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Mmm dd, 2026 Easter Monday Catholic Church of St. Sixtus, Schliersee, Upper Bavaria, GermanyReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 2:14,22-33God raised this man Jesus to life, and all of us are witnesses to thisOn the day of Pentecost Peter stood up with the Eleven and addressed the crowd in a loud voice: ‘Men of Israel, listen to what I am going to say: Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God by the miracles and portents and signs that God worked through him when he was among you, as you all know. This man,...

There’s nothing really new in the uproar surrounding the loss of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle over Iran this past weekend. Media hysteria over the downing of a single U.S. aircraft has become a commonplace schtick in coverage of American wars over the past three decades. During WW II, the U.S. lost over 23,000 planes in combat. I kid you not, playmates: 23,000+ – and that’s only combat losses. Overall losses, including accidents, amounted to 65,164. The media talking heads would have had to be carried out in straitjackets if they’d been active at the time. Losses dropped sharply following...

A man gave me a print of religious art, which had special significance for him. He had been a soldier in Viet Nam, who, it is unfortunate to say, was just on the point of executing a captured, North Vietnamese prisoner. When he had a mystical experience, that the man's face turned into that of Jesus Christ. So he had the habit of giving out the picture arrayed below. He gave me a copy. I have kept it ever since. .

Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen! Happy Easter! For centuries, the Church has joyfully sung of the event that is the origin and foundation of her faith: “Yes, Christ my hope is arisen / Christ indeed from death is risen / Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning” (Easter Sequence). Easter is the victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred. It is a victory that came at a very high price: Christ, the Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16:16), had to die — and die on a cross — after suffering an unjust...

I’ve spent much of my life reading and studying religious and philosophical texts. I’ve perused the works of Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, etc. I love such texts and the ideas that these great thinkers share. What all of these figures have in common is a certain calm, a measured manner of sharing what they have learned. And consequently, one reads their texts in a sort of abstracted way. I have wonderful memories of reading great books while sitting by the Seine in Paris when I was a doctoral student: thinking, wondering, reflecting.And then...

Gender-referred adolescents showed significantly higher psychiatric morbidity than controls both before (45.7% vs. 15.0%) and ≥ 2 years after referral (61.7% vs. 14.6%). Those referred after 2010 had greater psychiatric needs than earlier cohorts, both before (47.9% vs. 15.3%) and ≥ 2 years after (61.3% vs. 14.2%) referral. Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up—rising from 9.8% to 60.7% in feminising gender reassignment and from 21.6% to 54.5% in masculinising gender reassignment. After adjusting for prior psychiatric treatment, all gender-referred adolescents had similarly elevated risks of psychiatric morbidity, with hazard ratios approximately three times...

The University of Virginia fired its head women’s basketball coach, Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, in a shocking move after the Cavaliers made a surprise run to the Sweet 16, though reports suggest a toxic culture had developed within the program. Virginia had been coming off one of the program’s most successful seasons in recent memory – reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2000 – when the school made the announcement that Agugua-Hamilton was out in a terse statement released over the weekend. But behind the scenes, Agugua-Hamilton was the subject of an internal investigation, USA Today reported. The outlet...

Chicago residents in rent-controlled housing near a site being constructed to honor former President Barack Obama have reportedly unionized in response to the controversial project. Residents of a longtime Woodlawn apartment building organized to resist possible displacement and rent increases they say are being driven by development pressure surrounding the Obama Presidential Center. Tenants at the Chaney Braggs Apartments rallied earlier this month outside their building near 65th Street and Stony Island Avenue, saying a potential sale of the property could upend the lives of families who have lived there for decades, FOX 32 Chicago reported. A California-based investor is...

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On that first Easter the Greatest News the World has ever heard was declared - Jesus is Alive (no description other than the title)

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Please join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media.1 Timothy 2:1-2 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.Religion Forum threads labeled “Prayer” are closed to debate of any kind.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt. 5:4). When your sins are forgiven, you are a happy person! Human sorrow is mourning over some tragic or disappointing turn of events. At such times believers are assured of God's sustaining and comforting grace (2 Cor. 1:3-4). But when Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt. 5:4), He was referring to godly sorrow, which is mourning over your sin. "Mourn" in Matthew 5:4 translates the strongest Greek word used in the New Testament to express grief. It is often used of the...

The number of candidates preparing to be received into the Catholic Church across England at Easter is at its highest level for 15 years. Dioceses across the country are reporting increases, with Shrewsbury Cathedral holding an additional service to accommodate record numbers of adults seeking baptism and admission into the Church. In a statement, the Diocese of Shrewsbury said: “The numbers of people asking to become Catholics in the Diocese of Shrewsbury – which includes all of Shropshire, Cheshire, the Wirral and parts of Greater Manchester – has almost doubled in the past three years. “The surge in new converts...

the life of Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo offers a striking witness to how stone itself can become a path to faith. For Sotoo, whose decades of carving at Spanish Barcelona’s Basilica of the Holy Family, known as Sagrada Familia, have shaped one of the world’s great sacred spaces, the slow, humbling work of sculpting stone ultimately led him to encounter the God whom Antoni Gaudí — Sagrada’s iconic architect — served, and to enter the Catholic Church through baptism. . Studying the life and vision of Sagrada’s legendary architect — and a spiritual giant — not only shaped his artistic...

Five years ago, Nazlican Soylemez had little connection to religious life. A random discovery in her Jersey City neighborhood changed everything. An avid reader and aspiring nurse, Soylemez, 31, was perusing a "Little Free Library" kiosk near her home when she spied a tiny paperback titled "Jesus Lives." The pages of that Christian devotional book would carry her on a journey toward Catholicism. Soylemez is among 1,700 people in the Newark Archdiocese scheduled to complete her conversion to Catholicism this Easter weekend. She and other spiritual newcomers will be confirmed and receive the Eucharist inside the ornate sanctuary of Holy...

It was July in 2016, and Holland was in the northern Iraq city of Sinjar. He had arrived with a BBC film crew about three months after ISIS, the murderous jihadist group, had tried and failed to retake the town after massacring members of the Yazidis, an ancient religious and ethnic minority in Iraq. Holland knew something about ancient history. He was an award-winning British historian who had written popular books about ruthless Spartan and Roman leaders he called the “apex predators” of the Greco-Roman world. They lived by the Athenian dictum: The strong do what they can and the...

Easter baptism figures for the past five years: 2021: 1,708 2022: 1,569 2023: 1,700 2024: 2,300 2025: 2,400 For a country surrounded by an openly anti-Christian regime, Hong Kong has seen a surprising surge in conversions over the past decade. On Easter of this year, around 2,500 new converts are estimated to join the Catholic Church. Hong Kong has long been a place of refuge for Catholics fleeing Chinese communist oppression. Since 1949, Chinese Catholics have poured into the diocese, seeking religious freedom and distance from the Chinese Communist Party's coercion. However, in following a year of pro-democracy protests in...

Vermonters in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington have celebrated this past week in the leadup to Easter on Sunday, when this year’s class of adults will enter into the Catholic Church. Current estimates indicate that their numbers are increasing substantially, especially among young adults at some of Vermont’s universities. While statewide Sunday Mass attendance has decreased and the diocese is consolidating churches, some local parishes have seen an increase in energy and enthusiasm. In a state with a declining birth rate and an aged population, data from the Diocese of Burlington indicates that conversions among adults are increasing at...

The supposed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen or heard since his father was killed. Now the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to run both the state and the war.