July 26 marks the fourth anniversary of the martyrdom of Fr. Jacques Hamel. Fr. Hamel was brutally slain while celebrating Holy Mass July 26, 2016 after two armed gunmen stormed his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy.

Press reports indicate that the assailants entered the church and took the 85-year-old priest and four others hostage. Later, the Hamel’s throat was slit in the attack, and that both of the armed gunmen were shot dead by police. The attackers were identified as extremists.

Prayers are always answered once they are sincere and represent a wish to fulfill an urgent need. The divine fulfillment of prayers may be immediate, but it sometimes takes some time depending on the will of the Lord.

This is a real-life story that took place in 1853, when the Sisters of Loretto opened a school for girls in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Following is the text of statement issues by "Religions for Peace Speaks" on Hagia Sophia on Friday, July 24, titled,
"Living Together with Peace and Respect":

Following is the text of statement issued by the World’s Multi-Religious Leaders Call for Calm in response to the Hagia Sofia situation dated July 24, 2020:

On July 20, the Vatican issued a new document calling for a renewal of parish life, placing a heavy emphasis on the centrality of evangelization.

“The pastoral conversion of the parish community in the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church” is a 24-page document, divided into 11 chapters, released on July 20 by the Congregation for Clergy.

On Sunday, July 19, His Holiness Pope Francis reiterated his appeal for a global ceasefire to allow conflict-torn populations to receive humanitarian aid and to combat the coronavirus pandemic that continues to claim lives and wreak havoc on the economies of the world.

He said “In this time in which the pandemic continues, I want to assure all those suffering from the illness of my thoughts and prayers.”

Now is the time to take a close look at the first two of three secrets which we don’t want to hear about that Our Lady gave the children at Fatima over a century ago.

Why do most people ignore the first and second of the three secrets given by Our Lady at Fatima on July 103 years ago? The first one is about hell. Do we really want to pay attention to that one? The answer seems to be ‘No.” The answer comes in the way the world has been heading, especially in the last few years.

THE FIRST SECRET

His Holiness Pope Francis had earlier said that Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of the Church. She is also the mother of all the people who need a passionate mother, those who lost their mothers, those suffering from illnesses, and those who lost hope in life, as well as others who need a divine Mother whose care for her children is infallible.

A MIRACLE THAT DATES BACK TO 1531

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more”. During the course of Christian eschatology when we comment on this passage of Revelation 21, there is always someone who is very sorry that among the beauties of creation that will be in the definitive Kingdom, the sea itself will be eliminated. For the biblical author, the sea represents evil, chaos, the indefinite, the abyss, and more profoundly the dark side of the human heart.

The elderly Bavarian priest had been hospitalized in Regensburg, in Bavaria, where he lived and where he received his brother Joseph’s final visit, with whom he had been ordained on the same day.