really do much, or only say something when they do something extraordinary for us.

    I realize how difficult it can be to find the right words of thanks. It’s really hard to find an eloquent way of saying, “Thank-you for spending countless hours roasting in the confessional so that we might not have to roast in Hell later on” and so on, but even the most inarticulate note of thanks can go a long.

    Anyways, I’m rambling. Summary: Thank your priests. Often.

  17. Matt Robare says:

    Why not Arnulf of Metz’s feast day, July 18?

  18. Nathan says:

    Father Z, thank you for the timely reminder and the excellent picture of then-Cardinal Ratzinger!

    We had a group of five gentlemen from the parish where I attend daily Mass (across the street from my office) take our priest out for Belgian beer and lunch after the noon Mass. It was a wonderfully convivial occasion, and we did try to show Father our appreciation for his hard work and the graces he brings to us on a regular basis.

    In Christ,

  19. FrAnt says:

    I wish I had heard about this last week, I would have put it in the bulletin. After the week I had, I could use a few beers. I’ll be alone tonight, so I’ll have to call my priest friend and we’ll have to have a beer on both ends of the phone. I never drink alone, there’s always someone a call away.
    Happy Buy a Priest a Beer Day to my brother priests. Question: Do we have to drink Trappist beer, or can it be any brand?

  20. friarpark says:

    I live in Wisconsin and have never seen the beer pictured. Will have to hunt it down.

  21. donadrian says:

    Perhaps I am getting old, but I do not think this enhances the dignity of the Priesthood.

  22. Gaz says:

    They moved it to a Tuesday this year because it’s too hard to find a priest on Mondays.

  23. robtbrown says:

    donadrian says:

    Perhaps I am getting old, but I do not think this enhances the dignity of the Priesthood.

    Some of the best beer in the world is produced by Trappists in Belgium. And the Trappists in Massachusetts are entering the beer market.

    Clear Creek Abbey from time to time brews beer for use in the Abbey.

  24. Imrahil says:

    To continue in that vein,

    let’s just try which sort of beer to get.

    Wheat Beer “Franciscans” ?
    Noble-Stuff “Augustinians” ?
    Dark Beer “Stephensconsecrating”? [i. e. “Weihenstephan”]
    Lager “Carmelites”?
    Dark Beer baroque-style “Weltenburg Monastery”?
    Double-Buck dark “Andechs Monastery”?
    Lager “Minimi of St. Francis of Paola”?

    Or would you like some stronger stuff? Then why not Balm Mint Spirit of the brand “Nun”?

    (Note: of the above, only Weltenburg and Andechs are still actually brewed by the monks, to my knowledge.)

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