Lent / Easter News
Who Is God? A Holy Week Reflection
By • Catholic Online • 4/3/2012
Want to know who God is? That answer will not come easily, for it involves sacrifice and death to self. There are no shortcuts; there are no "techniques" to learn. However, as Blessed John Paul II often said, "Be not afraid!" For Christ himself has died for us. Set sail on the journey of the ...
Vatican Congregation for the Clergy on Palm Sunday: The Great Hour of Salvation Awaits Us
By • Catholic Online • 4/2/2012
By the proclamation of the Passion we are finally placed before the great hour of our Salvation. We anticipate the events of Holy Week right up to the silence of the tomb. Let us therefore join the Lord's great hour by preparing for it with prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Let us ...
The Happy Priest: Palm Sunday and the Humility of Jesus
By • Catholic Online • 4/2/2012
On Palm Sunday, we come face to face with Jesus - and how we are to live our lives each day. When we embrace Jesus as the way, the truth and the life, we are faced with the reality that Jesus encompasses our entire being. Christianity is a way of life. Jesus wants to send his ...
Holy Week Invites Us to Learn to Pray and to Live in God
By • Catholic Online • 3/31/2012
We enter into Holy Week this Sunday.In Jesus Christ we are being re-created, re-fashioned and redeemed as we cooperate with grace. He comes to live in all who make a place for Him within the center of their lives. This "making a place" is the essence of Christian prayer. It is not ...
Condescension of Compassion: The Annunciation Reveals the Meaning of Life
By • Catholic Online • 3/26/2012
What Pope St Leo called the "Condescension of Compassion" invites us. Mary's Response Reveals the Mystery and Meaning of Life. "What came about in bodily form in Mary, the fullness of the godhead shining through Christ in the Blessed Virgin, takes place in a similar way in every soul that has been ...
The Happy Priest on Lent, Happiness and the Call to Selfless Love
By • Catholic Online • 3/25/2012
The happiest and most remarkable people that I have known throughout my life are those who are totally selfless. Great things: ideas, beliefs, cultures have lived because men and women have decided to die for causes greater then themselves. The countless martyrs of the Catholic Church ...
The Happy Priest: Mortification in our Lives - Keeping the Temple Clean
By • Catholic Online • 3/12/2012
Due to the effects of Original Sin and our own personal sins that are committed after Baptism, our temples are filled with many things that are not of God. Lent provides us an excellent opportunity to take up a whip and chase out of our souls anything and everything that does not belong ...
5 Ways to Jump Start Lent Digital Style
By • Hi Tech Catholic • 3/8/2012
Did your Lenten discipline of praying, fasting and giving begin to weaken as the last smudge of forehead ash disappeared? Take a look these 5 ways to jump start your personal Lent digital style WASHINGTON,DC (Catholic Online) - It's not too late to have a deeply meaningful Lenten journey. ...
The Happy Priest: Lent and Developing a Serious Life of Prayer
By • Catholic Online • 3/7/2012
Have no fear of allowing Jesus to enter into your life. Do not fear the most exciting, most joyful and the most powerful relationship known to the human person. We are made by God to live forever. We have been given the gift of an immortal soul. Jesus does not want us to live ...
Pope Benedict Says Our Savior Died to Bring Men Back 'Into God's World'
By • Catholic Online • 3/6/2012
"If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (Jn 14:22-23). In that moment we live in "God's world." It is the heaven of "now but not yet." It is a real, true and knowable experience in which we "feel," with the senses of ...
More Easter / Lent
'So it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead' - Luke 24:46
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting which prepares us for Christ's Resurrection on Easter Sunday, through which we attain redemption. continue reading
Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four canonical Gospels. (Mark 11:1.11, Matthew 21:1.11, Luke 19:28.44, and John 12:12.19) ... continue reading
On Palm Sunday, we celebrate the first joy of the season, as we celebrate Our Lord's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem where he was welcomed by crowds worshiping him and laying down palm leaves before him. It also marks the beginning of Holy Week... continue reading
HOLY THURSDAY is the most complex and profound of all religious observances. It celebrates his last supper with the disciples, a celebration of Passover ... continue reading
On Good Friday, each member of the Church tries to understand at what cost Christ has won our redemption. In the solemn ceremonies of Holy Week we unite ourselves to our Savior, and we contemplate our own death to sin in the Death of our Lord ... continue reading
Easter is the principal feast of the ecclesiastical year. Leo I (Sermo xlvii in Exodum) calls it the greatest feast (festum festorum), and says that Christmas is celebrated only in preparation for Easter. It is the centre of the greater part of the ecclesiastical year ... continue reading
Explore Easter, Lent & Pentecost Season
For most people the easiest practice to consistently fulfill will be the traditional one, to abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year. During Lent abstinence from meat on Fridays is obligatory in the United States as elsewhere. Christ Himself said that His disciples would fast once He had departed (Lk. 5:35). continue reading
Everything answered from when does lent end, ashes, giving something up, stations of the cross and blessed palms. The key to understanding the meaning of Lent is simple: Baptism... continue reading
Stations of the Cross refers to the depiction of the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus, and the devotion commemorating the Passion. First Station: Jesus is condemned to death... pray the stations now
What did you give up for Lent?
From the humorous to the bizarre, people have had interesting Lenten experiences. Tell us about what you are going to give up for this Lenten Year.
What others gave up »
Lent / Easter News
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The Power of the Resurrection in our Lives: Christ Is Risen; Indeed, He Is Risen!
F. K. Bartels - Catholic Online, 4/6/2013There is great cause for belief in the Resurrection. One of the most wonderful tenets of Catholicism and the true Christian religion the Church transmits, is that the Resurrection is a historical ...Continue Reading
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What a Day! What a Way, the Easter Way, Alleluia!
Deacon Keith Fournier - Catholic Online, 4/1/2013Have you have heard the old adage, used often in a disparaging way, He´s so heavenly he is no earthly good. I suggest again that it misses the mark completely. We are Easter people. We are called to ...Continue Reading
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The Surprise of Easter
Fr. Randy Sly - Catholic Online, 3/31/2013To make sure that all mankind knows that it is not over but actually just beginning, God has an Easter bombshell. While we may have been able to anticipate the wondrous joy of a day of resurrection, ...Continue Reading
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Easter Vigil Homily of Pope Francis: Let the Risen Jesus Enter Your Life
Pope Francis - Catholic Online, 3/31/2013Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness... and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive! Let the risen Jesus enter ...Continue Reading
Good Friday
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On Good Friday, the entire Church fixes her gaze on the Cross at Calvary. Each member of the Church tries to understand at what cost Christ has won our redemption.
The Cross
In the symbol of the Cross we can see the magnitude of the human tragedy, the ravages of original sin, and the infinite love of God. Learn More
Ash Wednesday
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Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting which prepares us for Christ's Resurrection on Easter Sunday, through which we attain redemption.
The Ashes
The ashes are made from the blessed palms used in the Palm Sunday celebration of the previous year. The ashes are christened with Holy Water and are scented by exposure to incense. Learn More
Stations of the Cross
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Stations of the Cross refers to the depiction of the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus, and the devotion commemorating the Passion.
Opening Prayer
ACT OF CONTRITION. O my God, my Redeemer, behold me here at Thy feet. From the bottom of my heart... Pray the Stations
Fasting & Abstinence
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'Christ Himself said that His disciples would fast once He had departed' Lk. 5:35
Abstinence. The law of abstinence requires a Catholic 14 years of age until death to abstain from eating meat on Fridays in honor of the Passion of Jesus on Good Friday. Salt and freshwater species of fish, amphibians, reptiles and shellfish are permitted.
Fasting. The law of fasting requires a Catholic from the 18th Birthday (Canon 97) to the 59th Birthday (i.e. the beginning of the 60th year, a year which will be completed on the 60th birthday) to reduce the amount of food eaten from normal. The Church defines this as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal.
Learn More »
