Feb 6 Tanco d. 808

John and Thommy
good morning
i love you

there isn’t a saint on Feb 5 that meets the John, Kenneth, William, Thomas, Irish, Jesuit criteria - nor is there a biggie.... so, jumping ahead to Feb 6, which this year is Fat Tuesday.... with Mardi Gras at SPX (?). last night i was talking with a man from Brazil. when i was growing up, i don’t know how young but before i graduated from high school, one of my goals (?) was to do Mardi Gras in New Orleans. [something i and we have done!]. this guy from Brazil laughed at the minor league nature of the spectacular mardi gras [i’ve even been to the usa original in mobile]. Carnival in Brazil in February! something new for my list....


February 6 Tanco d. 808

an Irish Benedictine monk, abbot, bishop.... maybe that’s an entire series of stories. the Irish monks were intense! right and wrong, good and bad, Christian and not - the world is very clear and succinct for them [us?]. and they embraced [well not all theys but enough of them to give us the stereotype] their vocation with a passion of righteousness and abandon.....

Tanco became a missionary. when i grew up, many of our priests were FBIs [foreign born Irish; to distinguish them from American born Irish.]. to be a missionary seems to be a dominant gene for the Irish...

Tanco became a monk then abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Amalbarich, Saxony, Germany. being a Benedictine gave the monks of Ireland even more portability....

Tanco was a successful missionary [i.e., lots of converts without getting himself killed or his confreres wiped out] in Cleves and Flanders, he was named bishop of Werden Germany. [get a map. track is 8th-9th c. missionary trail and zeal. sent from one tiger to take on a bigger one....]

the pagans in Werdan, the great German Huns’ predecessors, did not take kindly to his ranting against their immorality. Tanco did the usual Irish missionary monk thing, he destroyed the Werdenians’ statues - for which he was attacked, stabbed, murdered... martyred. maybe a more subtle approach might have been more successful and less deadly. but you got to believe he’d done that before without getting knocked off. [imagine what would happen to you if you ranted against the immorality around you? e.g., a couple living together as if married but not? persistently, adamantly, loudly railed against the immorality....]

the irish monks are not subtle. our faith is not unclear....

i love you
dad