Apparently, St. Patrick’s Day is causing a bit of confusion this year.

For the first time since 1940, the holiday falls during Holy Week, the seven sacred days before Easter. Being a lapsed Catholic, I don’t really understand what all of that means, but CNN explains it pretty well here.

Basically what I got out of the article is that because of liturgical rules within the church, a Mass cannot be celebrated in honor of St. Patrick during Holy Week. Some religious leaders are taking this even further and asking their cities to change the date of their St. Patrick’s Day celebrations so that parades and other festivities don’t take place during Holy Week either.

People often ask if the Lawrence parade is actually on St. Patrick’s Day or if it’s scheduled for the nearest weekend like some towns do- it’s always on March 17, always at 1 p.m. The religious conflict apparently hasn’t been an issue here, or else we just aren’t aware of it.

The good news is that the calendar conflict won’t happen again until 2160, and none of us will be around to care.