Left

Jesus died and rose to give us a completely new life — a life marked zeal, by victory over sin, by the joy of living in conscious contact with God at every moment of our lives. Most priests will tell you that Easter Sunday is one of the more difficult Sundays on which to preach. There are many reasons for this. In the first place, the Sacred Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil) is magnificent and beautiful but exhausting. By Easter morning, liturgical ministers of every rank are drained. Larger congregations with visitors and “twice-a-year” Catholics also change dynamics. For me, the chief reason preaching on Easter Sunday is difficult is that the new life proclaimed is difficult to understand and challenging to accept. Most of us understand the cross quite well. This...

“O God, who gladden us year by year with the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection, graciously grant, that, by celebrating these present festivities, we may merit through them to reach eternal joys.” Alleluia! Christ is risen! Instead of one day of Easter, Catholics enjoy eight octave days of feasting. Sustained partying requires careful planning and self-pacing to avoid merriment burnout. Follow this guide with your family to maximize the delights of Easter and the celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday. Easter Sunday Feast, feast, feast! Post-Easter Mass, or once you have recovered from celebrating the Easter Vigil into the wee hours, eat the ham, the bacon, the chocolate. Put butter on the bread and extra garlic in the sauce. Drink good wine, host fast friends, and blast your best Alleluia p...

[embedded content]He is risen! Every story has one truth at its foundation. Without it there’s just no story. Bilbo finds a ring. A group of children falls through a wardrobe into another dimension. Snow White finds the love of her life. William Wallace loses his. An old man in a sea hooks a monster fish. Joseph loves Shannon. Those simple truths are the story if you think about it… Join Our Telegram Group : Salvation & Prosperity  

LEICESTER, United Kingdom – Archbishop John Wilson of Southwark visited Christ the King Polish Catholic Church in south London on Saturday, a day after police stopped a Good Friday service for allegedly violating COVID-19 safety guidelines. The parish belongs to the Polish Catholic Mission in England and Wales and is located within the Archdiocese of Southwark, which covers the areas of London south of the River Thames. On April 2, two police officers interrupted the Liturgy of the Passion of the Lord and told the congregation the gathering was “unlawful” and they had to disperse, or face fines for violating social distance and masking rules. In a statement posted to their website, the parish said the congregation complied with the police order. “We believe, however, that the police brutal...

Let me adapt to recent circumstances a thought-experiment theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar proposed decades ago: Imagine that a friend contracts a severe case of COVID-19 and medicine can do no more for him. The doctors inform his widowed mother and us, so we gather with her for the final scene in the drama of this life. The ventilator is removed; the man grows weaker from lack of breath and whispers his final farewells. We hear the death-rattle. Then he expires and takes on the pallor of death. The mortician prepares the body for burial. With appropriate prayers, we consign our friend to the earth and, taking a cue from our Jewish friends, toss a clod of earth onto his coffin as it lies deep in the open grave. The grave is then closed and we leave for our homes, saddened, perhaps a bit d...

When St. John Paul II was beatified in 2011, his feast day was fixed for Oct. 22 — the date of the inaugural “Be Not Afraid!” homily — rather than the customary date of death, April 2. The death anniversary would too often fall during Holy Week or the Easter Octave, and thus could not be celebrated.  This year St. John Paul II’s death anniversary falls on Good Friday, which invites us to remember the final Good Friday of his earthly life.  In 2005, Good Friday fell on March 25, as it did in the first Holy Week of John Paul’s life, 1921. It fell on that day again during the Jubilee of Mercy declared by Pope Francis in 2016. It happens rarely, but when it does it is the perfect alignment.  The early Christians held that the first Good Friday was on March 25, the same date as t...

Jesus was arrested late Thursday evening. The Scriptures recount, They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law came together (Mark 14:53). According to Mark’s chronology there was a sham of a trial, based on false evidence and distortions of Jesus’ teachings. Now the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were seeking testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but they did not find any. For many bore false witness against Jesus, but their testimony was inconsistent. Then some men stood up and testified falsely against Him: “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple, and in three days I will build another that is made without hands.’” But even their testimony was inconsistent. So the high priest stood up before them and ...

We are in the midst of our annual celebrations of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We all know that this happened in Jerusalem in the first century. That separates Jesus from mythical pagan deities, who were supposed to live in places or times that none could specify. Just how specific can we be with the death of Jesus? Can we determine the exact day? We can. And here’s how… Clue #1: The High Priesthood of Caiaphas The gospels indicate that Jesus was crucified at the instigation of the first century high priest named Caiaphas (Matthew 26:3-4, John 11:49-53). We know from other sources that he served as high priest from A.D. 18 to 36, so that puts Jesus’ death in that time frame. But we can get more specific. Much more. Clue #2: The Governorship of Pontius Pilate A...

“I need someone who will sacrifice and lay down life for me.” At least I think that’s how he said it. I do not remember hearing “her,” although I certainly know that’s what he meant. He does not know how to live without a wife — his wife of almost six decades died a few years ago, somewhat suddenly. “She went into the hospital in April and never came out. She died in there.” Michael had approached me as I was leaving church. It was a beautiful spring day and he was looking for something. He thinks it is a wife he wants, but he is asking other questions, too. A baptized Catholic, he goes to Mass every six months or so. It was Lent, but he had no idea, as he confessed to me. When I told him, he seemed pleasantly surprised — a reminder of his more practicing days and the faith of his late mot...

The story of the “Grand Inquisitor” in The Brothers Karamazov provides a key to understanding what is happening today in Germany. Since 2018, a group of German bishops have been frantically attempting to revamp Christian morality, having as a key objective the blessing of homosexual marriage. More than a century ago, Fyodor Dostoevsky foresaw and described the spectacle now unfolding in some circles of the Catholic Church. His brilliant story of the “Grand Inquisitor” in The Brothers Karamazov provides a key to understanding what is happening now. The story of the Grand Inquisitor is one of the high points of world literature. Set in Seville in the 15th century, the author imagines that Jesus has returned to earth to take a close look at the Spanish Inquisition — an episode in history that...

During one of his radio talks in 1943 on his series “Crisis in Christendom,” Archbishop Fulton Sheen saw not only what was happening in his times, but was prophetic about our times. He warned that “the beginnings of a new era are often marked by a general barbarization, when the whole historical order is dissolved … when Truth in some nations is nailed to a Cross, and in others rejected in a stroke of false broadmindedness.” The same year, in Philosophies at War, he referred to the Rome’s decline. “The difference between that crisis and ours is that in the case of Rome a material civilization was collapsing and a spiritual about to emerge,” Sheen explained. “In the present instance, it is the spiritual which is being submerged and the material which is in the ascendency.” What’s more, Shee...