Guest Post for St Brigid's Feastday Feb 1 - Equipping Catholic Families

Tomorrow is February 1st…the Feast of St Brigid!
I thought it would be appropriate to have my daughter Kelly offer a guest post.
This was Kelly’s (grade 4) speech in 2008 at St Brigid School.

Lion, dog, cow. What do these living things have in common? For one thing, they are all animals. If you’re a genius, maybe you were thinking they’re all mascots, and that’s true.

The lion is the mascot of St. Mark’s Catholic School. The dog is our mascot. A bulldog to be exact.

And, last but not the least, the cow is the mascot of Williams College in Massachusetts. But not just any cow, (get this!) a purple cow with gold polka-dots, named Ephelia!

But, what if, our school mascot was also a cow?

Teachers and students, my speech will explain why I think our school mascot should be a cow.

I would expect that some people here don’t know what a mascot is or don’t understand the point of them. But I can explain all that. A mascot is an animal or person that represents something and is sometimes used to make another team nervous and build school spirit.

Now that you know all that, it’s time for me to talk about why I don’t really like our bulldog. On the one hand, the bulldog seems too frightening and I have to admit, it’s also pretty ugly. Next, I think this bulldog wastes to much of its time being shocking that it’s hardly active. I’ve heard nearly every teacher at the school say “it’s not about winning, but having fun!”, so why do we need a really fierce mascot? Why can’t we just have a fun mascot? Like…a cow.

OK, now you’re probably wondering how exactly a cow is fun and, I reckon you’re still wondering why our school mascot should be a cow. Well, I can explain that too. Cows are fun because of their cool spots and the awesome sound they make. They are intelligent and can sense danger before other animals. They’re tough because they can withstand the weather, even when we have indoor routine. They are patient and persistent. As you know, they give us milk which has vitamins A, B, C, D and E.

It would make sense for a cow to be our mascot because St Brigid lived in Ireland and like lots of other people in Ireland, she lived on a farm. It was common to have lots of cows in the pasture.

However, it was said that St. Brigid and her family owned a white red-eared cow that provided them with all the food St. Brigid needed, to grow. She also gave milk and other food from the farm to the poor. One time, she gave water to a thirsty stranger, and it turned into milk! Maybe all these stories explain why a cow is sometimes used as a symbol of St. Brigid.

And that is the exact type of cow that should be our school mascot…a white, red-eared cow. Isn’t that perfect?
I mean, our main school color is red!

I’d like to go on, but my time is up. Thanks for listening.

Kelly is now 13 years old. In addition to wearing a red knit hat, all-year round, doing awesome impersonations and accents, a fan of Michael Jackson and The Beatles, she has already had her Kelly Comics published in Faith & Family Magazine and The Catholic Illustrator’s Guild (and again here)…and she was the primary illustrator of Hand in hand with Jesus, a faith journal published by our family apostolate Arma Dei.