We can recapture more and more the sense of the sacred, the more we allow the Liturgy to be what it is. A gift from God that allows God to speak and act in our life. A gift that draws us out of ourselves and out of time into the eternal life of God even now.

This is the first of a series of four articles that will explore the loss and the recovery of the sense of the sacred in Catholic life.

Today not only is the taking of so many innocent lives alarming, but no less unsettling is the darkening of conscience among so many who find “it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life” (Evangelium Vitae, 4).

This is the third and final article that explores new laws and their implication for the freedom of religion

This is the second of three articles that explore new laws and their implication for the freedom of religion.

In effect, the struggle to redefine marriage is spilling over into the limiting of parental rights and religious freedom.

This is the third of a series of articles that explore Limbo as a way to understand the Church’s faith on the gift of salvation.

This is the second of a series of articles that explore Limbo as a way to understand the Church’s faith on the gift of salvation

This is the first of a series of articles that explore limbo as a way to understand the Church’s faith on the gift of salvation.

In the present text of the gospel, the angels at the tomb announce the Resurrection with the words of a liturgical formula of the primitive community. The language of liturgy shaped the narratives we now have in the gospels.

Faith and reason are not at odds. The desire for the truth is part of human nature itself. Whatever science uncovers by its legitimate methodology can be a benefit to reason in the search for truth.

From year to year, the Easter story remains the same. But the people who hear it and believe do not. The Easter story is a challenge to believers to live this life against the horizon of a new life that does not simply happen at death but is begun here and now. Easter morning is the birth of Christian optimism.

The Cross is the “hour” of redemption. It is the moment when God’s plan for our salvation is accomplished. According to that plan, every disciple is now bound to Mary in the order of grace. She is our mother, not just for a time, but for all eternity. In the birth pangs of Golgotha, the Church is born. And, at the center, there beats the heart of a mother.

Three groups of people mock Jesus on the cross. First, people passing by. They raise their voice and utter blasphemies against Jesus. They mock his claim to destroy the temple and then rebuild it in three days.

No character of the Passion leaves us with a lingering question like Barabbas. His story is broken off before it concludes. Barabbas was a “bandit” (Jn 18:40). The gospels paint him as much more than a petty thief.

Both Jesus and Peter made predictions at the Last Supper. Peter predicted that he would never deny Jesus, even if it meant prison and death (cf. Lk 22:33; Mt 26:35). Jesus predicted that Peter would fail.

After the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was taken prisoner to the home of the high priest Caiaphas. The other disciples all fled. Not Peter. He had boasted at the Last Supper, “Even if all fall away from you, I will not” (Mk 14:29). To his credit, he does follow Jesus to Caiaphas’ house. But he does so at a distance.

Over the course of his public ministry, Jesus makes clear to Peter his place as leader. He chooses Peter’s lakeside house in Capernaum to be the headquarters of his Galilean ministry. When the question arises about Jesus and taxes, Jesus responds by paying the Temple tax for himself and Peter (cf. Mt 17:24-27).

So many ways of acting today indicate that we have lost a sense of obligation to others. We tend to place our needs above those of others, our comfort over theirs.

Writing is one of the ways we have always passed our accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next. It is a way we enter into dialogue with our own generation. The written word, from the biblical text to the morning newspaper, exerts great influence on us.