https://www.markwilliamennis.com/blog/celtic-hispanics
Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2024 Blog #11
March 11, 2024
Celtic Hispanics
Every year our town, Bergenfield, NJ hosts the county-wide St. Patrick’s Parade. Marching bands from all over our region converge to participate in this parade. Dance studios bring out those who have trained to be Irish Dancers. Of course, the police, firefighters, and ambulance corps always have prominent places for this event. Naturally, politicians, especially during election years, always wish to take center places up front so that they can be seen and identified with minimal effort by the parade audience.
Not for profit groups also march. There are always a variety of civic groups, boy and girl scouts, as well as little league teams. The parade, despite its Celtic roots, represents a broad mosaic of our community. Our congregation has marched every year, with very few exceptions. I can’t remember any other congregation marching in the parade. It has always seemed to be missed opportunities for congregations to let the town know that we are here.
This year, we are marching with a bit of a twist, our Hispanic New Church plant is joining our congregation. Nueva Vida en Cristo, is a new church plant that our congregation sponsors and which has begun to put down good, strong, roots. Our parade representation is now a hi-bred of traditional White Christians as well as Christian who are recent immigrants from Latin-America.
It might seem ironic that Hispanics are now marching in a traditionally Irish parade, but I wonder how many participants still have real Irish heritage. I have Irish roots, but I would bet that most parade marchers don’t. One of the joys of living in a diverse United States is that we all can celebrate the various ethnicities of one another.
And so it was that yesterday we traditional white people celebrated being Irish with Central and South Americans under the banner of being Irish. We let our town and our county know that there is a God in Bergenfield, and that God is worshipped by many different people from many different cultures, in many different languages.
God be praised!
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Pastor Mark Author 