Every year during Holy Week, when the Church’s liturgy gives us an enormous amount of Scripture — two readings of the passion, good chunks of John’s Gospel for Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday, and the history of creation and salvation at the Easter Vigil — there is usually one verse or two that strikes me anew, as if I had never heard it before, or least, never in quite that way.
There should be no ifs, ands or buts. Christians are called to live like Christ.
It’s been the winter of our discontent.
After a practically snow-free December and January, the Maritime provinces were relentlessly buffeted by snowfall after snowfall during February and March. Two and sometimes three storms in a week left Nova Scotians scratching their heads and cussing their fortunes.
What makes it possible is doing it together. Since Ash Wednesday, a colleague and I have been fasting — taking only one meal of soup and bread a day.
The drama of Holy Week is a story about a king. The crowd that welcomes Jesus on Sunday, waving their palm branches, acclaims Him: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel!”
The day the Supreme Court released its decision in the case involving Montreal’s Loyola High School, I thought it was merely more judicial zaniness on offer.
Much is being made — and deservedly so — of Loyola High School’s victory on behalf of religious freedom. The Jesuit-run Montreal school deserves praise for sticking it out through a seven-year court slog that has made Canada a better place for people of all religions.
Recent stories about two Catholic high schools are terrific examples of how government policies can sometimes produce the exact opposite effect as intended.
Twenty years ago, on the Feast of the Annunciation 1995, St. John Paul II published one of his signature encyclicals, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life). It’s important to return to the richness of that teaching, as many who oppose the Church’s pro-life witness having been making mischief with Pope Francis’ remark that Catholics should not be obsessed with abortion.
Two years ago the demands of office caused a tired Pope Benedict XVI to resign the papacy. He was 85. Now we have Pope Francis, 78, musing about a short pontificate as he begins his third year on the job.
I had the pleasure this past week of hosting George Weigel, one of the Church’s leading public intellectuals, in Toronto and Kingston. I had long wanted to host Weigel, a mentor and friend and colleague for more than 20 years, and thought that 2015, the 10th anniversary of the death of St. John Paul II, would be the perfect year to do it.