This tradition of covering statues during Lent carries a profound spiritual significance.  It invites us to “fast of our eyes” and delve deeper into the mystery of Christ's passion and death and our journey of conversion.  When we walk into church and notice everything is covered, we immediately know something is different. These last two weeks of Lent are meant to be a time of immediate preparation for Holy Week, and the veils are a strong reminder to get ready. The Church uses veils to produce a heightened anticipation for Easter Sunday, and to take away distractions.  Another aspect of veils reminds us, in a sense, we live in a veiled world. Through our death, we can see our true home, and the veil is lifted. Christ lifts the veil through His Resurrection. 
 
 
Today is our Town’s celebration of St. Patrick.  This afternoon our town will gather for the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York State.  Families will gather, there will be singing and dancing in the streets, the youth will gather in the park and tailgating on Middletown Road.  Our police from Orangetown and the local areas, the MTA will keep the trains safe, State police will help us cross the streets and direct the traffic.  Our ambulance crew and fire fighters will be ready.  And the one group that we owe a lot to, who perform their work after everyone leaves, the Town Highway Department.  We are indebted to all the uniform and civil services, a great thank you for keeping us safe with clean streets.
 
With all the fun; however, we cannot forget the reason for all the jubilation: a saint!  Today, we celebrate a saint who is known around the world. The way we see and celebrate today has a huge influence on how we remember the past. 
 
St. Patrick challenges us about how we remember him and how we see ourselves.  The older generations remember St Patrick as portrayed in a bishop's robe with crozier in one hand, the shamrock in the other chasing the snakes out of Ireland; the younger generations, not so much.  

St. Patrick is a man of faith and dedication, a missionary who brought the good news of Jesus Christ to a pagan land, to a very a tough and rugged people.  After hearing a voice in a dream to return to the land that enslaved him, he brought with him the freedom only God’s children can enjoy. After many years converting and helping the Irish people, St. Patrick died at Saul, County Down, Ireland, on March 17, 461 A.D.  He used the shamrock, an abundant flower in Western Ireland to teach about the Trinity of God.  He also designed the Celtic cross in which he incorporated the Christian cross, superimposing and integrating it with the symbolic circle – representing the pagan Irish worship of the sun.
 
Today St. Patrick tells us that a people who forget its own roots, with their mixture of success and failure, has lost any sense of identity. Without identity we cease to have any real love of self.  

St. Patrick has much to teach us about courage, faith and prayer.