Easter Sunday — A Message From St. Pope John Paul II
Translation of the Gospel According to Mark
Le Saintes Femmes au Tombeau, William Bouguereau, cir. 1890
At that time, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought sweet spices, that coming they might anoint Jesus. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came to the sepulcher, the sun being now risen. And they said one to another: Who […]
Holy Saturday: A Reflection
Credo in Iesum Christum qui descendit ad inferos.
After Adam’s sin, it is said that Adam’s expulsion from the Temple Garden of God was ever descent; every step forward was a step downward from the heights and away from closeness with God, with whom he had walked in the cool of the day. Downward Adam went, more enmeshed with the toils of the world, more estranged from God, his Creator, his Beloved. […]
Good Friday in Three Parts: Part III
And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Crucifixion of Christ, Isenheim Altarpiece (detail), Matthias Grünewald, 1510-15
Depictions of the Crucifiction of Christ typically end in darkness and silence. The heavens grow dark, the distant Father is seemingly silent in the face of the murder of His Only Begotten Son, life fades from the Incarnate Body of the Son, […]
Good Friday in Three Parts: Part II
Behold, But a Man
Pontius Pilate is altogether human, perhaps too human. He is a man of some knowledge, but not a man of conviction or ideals. Pilate knows that truth and justice are important but, likely due to being assigned to the provincial backwater of Roman Judaea, decidedly not Roman and filled with a plethora of competing political and religious worldviews, took a subjective stance on the issue. What mattered at the end […]
Good Friday in Three Parts: Part I
For Our Sins
There is nothing particularly necessary about the maltreatment that Jesus suffers as part of His Passion. None of the animal sacrificial victims of the Old Law were abused prior to their sacrifice, and their slaughter was as humane as a sacrifice could be. Even the goat of Yom Kippur, upon which the sins of the Nation were placed, was simply let free. The abuse that Christ suffered prior to His death […]