Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen found his Irish heritage provided a multitude of teachable moments — about humor, the vagaries of everyday life and our shared path toward Heaven illumined by the light of Christ.

Saint Patrick’s Day often found the famed priest, author and television personality giving a speech about the Emerald Isle and her patron saint. He found any day was proper for a discourse about Ireland. Sheen loved Irish humor. He attributed the cheerful disposition of the Irish to how they view the world — and beyond.

“The Irishman enjoys life, I repeat, because he lives in a bigger universe than anyone else. He lives in the universe of eternity as well as of time,” Sheen told a St. Patrick’s Day crowd at the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick banquet at New York’s Astor Hotel. “Ireland may be a small island, but every Irishman is bigger than Ireland. The earth may be a small earth, but every Irishman lives on a bigger earth than the earth. In a certain sense, it is therefore true to say that no Irishman is ever at home in Ireland, or that every Irishman is homeless at home.”