A ST. PATRICK’S DAY SPECIAL: IRISH DANCING SEMINARIANS
Today I offer an early St. Patrick’s Day gift – some special dance steps by two American seminarians, now ordained priests. You may have seen this story yesterday in the Culture column of Aleteia news. Viral dancing seminarian duel merges Tap vs. Irish step (aleteia.org)
I took this video at the North American College’s 2014 Rector’s Dinner, using my iPad and standing against the dining room wall that is opposite the entertainment area. There is entertainment every year at this annual spring fund-raising dinner, and I knew 2014 would be special – but not this special! – because I knew that David Rider from New York, who had danced at the previous Rector’s Dinner – was about to do an encore and he had told me “there will be a big surprise this year!
And that surprise was fellow seminarian John Gibson from Milwaukee. While David had been on Broadway as a dancer before entering the seminary, John’s interest in the Irish dancing, so-called River Dance, came from watching his sister who excelled at Irish dancing – and John took it up as it looked like great fun!
Both are now ordained priests and doing the Lord’s work in a different way, but I’m sure they’ve not lost their ability to dance up a storm, using their God-given talents!
When the video hit 1 million views, David, John, three of the musicians and I celebrated with a champagne dinner at my home!
It has over 3 million views – let’s make that 4 million today! Spread the joy and the fun! If this doesn’t make you smile and feel good, nothing will!
While the video was not credited to me yesterday, I saw my image today on the Aleteia website in the upper left corner of my original Youtube video.
Joan's Rome 