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How To Make Pax Cakes, A Palm Sunday Tradition Mark Palm Sunday with your family by making pax cakes, a forgotten Herefordshire sweet treat Palm Sunday treat: Mary-Anne Boermans' lenten biscuits Photo: Mary-Anne Boermans By Leah Hyslop 29 Mar 2015 The Easter period is inextricably connected with certain foods – eggs, roast lamb and hot cross buns. But not many people in Britain today will enjoy a pax cake. These little treats, which seem to have originated in Herefordshire, were once handed out by churches after the service on Palm Sunday, the day which marks Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusaleum....

NEW YORK – Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas, stressed during a closed-door meeting with New York City Christian leaders earlier this week that for the first time in history an astounding 65 percent of Americans do not think that their children will have a better life than them. Cruz, who is the first in an expected crowded Republican field to officially launch a presidential campaign, said that this depressing outlook is unacceptable and that there is a need to restore hope for those who have lost their faith in America's leadership. "America wants to believe that America has...

March 30, 2015Monday of Holy Week    Reading 1 Is 42:1-7 Here is my servant whom I uphold,my chosen one with whom I am pleased,Upon whom I have put my Spirit;he shall bring forth justice to the nations,Not crying out, not shouting,not making his voice heard in the street.A bruised reed he shall not break,and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,Until he establishes justice on the earth;the coastlands will wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the LORD,who created the heavens and stretched them out,who spreads out the earth with its crops,Who gives breath to its peopleand spirit...

The following is a study of John 6, with a particular focus on the Jewish aspects of it. John 6 is often cited by Roman Catholic apologists in support of their church's teachings on the Lord's Supper, but the issue of Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament is typically ignored, which drastically affects the understanding of events. One claim frequently made by Catholic apologists is that their church is merely taking literally what Jesus says about His body and blood in John 6, while Protestants who take the Bible literally choose not to do so when it...

My name is John Pridmore and this is my story. I was born in the East End of London at the Salvation Army Hospital. Though I was baptised as a Catholic I never went to a Catholic school or to church. At the age of ten I came home on a normal night and my parents told me I had to choose who I wanted to live with because they were getting divorced. I loved my parents so much and I couldn’t choose because the two people I loved the most had just crushed me. It was then that...

At the heart of our faith is the Paschal Mystery: the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. All of salvation history leads up to and goes forth from these saving events. The purpose of this post is to describe Jesus’ Final week. We call this “Holy Week” for Jesus’ public ministry culminates with his suffering, death and resurrection.  What follows is a brief description of each day of Holy Week. It is hoped that you might print out the pdf flyer (Walking-with-Jesus-In-Holy-Week) and read it each day of this week. Prayerfully walk with Jesus in his most...

It was the month of Nisan. The Book of Exodus ordered that in this month the Paschal Lamb was to be selected, and four days later was to be taken to the place where it was to be sacrificed. On Palm Sunday, the Lamb was chosen by popular acclaim in Jerusalem; on Good Friday He was sacrificed.His last Sabbath Our Lord spent in Bethany with Lazarus and his sisters. News was now circulated that Our Lord was coming into Jerusalem. In preparation for His entrance, He sent two of His disciples into the village, where they were told they would...

Never Thirst - Taking Jesus "Literally" can be Fatal Roman Catholics like to try to claim that they are just taking Jesus "literally" when they interpret "this is my body" to mean that what was in Jesus' hands was not bread but his physical body [FN1]. Three passages in John help to illustrate the problem with that approach: John 4, John 6, and John 7.  In the first, Jesus refers metaphorically to living water, in the second Jesus refers to himself as food and drink, and in the third Jesus offers drink to those who thirst. In John 4, Jesus...

It is great sorrow and a heavy heart that His Beatitude Mar Aprem, Metropolitan of India and Patriarchal Vicar, in unison with all the members of the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East (absent were Mar Aprim Nathniel and Mar Narsai Benyamin due to visa difficulties), announce the falling asleep in the Lord of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. The late Patriarch passed at 10:04 am, this morning (Thursday, March 26, 2015) at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. His Holiness was surrounded by the prelates, clergy and family members....

As the NCAA Basketball Championships continue through March Madness into the last of the regionals this weekend, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is targeting five college teams for their use of chaplains.

In his Palm Sunday homily, Pope Francis held up persecuted Christians as modern heroes because of their faithfulness to God even in the midst of hardships. They are the ones who follow Jesus on his path of humiliation, Francis said.

The Church, I’ve been hearing, has to change, if she is going to have any leverage with men and women of our time. What that means, of course, is that they would like a sexual permission slip. It’s the only thing they care about. What’s it to them, after all, if the Church does not change her teachings, even if she could? They don’t obey them anyway. But perhaps they are setting their revisionary sights too low. Why change the Bride of Christ, when you might as well go for Christ Himself? Why trick out the bride in lingerie from...

William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. (Photo courtesy of CL: www.catholicleague.org) William A. Donohue is a New York-based author, sociologist, and political activist who has been president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights since 1993. He holds a PhD in sociology from New York University and is an adjunct scholar at the Heritage Foundation. He is the author of several books, including the 2012 best-seller Why Catholicism Matters: How Catholic Virtues Can Reshape Society in the 21st Century and the just published The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, Happiness, and Heaven Await...

A Christian street preacher has been convicted of a Public Order offence for using the wrong Bible verse in a public conversation with a man who identifies as homosexual, reports Christian Concern for our Nation. But the preacher was acquitted of two other Public Order charges. Unusual judgmentIn a highly unusual judgment, Michael Overd, who regularly preaches on the streets of Taunton, was told by the Judge that he should not have referred to Leviticus chapter 20 to make his point but clearly indicated that he could have used chapter 18 of the book. District Judge Shamim Ahmed Qureshi found...

ROME, March 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An influential Swiss cardinal at the Vatican has warned Germany’s bishops that the Church cannot merely adapt itself to the times as some Christians did in order to support the Nazis. In an interview with the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost, Cardinal Kurt Koch firmly (but politely) refuted the proposal of Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, both delegates to the upcoming Synod on the Family, that the Catholic Church has to adjust herself more to the “life realities” of Catholics today, and liberalize its attitude toward remarried divorcees. Cardinal Marx had even...

Germany’s religious superiors of men’s and women’s communities released a statement that calls for a more expansive understanding of sexuality and, specifically, a rethinking of the church’s treatment of same-gender couples. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s Cardinal Raymond Burke compared these couples to “kind murderers” in his most recent interview. The German Conference of Religious Superiors prepared the eight-page statement for that nation’s bishops as part of their broader preparations for the upcoming Synod of Bishops. In it, the 430 superiors, who represent the country’s 22,800 religious, note that most lesbian and gay people feel unwelcome. The National Catholic Reporter quoted from...

A CALL TO PRAYER We are living in one of the most dangerous periods in history. Every day we see more crime and corruption, and the effects of a growing hatred toward the things of God. But because of our Lord’s faithful promises, there is always hope. Dr. Stanley reminds us that It is only when we seek God, turn from our sin, and submit to His will that our nation—and our world—will be free. As we spend time with the Lord each day, we must remember to pray with passion and perseverance for our churches, our country’s leaders,...

See What the End Shall Be – A Palm Sunday Reflection By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe Passion which we read in today’s liturgy is too long to comment on in detail. We are only able to take a portion and examine it.The usual villains such as the Temple leaders, Judas, and the recruited crowd, which shouted “Crucify him!” are fairly obvious in displaying their sinfulness and are unambiguously wicked. But there are others who participate in the Passion accounts whose sinfulness, struggles and neglect are more subtle, but still real and contribute significantly to the Lord’s sufferings on Good Friday....

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.(Isaiah 53:1-3)It is the climax of human history, the apocalypse, the very...

On taking John 6 literally Roman Catholics claim to take Jn 6 literally, unlike the Baptists. But what exactly does it mean to take Jn 6 literally, and who is more literal, the Catholic or the Baptist? 1.Here is what I take a literal interpretation of Jn 6 to mean. Some time around the year AD 30 or so, Jesus performed three nature miracles (the multiplication of food, walking on water, stilling the storm) situated on or about (the E. shore of) the Sea of Galilee. The next day, in a synagogue located in Capernaum, on the NW shore...