Holy Week

Twenty-four years ago this week, I was in Jerusalem to cover Pope John Paul II’s epic pilgrimage to the Holy Land for NBC. After going to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pray at the 11th and 12th stations, I went to dinner with

Holy Week and Easter bring with them liturgies of great beauty and solemnity suitable to the momentous significance of the events they recall. That significance is of course redemption. And for assistance in explaining it, I turn to three highly qualified  commentators—Blaise Pascal, St. John

Nora Creech is a lecturer on the history, science, and pastoral implications of the Shroud of Turin, which many believe to be the burial cloth of Christ.  Her educational background includes earning a Master of Arts degree in Faith and Culture from the University of St.

The readings for Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday, are dramatic and demanding. They are excruciating in their raw depictions of violence and suffering. They also, as in the case of the great Christological hymn in St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, are marked by exultation

“The Women at the Sepulchre,” 1805 (photo: Public Domain)   We are still in the Easter Octave so it’s not too late to talk about something we often forgot to think about during the Triduum: The Harrowing of Hell. But, before we talk about the

“Hidden first in a womb of flesh, he sanctified human birth by his own birth. Hidden afterward in the womb of the earth, he gave life to the dead by his resurrection.” This beautiful reflection on the Resurrection is from the pen of Hesychius of Jerusalem,

The Passion of the Christ is undoubtedly one of the most influential and profound cinematic representations of the Lord’s final hours before his crucifixion. Its controversial nature stems from both the explicit biblical faithfulness of the film and the allegedly gratuitous violence depicted as inflicted

I think about Jesus’s wounds a lot. Not in a “devotion to the Five Holy Wounds” kind of way, but in more of a “what the hell?” kind of way. Two of the four Gospels insist that, in his Resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ bears

If you’re feeling a little frazzled at the moment, you’re not alone. Lots of people are worn down after the last few years of economic and political uncertainty. Yet for many Catholics, Easter is theperfect time to put things in perspective — after all, it’s a time

He is risen! Alleluia! Jesus has conquered death once and for all, opening the doors to eternal life for all who follow him. And yet, like the disciples on that first Easter Sunday, it can be difficult for us to detect the presence of the