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24 May 2026 PentecostSt. Vincent's Orthodox Church, Saskatoon, CanadaReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Red. Year: A(II).These readings are for the extended-form Vigil Mass on the evening before the feast.These readings are for the simple-form Vigil Mass on the evening before the feast.These readings are for the day of the feast itself.These readings are for the extended-form Vigil Mass on the evening before the feast.First readingGenesis 11:1-9The tower of BabelThroughout the earth men spoke the same language, with the same vocabulary. Now as they moved eastwards they found a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled. They said to...

23 May 2026 Saturday of the 7th week of Eastertide Saint William Catholic Church, Round Rock, TXReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 28:16-20,30-31In Rome, Paul proclaimed the kingdom of God without hindrance from anyoneOn our arrival in Rome Paul was allowed to stay in lodgings of his own with the soldier who guarded him. After three days he called together the leading Jews. When they had assembled, he said to them, ‘Brothers, although I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans....

22 May 2026 Friday of the 7th week of Eastertide St. Rita of Cascia Parish - ChicagoReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 25:13-21'I ordered Paul to be remanded until I could send him to Caesar'King Agrippa and Bernice arrived in Caesarea and paid their respects to Festus. Their visit lasted several days, and Festus put Paul’s case before the king. ‘There is a man here’ he said ‘whom Felix left behind in custody, and while I was in Jerusalem the chief priests and elders of the Jews laid information against him, demanding his condemnation. But I told...

21 May 2026 Thursday of the 7th week of Eastertide St Godric, Durham City, UKReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 22:30,23:6-11'You have borne witness in Jerusalem: now you must do the same in Rome'Since the tribune wanted to know what precise charge the Jews were bringing, he freed Paul and gave orders for a meeting of the chief priests and the entire Sanhedrin; then he brought Paul down and stood him in front of them. Now Paul was well aware that one section was made up of Sadducees and the other of Pharisees, so he called out...

Louisiana has passed two laws aimed at stopping people from disrupting church services, months after protesters made national headlines by disrupting a Minnesota church service in opposition to one of its pastors serving as a federal immigration enforcement agent. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed House Bill 294, which helps empower churches to remove trespassers from their property, and House Bill 68, which expands the legal definition of disturbing the peace to include disrupting worship services. HB 294 states that any religious leader, security team member "or person who is lawfully on the premises of a church or other place of...

Washington state has agreed to stop forcing Christian foster parents to push the LGBTQ agenda on their foster kids. The Democrat-run state will no longer require Christian parents to fake gender pronouns or socially transition foster children in violation of their religious beliefs. That comes under a settlement reached with a couple who lost their foster-care license for refusing to compromise their faith and push the trans agenda on their foster children. The agreement, announced May 20, includes a permanent injunction requiring the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families to revise its licensing policies. The department can no longer...

20 May 2026 Wednesday of the 7th week of EastertideE The Church of St. San Bernardino of Siena, Cracow, Poland Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 20:28-38I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, and its powerPaul addressed these words to the elders of the church of Ephesus: ‘Be on your guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you the overseers, to feed the Church of God which he bought with his own blood. I know quite well that when I have gone fierce wolves...

In my recent book The Fate of the Apostles, I examine the evidence the apostles of Jesus died as martyrs. Because the evidence is early and consistent, there is widespread agreement that Peter, Paul, and both James died as martyrs. But scholars are much more divided over the tradition surrounding “doubting” Thomas. Did he really make it to India, as tradition suggests, and die there as a martyr? The Eastern Church has consistently held that Thomas ministered in India. Alphonse Mingana notes: It is the constant tradition of the Eastern Church that the Apostle Thomas evangelized India, and there is...

19 May 2026Tuesday of the 7th week of Eastertide Saint Dunstan’s Church Bourne End Buckinghamshire, UKReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 20:17-27I have without faltering put before you the whole of God's purposeFrom Miletus Paul sent for the elders of the church of Ephesus. When they arrived he addressed these words to them: ‘You know what my way of life has been ever since the first day I set foot among you in Asia, how I have served the Lord in all humility, with all the sorrows and trials that came to me through the plots of...

The recently completed £1 billion European headquarters of Goldman Sachs in Farringdon Street is situated on the exact footprint of the first medieval Blackfriars monastery. It was built for mendicant Dominican friars in 1224. They moved 50 years later to their main home near today’s Blackfriars station, a few hundred yards down the same street on the opposite side of the River Fleet. The Dominicans established a priory in Holborn, London in 1223, and dedicated the church to Our Lady and St John the Evangelist. In 1276, Edward I gave them permission to move to a site between the River...

Apparently, there are a lot of Biblical things happening these days, according to people knowledgeable about the topic. One of those things has to do with the declining water levels of the Euphrates River. According to a biblical prophecy being discussed by some Christian groups, the apocalypse will occur if the Euphrates River, which flows through Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, dries up. The Book of Revelation mentions the river drying up before significant end-time events. The Euphrates also appears in the Book of Genesis and the Book of Jeremiah. Unfortunately, the longest river in Western Asia is shrinking fast, according...

Mmm dd, 2026 Monday of the 7th week of Eastertide Chapel of Saint Venantius at the San Giovanni in Fonte (Lateran Baptistry) in Rome, ItalyReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 19:1-8The moment Paul laid hands on them the Holy Spirit came down on themWhile Apollos was in Corinth, Paul made his way overland as far as Ephesus, where he found a number of disciples. When he asked, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ they answered, ‘No, we were never even told there was such a thing as a Holy Spirit.’ ‘Then how were...

17 May 2026 The Ascension of the Lord SolemnityChurch of Santa Restituta, Lakko Ameno, ItalyReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).These readings are for the Vigil Mass on the evening before the feast.These readings are for the day of the feast itself.These readings are for the Vigil Mass on the evening before the feast.First readingActs 1:1-11Jesus was lifted up while they looked onIn my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning until the day he gave his instructions to the apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken...

16 May 2026 Saturday before Ascension SundaySt. Brendan the Navigator, Charlotte, NC Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 18:23-28Apollos demonstrated from the scriptures that Jesus was the ChristPaul came down to Antioch, where he spent a short time before continuing his journey through the Galatian country and then through Phrygia, encouraging all the followers. An Alexandrian Jew named Apollos now arrived in Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, with a sound knowledge of the scriptures, and yet, though he had been given instruction in the Way of the Lord and preached with great spiritual earnestness and was...

15 May 2026 Friday before Ascension Sunday St. Isidore the Laborer Catholic Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 18:9-18'I have many people on my side in this city'At Corinth one night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid to speak out, nor allow yourself to be silenced: I am with you. I have so many people on my side in this city that no one will even attempt to hurt you.’ So Paul stayed there preaching the word of God among them for eighteen months. But, while Gallio...

To settle a lawsuit brought by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, Montgomery County officials have agreed to pay more than $120,000 in attorneys’ fees after excluding a Christian organization from the foster care system. ADF attorneys represent Gracehaven, which is now free to continue its ministry of caring for young female sex-trafficking survivors in the county. In 2024, Gracehaven sued the county and its Department of Job and Family Services. Officials there excluded the faith-based organization from a public program and benefit for which it is otherwise qualified based solely on the ministry’s commitment to hire only employees who share and...

14 May 2026 Saint Matthias, Apostle FeastSt. Matthias the Apostle Catholic Church, Magnolia, TXReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Red. Year: A(II).First readingActs 1:15-17,20-26'Let someone else take his office'One day Peter stood up to speak to the brothers – there were about a hundred and twenty persons in the congregation: ‘Brothers, the passage of scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, foretells the fate of Judas, who offered himself as a guide to the men who arrested Jesus – after having been one of our number and actually sharing this ministry of ours. Now in...

For Jonás’ family, who are Muslim, turning away from Islam constitutes a grave betrayal of their culture and roots. Despite this, following a long journey of searching and formation, the young man received the sacrament of baptism during the Easter Vigil at the cathedral in Getafe, the Spanish city where he has lived since he was barely a year old. His decision came after a personal encounter with Christ, when he realized there was no turning back: He was firmly convinced that the Catholic faith was the true one. The 25-year-old, who did not share his last name, first became...

13 May 2026 Wednesday of the 6th week of Eastertide St. Robert Bellarmine Church, Burbank, CAReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).First readingActs 17:15,22-18:1I proclaim the God you already worship without knowing itPaul’s escort took him as far as Athens, and went back with instructions for Silas and Timothy to rejoin Paul as soon as they could. So Paul stood before the whole Council of the Areopagus and made this speech: ‘Men of Athens, I have seen for myself how extremely scrupulous you are in all religious matters, because I noticed, as I strolled round admiring your sacred monuments,...

Trinity Bible Church “pastor” Mark Driscoll is under fire for implying on X that Jesus’ mother may have considered aborting him if a Planned Parenthood had been nearby. The comment drew widespread condemnation from both Catholics and Protestants, who were united in their criticism of him. At the time of writing, Driscoll’s post had more than 126,000 impressions and only 129 likes; resulting in being heavily ratioed. Notably, while there was no Planned Parenthood 2,000 years ago, abortion was well known and widely practiced in the ancient Roman world. Physicians commonly prescribed herbs, bloodletting, fasting, and extreme physical duress, rather...