With the 100th anniversary of Fatima, many people have heard about the “Miracle of the Sun” in the October 1917 apparition. But few realize that St. Joseph appeared in that vision.

On March 17 each year, the Irish and would-be Irish around the world celebrate the figure of St. Patrick.

Remarkably few, however, choose to explore beyond the caricature of a bearded, shamrock-bedecked prelate, bearing a crosier that spells disaster for any snakes that care to cross his path and whose latter-day disciples have a propensity for dyeing rivers green in his honor.

Though he lived over fifteen centuries ago, Patrick has a lesson to teach our world today.

“Lower down on the shield there is a star and spikenard flower. The star, according to ancient armorial tradition, symbolizes the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ and the Church; while the spikenard symbolizes St Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church. In traditional Hispanic iconography, St Joseph is shown with a vine in his hand. By bearing these images on his shield, the Pope communicates his special devotion to the Most Holy Virgin and to St Joseph.”

The Gospel from the Third Sunday of Lent (Year A) is the story of the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. The Elect (those preparing for Baptism at the Easter Vigil) will undergo the First Scrutinies today and this gospel passages is central to their journey.

When he can, the Pope kneels in the confessional and administers the sacrament: “The love of God precedes us. He sees beyond appearances, beyond sin, beyond failure and indignity”.

On this Third Sunday of Lent, as later in the Fourth and Fifth Sunday, the Liturgy, instead of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, offers us three texts taken from the Gospel of St. John. They describe three meetings of Jesus:

-the one with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, who receives the gift of the water that quenches thirst forever;

-the one with the man born blind, who receives the light of the eyes and of the heart;

-the one with his friend Lazarus, whom He resurrects.

St. Patrick's Confession is full of interesting information about his family, his youth, and a near-apostolate-destroying scandal that turned his fellow bishops against him.

I can hear the howls of outrage. But before you grab torches and pitchforks and head over to my house, give me a moment. Obviously, Patrick was not an atheist when he began his world-changing missionary work. Yet by his own admission, there was a time in his life when his likelihood of ever being venerated as a saint was nil.

Lent is here! For many, panic ensues on what one should be giving up for Lent. Chocolates? Facebook? Alcohol? Frequently, I have come up with my fast the day of Ash Wednesday as I am walking up to receive ashes on my forehead. For many years I only associated Lent with fasting. Fasting, to me, was just this forty days once a year of not being able to eat what I want. Yet, when I read the Church Fathers, St. Benedict, Scripture, or any spiritual work, fasting comes up often. It seems as if — in the American culture at least — the practice of fasting has fallen off of our radar.

“Live well, Love much, Laugh often” are the three principles that I have found posted on the wall of the house of a friend in New York. I want to share them with you, though they are hard to attain in our time.