Celebrating St. Patrick's Day Differently

With St. Patrick's Day arriving tomorrow, and with his patronage of my parish, I decided to look a little closer at his life. I wondered, "how would he want us to spend the day in his honor?". He lived so very long ago, and so much legend has been attached to his name that it is sometimes difficult to discern fact from fiction. This is where his writings come in handy.
We see by what he wrote that St Patrick was a man of prayer and a man of action. He asked Christ to be in him during every moment and in every circumstance of his life. His work among the Irish is credited to the conversion of more than 14,000 people. He was known to have lived in poverty even as a bishop. One of the places that is enshrined in his honor is a hilltop where he was said to have spent the forty days of Lent fasting.
What all of this tells me is that St Patrick would not spend his day carousing like the pagans he converted.
The secularization of the holiday together with the legendary status of the saint has brought about a tradition of drunken revelry upon his feast day. This is certainly a long-held tradition. I do not think the man himself would consider it an honor, however.
For this reason, I choose to celebrate St. Patrick's day differently. I plan to spend a little extra time in prayer and contemplation, do something to benefit the poor, and refrain from drinking alcohol and eating rich foods and from overeating.
My parish will be holding a special mass in his honor, offering a simple meal of Irish stew and bread, and contemplating Christ's sacrifice with the Stations of the Cross. I find this a fitting way to commemorate a saint who spent the majority of his life seeking the good of others.