"Happy are those who are persecuted for the sake of Justice the kingdom of heaven is theirs " Matt.5,10

Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar, send these mediations from Syria.

In this the eighth year of the war in Syria, please pray the 14 stations with us as a sign of spiritual solidarity with us. This Way of the Cross, has been gathered from the feelings of refugees, their families and those who in the Middle East who have been affected by the situation.

First Station: Jesus is condemned to death.

Belief in God can be difficult. We’re fallen human beings and there’s great suffering in our world. It’s easier to say “no,” not believe, and to presume that everything happens by mere chance.

In such a worldview, there’s no effort to find meaning, or search for value, or struggle for reconciliation between a good God and a dark world. Things just happen. We’re just raw participants in the ebb and flow of the world. We’re only recipients of the consequences of a deterministic world.

Words cannot express adequately the pain and anguish I feel at Fridays’ heinous attacks in New Zealand. I share the anguish of my fellow Muslims at those who have orchestrated such diabolical carnage in a place of prayer. As a husband, a father and a grandfather, I can only imagine the pain and suffering felt by the families affected by this tragedy. In the weeks and months ahead, we must all stand together and raise aloft those values which must form the core of Islamic belief — compassion, respect and dignity. If we fail in this, then terror is victorious.

The attack by a white Australian supremacist group on two mosques in Christchurch. Closeness to the New Zealand Islamic community and the Australian bishops.

“Deeply saddened” by the terrorist attack on two New Zealand mosques in Christchurch, which cost the lives of 49 people, Pope Francis “assured the New Zealanders, and in particular the Muslim community, of his heartfelt solidarity”.

In reflection ‘Learning Humility of Heart,’ Archbishop Reminds ‘Let us turn especially in this holy season to our Blessed Mother Mary’

Following is a Lenten reflection of Archbishop Josè Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles, on ‘Learning Humility of Heart’.

This Lent, we want to try to enter more deeply into the mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ, to follow him more closely, to commit ourselves once more to making his life the pattern for our own.

Ash Wednesday begins the Catholic season of Lent, a time of examining our consciences, confessing and repenting our sins, and working to change the direction of our lives back toward God through prayer, self-sacrifice, and charitable acts to others.

The essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility.

Its unity consists in the fact that the husband cannot have another wife so long as his wife is alive, and the wife cannot have another husband so long as her husband is alive. These passages from the Scriptures confirm this understanding:

During his trip to Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong, the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda Fide provided some useful clarifications on the guidelines regarding the agreement on the nomination of Chinese bishops.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day which falls on March 8th, Nadine Bitar from the Catechetical Office of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, shares with us how people today can reflect on the important characteristics of some of the female figures in the Bible.

“She is clothed with strength and dignity,

and she laughs without fear of the future.”

Proverbs 31:25

In Christianity, our will isn’t for the sake of our own choices, but to become united with will of the Father.

The roving Israelites learned it the hard way, the early Christians were martyred for it, and Catholics are getting heavy doses of it today. Like an encroaching jungle, the worship of idols and false gods are humanity’s default position whenever healthy Judeo-Christian institutions and traditions are not in place to keep this spiritually malignant vegetation from taking over.