For more than a year, our country and the entire world has been combatting the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay-at-home orders, face mask requirements and social distancing have become familiar government-backed restrictions to protect the public and curb the spread of the illness.
Now. Do it. Before things in your life ramp up, grab a pen and paper or your laptop, pour your drink of choice, settle into your favorite chair, and reflect: “Did God meet me in my struggles over the past year? Did he bring good from my crosses? What is my takeaway? How will I be changed for the better?”
There are echoes of Romeo and Juliet, but the ending is happier. This story of forbidden love took place long ago on a Mediterranean island — 1870s Sicily, to be exact.
A few years ago, my brother convinced me to sign up to run a half-marathon with him. Now, I’m not a runner. In fact, simply running with no ball to chase seemed to me to be cruel and unusual punishment. Nevertheless, I embraced the challenge as an opportunity to get into shape, and I began training multiple times a week.
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song.” St. John Paul II
Alleluia is our song. But do we dare sing it?
"Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy." Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke these words to St. Faustina about the meaning of the two rays in the image of Divine Mercy.
A culinary tour offers insights into the personal lives of restaurant owners and their cultures.
First of all, I want to thank you all for the tremendous outpouring of support we have received in the wake of my mother’s death. It has been so touching to receive your condolences, prayer pledges and Mass cards. My family and I are so grateful.
Lent.
The word has always signified a sacrifice to me — a subtraction, a forfeit, a paring down, a letting go. We try to eliminate the distractions, to focus on the most essential. Actually, though, a quick etymological discovery trail casts a different light on the very word.
Divine Mercy Sunday
Lent is a time to ponder deeply how far down Jesus stooped when he chose to dwell among us. Jesus lowered himself in the most surprising ways to demonstrate his love and to fulfill the Father’s plan of freeing us from sin. This stooping down, or self-emptying, marked the whole of his earthly journey but was particularly made manifest in his birth in a stable and baptism in the Jordan River. It comes to a spectacular crescendo, as we know, on the cross.