Holy Week Archives - Catholic Herald

Holy Week

‘God has undoubtedly decided to take over’: France’s continuing (and surprising) Catholic shift against secular progressivism

April 03, 2024

This year’s Easter Vigil was the busiest in years in France. Figures released last week by the bishops’ conference of France announced that 7,135 adults would receive the sacrament of baptism at the Easter Vigil. This is a 32 per cent increase on 2023 when 5,463 adults were baptised. This is an encouraging trend that

Westminster Cathedral forced to turn people away due to unprecedented numbers attending Easter Triduum

April 02, 2024

Staff at Westminster Cathedral were compelled to turn away people hoping to attend Mass due to reaching full capacity over the Easter weekend. Westminster Cathedral, which is the mother church of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and has a capacity of 3,000 people, was unable to let any more people in for its

‘A tidal wave of truths’: Thomas Merton on the power of the Mass reliving the crucifixion

March 31, 2024

The Mass wields enormous power through its connection to Christ’s death on the cross, wrote Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk, writer, theologian and mystic. “O my God, with what might You sometimes choose to teach a man’s soul Your immense lessons!” Merton wrote in his memoir the Seven Storey Mountain about his spiritual journey

Easter Vigil: We must roll away the stones in our hearts, preaches Pope Francis

March 30, 2024

ROME – Presiding over the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday night Pope Francis drew particular attention to the concerns of the women who went to Jesus’s tomb after his crucifixion to anoint his body. He focused on how they were worried about the stone that would be blocking them from getting to the tomb. And

How the State failed ‘WASPI women’ and Secularism and Feminism failed all women

March 30, 2024

In re-reading Aemon Dufy’s Stripping of the Altars, I was very struck by the way in which rood screens incorporating Mary and John at the foot of the cross became so important. The restoration of the Catholic faith in Queen Mary’s reign saw one of the most substantial efforts to re-catholicise the parish churches involved, getting

In first Holy Week homily Pope urges Catholics not to be afraid of guilt

March 28, 2024

ROME – In his first major liturgy for Holy Week, Pope Francis offered an extended reflection on the spiritual underpinnings of so-called “Catholic guilt”, a by now almost notorious concept associated by many (especially critics of Catholicism) with an almost compulsive need to feel overly guilty for any perceived offense. He addressed the ancient tradition

Easter calls for lamb – ideally slow-roasted and served with sauce soubise

March 28, 2024

At Christmas, you may hesitate between turkey, beef, ham or goose, but at Easter it just has to be lamb. In the UK, lambs are slaughtered at six months or older, which makes them a very different animal from the small, light-coloured, milk-fed lambs of Greece and Italy. A leg can weigh between 4lb and

‘Prayer for Holy Week’ by Elizabeth Jennings: ‘Love me in my willingness to suffer’

March 26, 2024

Prayer for Holy Week Love me in my willingness to sufferLove me in the gifts I wish to offer Teach me how you love and have to die And I will try Somehow to forget myself and giveLife and joy so dead things start to live. Let me show now an untrammelled joy, Gold without