Kevin Kelly/Key photo Ian Byrne, right, grand marshal of the 2010 St. Patrick’s Day Parade, holds the flag of Ireland next to a military honor guard holding the flag of the United States before the annual Gaelic Mass March 13 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.

Forty-five minutes before the annual Gaelic Mass began March 13, the pews were filling fast at 900-person capacity Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Redemptorist) Church.

The pews filled up so fast, that the “late comers” — those who arrived 30 minutes before the 5 p.m. Mass — found themselves out of luck if they wanted a program, with the phonetically spelled Mass responses in Gaelic, the tongue of the Irish.

And by the time that Ian Byrne, grand marshal this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, brought the Irish flag down the center aisle with a military honor guard carrying the colors of the United States, there were virtually no seats to be found.

It was, of course, a congregation in green, showing their ethnic pride as well as their Catholicism.

Dancers in Irish costume from O’Riada Academy of Irish Dance opened the celebration by dancing up and down the aisles. As the flags of Ireland and the United States were displayed, the congregation sang the anthems of both nations, just before piper Jim Higgins led the procession of Knights of Columbus, altar servers and priests to begin Mass.

Redemptorist Father Steven Benden, pastor of the parish, also noted that St. Patrick’s Day hold special meaning for co-celebrant and homilist Father Patrick Tobin.

“It is the day he was ordained a priest, 54 years ago,” Father Benden noted, leading the congregation in applause.

Not only was Patrick Tobin ordained a priest on St. Patrick’s Day, 1956, he was ordained by Bishop John Patrick Cody at St. Patrick Church in Maryville, and was one of the last priests ordained for the Diocese of St. Joseph before its merger with the Diocese of Kansas City later that year.

Father Tobin, whose brother Charles is also a priest and pastor of St. Sabina Parish in Belton, told the congregation of the example of faith given to his family by his father.

“I don’t ever remember Dad missing Mass on Sunday,” Father Tobin said. Even when his father had to hitch horses to a wagon during a snowstorm to get there, he never missed Mass.

“That faith was ingrained in him,” Father Tobin said.

The Tobin family was raised on a farm in an area of with few Catholics, he said.

“We weren’t known as the Tobin family,” he said. “We were known as ‘that Catholic family.’”

His father urged his family to know their faith, Father Tobin said.

“He once told me, ‘Pat, there will never be a time someone will ask you a question about the Catholic faith that you won’t have the answer,’” the priest said.

“The answer might be, ‘I don’t know, but I will find out,’” he said.

Faith is part of God’s blessings upon the Irish, Father Tobin said.

“God has blessed us, giving us a gift of life with faith, a gift of life with hope, and a gift of life with family,” he said.

“God gives us so much. He gives us 168 hours a week, and he asks for one hour in return,” he said.

He said that God gave everyone “talents, skills and abilities.”

“Our gift back to God is what we do to nurture that talent skill and ability,” he said.

At the end of the Mass, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee inducted Byrne into the Order of St. Patrick, its highest honor. Byrne has contributed to the preservation of Irish culture through his band, the Elders.

The parade committee also honored the Pat O’Connell family with its Cullinan Family Award, given to the family that has contributed to the community and the Irish legacy in Kansas City.

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