Category: Prayers

“Taste and see how good the Lord is.” —Psalm 34:9 At each Mass, Jesus offers us His Body and Blood in the Eucharistic feast. The Church, through the voice of the psalmist, invites us to taste and see how good the Eucharistic Lord is (Ps 34:9). At the first Eucharist, the Last Supper, Jesus told His apostles and each of us: “I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you” (Lk 22:15). The Mass is a marriage between heaven and earth, and the Eucharist is our wedding banquet (see Rv 19:7). We approach the altar of the Lord as...

“With power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” —Acts 4:33 The Holy Spirit has told the Church to make the Easter season extra special by celebrating some of God’s greatest works during Easter. For example, the first hours of Easter are glorified by the Baptisms, Confirmations, and First Communions of hundreds of thousands of catechumens throughout the world. We kick off the fifty-day Easter season with the Easter octave. We often have additional Confirmations and First Communions throughout Easter. We celebrate May as the month of Mary with rosaries and May crownings. We conclude the...

“With power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” —Acts 4:33 The Holy Spirit has told the Church to make the Easter season extra special by celebrating some of God’s greatest works during Easter. For example, the first hours of Easter are glorified by the Baptisms, Confirmations, and First Communions of hundreds of thousands of catechumens throughout the world. We kick off the fifty-day Easter season with the Easter octave. We often have additional Confirmations and First Communions throughout Easter. We celebrate May as the month of Mary with rosaries and May crownings. We conclude the...

“The place where they were gathered shook as they prayed. They were filled with the Holy Spirit.” —Acts 4:31 When Peter and John were released from jail, they did not ask for: future safety, protection from their enemies, justice after being wrongly arrested, or an easier mission. Rather, they asked to be filled again with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4; 4:31) and thereby receive “complete assurance,” that is, holy boldness in witnessing for the risen Christ (Acts 4:29). Let’s not focus on the immensity of our problems and the human impossibility of dealing with them. It doesn’t make that much...

“A week later, the disciples were once more in the room, and this time Thomas was with them. Despite the locked doors, Jesus came.” —John 20:26 The octave of the first Easter was disappointing and uneventful for the apostles. On the evening of the day of Jesus’ Resurrection, Jesus sent His apostles to proclaim His Gospel (Jn 20:21), but eight days later they were still paralyzed by fear and behind locked doors (see Jn 20:26). You can see why Thomas, not present a week earlier, did not believe that Jesus was risen from the dead. However, the Lord had mercy...