One moment, people were cheering, anxiously anticipating their friends crossing the finish line in the Boston marathon. The next moment, stunned and bloody, they were fleeing in fright from harms’ way. Chechen-born Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokha had turned their would-be victory shouts into victims’ screams of horror and pain.

Recently in Pennsylvania, members of our military attended an Army Reserve briefing program warning them to be on the lookout for terrorists. Military personnel were told that they are prohibited from taking leadership roles in any organization that the Pentagon considers ‘extremist.’ Furthermore, they are forbidden to distribute the organization’s literature.

[On Saturday, April 6, 2013, in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s call for the Year of Faith, our diocese held its first Diocesan Catechetical Convention in forty years. I offer the following reflection as an aid to understanding the true nature and purpose of all catechesis.]

Not many news reports carried the story. But somehow it was able to leak. A professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton was teaching the course called Intercultural Communications. In one exercise to demonstrate the deep-seated emotions that surround issues, the professor asked the students to write Jesus’ name in big letters on a paper, place the paper on the ground and then stomp on the name of Jesus. Ryan Rotela, a junior, refused.

Habemus Papam! With these traditional words, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Protodeacon of the Sacred College of Cardinals, announced to the world, “We have a Pope!” And, do we have a Pope! He wasted no time in taking the world by surprise.

Overlooking the Grand Canal and nestled next to St. Mark’s Basilica stands Venice’s Palazzo Ducale. Its pink and white marble Gothic façade glittering in the sunlight and the opulence of its interior -- ceilings gilded with gold and walls laden with costly paintings -- boast of the power and prosperity that Venice once had.

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2). Shakespeare puts these oft-quoted words on the lips of Juliet when she tells Romeo that she loves him, not for his family wealth and fame, but for himself. For her, his family name means nothing. In her eyes, one name is as good as another.

David is the only one man in the entire Bible called “a man after God’s own heart” (cf. Acts 13:22; 1 Sam 13:13-14). Anointed by God, he established the Golden Age for the kingdom of Israel. From the time of Samuel the prophet onward, David became the prototype of the Messiah yet to come.