Holy Week

Easter is so great a Feast, and its meaning so wondrous, that the Church asks us not simply to celebrate it, but also to live it for a season. As if one Sunday were not enough, we first celebrate a “perfect” week of Sundays, during this, the Easter week. And then take that... Read more

Easter celebrates the greatest event of all time, so it is meant to be the greatest celebration of each year. “The first eight days of the Easter Season make up the octave of Easter and are celebrated as Solemnities of the Lord” (Universal Norms for Liturgical Year and Calendar, 24).... Read more

At 12:00 noon, from the central loggia of the Vatican Basilica, the Holy Father Francis addressed this message to pilgrims present in St Peter's Square and to those who listened to him through the radio, the television and the Internet: “Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter! Jesus is... Read more

"Jesus came to give us moral guidance and, to prove he meant business, he let himself be killed and seen after death, so we would listen up and be good." Not being raised in any particular religion myself, it wasn't until later that I discovered this view of Jesus' death and Resurrection (which... Read more

The word miracle, as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, is derived from the Latin word miraculum, itself from mirari, the verb to wonder. Throughout the gospels, many of the miracles performed by Jesus are recorded as doing just this — arousing wonder. But there is one miracle that is the... Read more

“When God’s appointed time comes to save mankind from the slavery of sin, we contemplate Jesus Christ in Gethsemani, suffering in agony to the point of sweating blood. He spontaneously and unconditionally accepts the sacrifice which the Father is asking of him.” (Friends of God, no. 25)... Read more

According to the Synoptic Gospels, sundown of Holy Thursday ushered in the Passover. Later on this evening, the Lord will celebrate the Passover meal with His disciples. We ought to be mindful that the unleavened bread Jesus will take in His hands is called “the bread of affliction.”... Read more

There are, in the life of the believer, occasions when the Lord seems to slumber. It isn’t that He feels completely absent—as He did to St. John of the Cross, Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, and others who have experienced the dark night of the soul—but one senses He is not present and active... Read more

These few remaining days before Easter are the most sacred time of every year. I began writing this column to explain what the word “holy” in Holy Week means. But actions often speak and teach more loudly than words. On Friday, March 23, an Islamist gunman in southern France attacked a... Read more

Crossroads, a blues classic performed by Eric Clapton, is a song about a man seeking escape from his desperate existence. Will he find it in a motorcycle ride, a drinking binge, a flight from one destination to the next, or in God’s grace? At the song’s end, we are left to wonder.... Read more