By Tom Hoopes, April 9, 2020 Before Easter, the apostles hid their faith away like it was a virus. When they emerged from their self-quarantine to discover that Jesus Christ had risen, they found the strength to boldly confront the world with their faith. Today, we have the worrying and hiding part down pat. Now, on Easter Sunday, Year A, Jesus Christ himself is expecting each of us to do the next part and proclaim our faith. The readings give different approaches to Easter, each of them valuable. The Gospel reading is a very personal account of what it was like to experience a miracle. The apostles hear Mary Magdalene say, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him,” That is enough to send Peter and John racing to the tomb, where John looks into the...

By Tom Hoopes, April 9, 2020 Before Easter, the apostles hid their faith away like it was a virus. When they emerged from their self-quarantine to discover that Jesus Christ had risen, they found the strength to boldly confront the world with their faith. Today, we have the worrying and hiding part down pat. Now, on Easter Sunday, Year A, Jesus Christ himself is expecting each of us to do the next part and proclaim our faith. The readings give different approaches to Easter, each of them valuable. The Gospel reading is a very personal account of what it was like to experience a miracle. The apostles hear Mary Magdalene say, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him,” That is enough to send Peter and John racing to the tomb, where John looks into the...

Welcome to Groundhog Day, Coronavirus Christian style 2020. It’s Holy Saturday, which every year for me is the oddest day of the year. If a church door is open, Jesus seems so far. He is not in the tabernacle. Because He has died. He has died for us. Every year, I feel as though this knowledge will drive me wild. I killed Jesus because of my sins. Lousy, miserable, ungrateful sins. And now He’s gone. Except I know the whole story. And I remember that just a few weeks ago, during this Coronavirus agony, we marked the feast of the Annunciation. (He is on His way.) That’s the patronal feast day of the Sisters of Life, who I consider New York’s Greatest. And they are, in a way, the living patrons of our time. Think about it, we are fearing death. But we are fearing sickness and death at the sa...

Welcome to Groundhog Day, Coronavirus Christian style 2020. It’s Holy Saturday, which every year for me is the oddest day of the year. If a church door is open, Jesus seems so far. He is not in the tabernacle. Because He has died. He has died for us. Every year, I feel as though this knowledge will drive me wild. I killed Jesus because of my sins. Lousy, miserable, ungrateful sins. And now He’s gone. Except I know the whole story. And I remember that just a few weeks ago, during this Coronavirus agony, we marked the feast of the Annunciation. (He is on His way.) That’s the patronal feast day of the Sisters of Life, who I consider New York’s Greatest. And they are, in a way, the living patrons of our time. Think about it, we are fearing death. But we are fearing sickness and death at the sa...

ROME — On the Sunday before Easter, the priest’s phone rang. The Rev. Claudio Del Monte carried the phone, given to him by staff in the Bergamo hospital, along with a small cross and some homemade sanitizer. Instead of his usual cleric’s collar, he wore disposable scrubs, a surgical mask covered with another mask, protective eyewear and a cap over his head. On his chest he had drawn a black cross with a felt pen. He excused himself from two coronavirus patients he was visiting in the hospital and answered the call. But he already knew what it meant. Minutes later, he arrived at the bedside of an older man he had met days earlier. An oxygen mask now obscured the man’s face, and intensive care staff huddled around his bed. “I blessed him and absolved him from sins, he squeezed my hand tightl...