Ahh St. Patrick's Day...what does it really mean?

Year after year, generation upon generation we continue to "religiously" (pun intended) celebrate holidays with little if no regard for their purpose or true meaning to our lives. Take the recent St. Patrick's Day festivities... we see the traditional trappings of a parade and "wearin' o' the green", sweaters, corned beef and cabbage specials, and shammrocks everywhere, but do participants really honor the day, or is it a good reason to get plastered and raise a glass (as if some of us even need a holiday for that). First some history...I promise to keep it short. St. Patrick's day is originally a Holy day of obligation for Catholics, usually observed on March 17th, except when it may interfere with Holy week days. The feast/celebration is so important that bishops have been known to lift meat restrictions implemented for Lent in order to allow the feast to occur. The holiday is to honor, of course, St Patrick. The patron saint of Ireland. Sounds like serious stuff so far... So what is with the drunkfest? and the hooliganism? What part of that honors the Saint? As my wife passed around the back of the parade route, she observed NYPD vehicles with coolers in the trunk (emergency water of course), a psot-parade tour of Forest avenue found bars with the majority of the patrons on the sidewalks and standing room only inside. Loud? yes, Drunk? certainly, Celebrating the patron Saint of Ireland? I didn't see it. Well as luck would have it, Staten Island experienced very few incidents as a direct result of this years revelry (past years were not as fortunate). But in Hoboken- well those guys know how to PARTY! Hoboken experienced 80 injures and police issued 376 siummonses, worse than last years numbers...but not as bad as 2006. I write all this just to make a simple request. If you are going to celebrate anything, know what it is you celebrate and why...maybe, just maybe...we'll begin to celebrate just a little bit differently.