Coena Domini and lavender of feet at the Regina Coeli Prison. “A punishment that is not open to hope is neither Christian nor human”. He reveals that he will have surgery for cataracts and invites detainees to a “new gaze” open to hope.
O Holy Spirit, teach me the value of suffering, so that I may esteem it and love it as a means of sanctification.
The Pope on Palm Sunday, “How hard it is for the comfortable and the self-righteous to understand mercy. No more hatred”. No to those who try to “twist reality and invent stories for their own benefit, and silence dissonant voices”
Perhaps the most under-appreciated feast of the general Calendar is the Solemn Feast of the Annunciation. Truly worthy of the title “First Class Feast,” for centuries it marked the first day of the year, connecting the civil calendar with the idea that, at the Incarnation, the world was born anew. Its import can be grasped easily by children when they learn that it falls exactly nine months before Christmas Day, placing the conception of the Christ Child nine months before his birth.
A Holy Gospel reflection for Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion
This Palm Sunday, would you join in a simple yet revealing spiritual exercise? It involves plunging whole-heartedly into the Gospel and imagining yourself among the crowds that came to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem, and as it says in the Gospel of John, “to learn that Jesus is coming.”
Blessed are You, my Lord Jesus Christ. You foretold Your death and, at the Last Supper, You marvelously consecrated bread which became your precious body. And then,You gave it to your Apostles out of love as a memorial of Your most holy passion. By washing their feet with your holy hands, You gave them a supreme example of your deep humility.
“Now I am beginning to be a disciple. Come fire and cross and grapplings with wild beasts, cuttings and manglings, wrenching of bones, hacking of limbs, crushing of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me. Only may I attain to Jesus Christ.” – St. Ignatius of Antioch, martyr
“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.” – [Saint] Teresa of Calcutta
Pope Francis has reaffirmed that it is the episcopal conferences’ responsibility to authorize the ways of receiving communion. Cardinal Sarah criticized today’s widespread practice denouncing is as a diabolical attack.
“By his words and actions Christ has showed himself to be true God and Lord of the universe…” – St. Anastasius of Antioch
