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Another Easter without Mass: What happened to Catholic Ireland?May the blood of the Irish martyrs serve to inspire the Church, so that the Irish clergy may once more fulfill their vocation to lead souls to God instead of away from Him, and may the underground Church continue to grow in size and fervor.DUBLIN, Ireland, April 2, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) –– For the second year running, the Irish government has brought about something which would have made the previous persecutors of Irish Catholics so very proud: The prohibition of public worship during Holy Week and Easter.Yet the blame cannot fall solely at...

“The Light Shines in the Darkness” (John 1:1-5, 9-14) Tonight we’re doing a traditional Good Friday evening service called “Tenebrae.” The Latin word, “tenebrae,” means “shadows” or “darkness.” This is the Service of the Shadows, the Service of Darkness--moving to complete darkness at the end of the service. This reminds us of the darkness that came over the land when Christ was hanging on the cross, the great darkness that occurred when the author of life was put to death. And then his lifeless body was placed in the tomb, and night fell, and all was darkness and shadows. The...

Good Friday—a holiday in just 10 states—is celebrated by most Christian denominations, with fasting and somber worship services that often end in silence.Before Christians joyously celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday, they first must make a gruesome stop at a hill called Calvary. Two days before the trumpets sound, and churches—many opening for the first time in a year—fill their sanctuaries with lilies, dogwood, and alleluias, we first must witness the hideous trial of the sinless Lord, the bloody brutal scourging by Roman soldiers and his anguishing suffering and suffocating death on the cross, a day called...

Whether we are talking about Anthropogenic global warming (AGW):The political forces looking to spend the climate trillions and the academia segment supplying the fear want to scrub the climate debate of anything but the scariest scenarios. They want an unwavering allegiance to vigorous spending on climate policy, no matter its effectiveness. - SDAor COVID-19, there is only one acceptable position that “reasonable people” are allowed to hold. And you know what that is because it’s pounded into your brain via the Media, the Academy and Politicians (MAP) on a 24/7 basis. The MAP will happily provide the specifics on the...

The Bible says that Pilate couldn’t care less about Jesus. Pilate actually interviewed Jesus and also sent him to King Herod for examination. The testimony of the Bible says that none of these men, rulers in Judea, were able to corroborate the false claims... “Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I...

Pentecost Reminder: The Church was Born on Good Friday It is not traditional to celebrate a person’s birthday weeks after they were born.  Likewise, it is not Traditional (as in Catholic Tradition) to celebrate the ‘birth of the Church’ on Pentecost – 52 days after the Church was born on Good Friday, as unanimously taught by the Fathers of the Church.The practice of Catholics baking birthday cakes for the Church on Pentecost Sunday is lamentable. ‘Homilies’ proclaiming the birth of the Church on Pentecost, like the related birthday cakes, are constructed from a recipe with non-Catholic ingredients. We need more...

To anyone who missed it. Microsoft released an ad featuring celebrity-cult 'artist' Marina Abramovic. They quickly regretted it. First they closed the comments. They then set the video to private. See here: Mircosoft Marina Abramovic Ad Here is the video with commentary: Microsoft Video of Satanist Marina Abramovic On Good Friday (5 mins)

As the Civil War drew to its end, Confederate General Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 — Palm Sunday — near Appomattox Court House. Then, four days later, on April 14 — Good Friday — President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre. He would die the next day. Thomas Nast, the most famous political cartoonist of the period, commemorated the coincidence with an illustration pairing an image of Christ entering Jerusalem, the event that is commemorated every Palm Sunday, with an image of Lee surrendering to Grant at Appomattox....

“Hand-Washing Won’t Do--Blood Is Needed” (Matthew 27:11-50) Right now in the news we’re hearing about governors making life-or-death decisions. Should we be open? Should we be closed? How far can I go to protect people’s health? What about the loss of freedom? What about the loss of jobs? Governors are feeling pressure from all sides to make a decision one way or the other. And these decisions do affect people’s lives and their livelihood. No governor has ever made a more momentous life-or-death decision than the one we read about in today’s text, on this Good Friday. And that governor...

Several emails have come in asking advice on cultivating an authentic, genuine “personal relationship” with Christ. The answer is simple, and it comes from Our Lord Himself who has told many mystic saints and doctors of the Church the same thing: THINK AND PRAY ABOUT MY PASSION AND DEATH. Why? Because thinking about Our Lord’s torture, agony and excruciating death forces us to confront Him as a Person, True God AND True Man. Legal systems don’t sob until their capillaries burst. Philosophies don’t suffer the agony of unrequited love. Imaginary friends don’t lay down their lives. Bureaucracies don’t fight asphyxiation...

...Like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. ...Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering... He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all,...

ABSTRACT: Jesus of Nazareth underwent Jewish and Roman trials, was flogged, and was sentenced to death by crucifixion. The scourging produced deep stripelike lacerations and appreciable blood loss, and it probably set the stage for hypovolemic shock as evidenced by the fact that Jesus was too weakened to carry the crossbar (patibulum) to Golgotha. At the site of crucifixion his wrists were nailed to the patibulum, and after the patibulum was lifted onto the upright post, (stipes) his feet were nailed to the stipes. The major pathophysiologic effect of crucifixion was an interference with normal respirations. Accordingly, death resulted primarily...

Good Friday – the one day where millions of the world’s Christians forgo a night at the movies or a party with friends and family to go to church. The most solemn day of the Christian year, it commemorates Christ’s atoning death on the cross for the sins of the world. It’s a hard day to celebrate any year – but it’s especially difficult to reflect on Christ’s death in 2020. Why would we want to spend time contemplating a violent, unjust death when all around us, there’s more suffering than we can alleviate and more uncertainty than we can...

Today being Good Friday for Christians around the world, it is a fitting time to look at one of the most enigmatic and widely debated relics of history: The Shroud of Turin. While there have been no end of scientific attempts to determine what this fascinating image might be and how it was made, I find the historical attempts to trace its provenance to be more interesting. The earliest reference to a shroud associated with Jesus may be found in Sacred Scripture. In the Gospel of Saint John we find the following passage: "Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and...

St. Leo the Great in Fairfax City has an outdoor Stations of the Cross

Every year on Good Friday the Pro-Life Action League hosts “Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion,” a prayer service held outside abortion facilities across the nation. The coronavirus could have marked the end of a longtime tradition, but thanks to technology, people can take part beginning at 10 a.m. central time through a livestream on the league’s Facebook page. Eric Scheidler, executive director of the league, and his family will pray outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in their hometown of Aurora, Illinois. Advertisement “I consider this to be a particularly important moment to hold an event like this,”...

Dear friend, maybe you were raised to believe - as I was - that Jesus (our Lamb and Savior) was crucified on Good Friday. If one does the math... Friday can never work (see charts below). The "Sign of the prophet Jonah" states it all; The ONLY sign that the Lord would give to the Messiah rejecting leadership of Israel and nation was the sign of the most rejected event and individual of the Bible, Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1:17). The ONLY sign that the Lord would give to the Messiah rejecting leadership of Israel and nation was the...

Happy Palm Sunday! Having been born and raised Jewish (culturally, but hardly religious), all I knew about Jesus was that Jews did not believe in Him. So, promise not to laugh when I tell you that growing up, I thought Palm Sunday was about glorifying palm trees, and Good Friday was a Friday in spring that was "good." (Especially because my suburban public elementary school was closed for the day — ah, Boston in the 1960s.) But later — thanks to Jesus, who was responsible for my conversion over four decades ago — my understanding the meaning of both days...

To put things in perspective, today marks the death of the person who conquered death and returned to report about it. He may have been the last one before the demise of the human race. All this panic being caused by the globalist media to detract from this great event is meant to put the public ill at ease, and diminish the value of the promise by God to send such a Protector / Instructor. Perhaps we can refrain on FreeRepublic from posting any further fear mongering headlines between the hours of noon to 3 to honor that event?

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Why Was Christ Crucified Between Two Thieves? It is good and necessary to ponder more of the Gospel of yesterday’s Solemnity of Christ the King. It remains a profound teaching that Christ was crucified between two thieves. Why?St. Thomas Aquinas proposes three answers to the question. Let’s consider them, with particular emphasis on the third.I. To Identify with Fallen Sinners – St Thomas said, As Christ became accursed of the cross for us, so for our salvation He was crucified as a guilty one among the guilty (Comm. xxxiii in...