Lent 2024 Archives - Page 2 of 5

Lent 2024

Letter from the Editor: Keeping our souls and churches in good (and sacred) order

March 27, 2024

Is nothing sacred? At the Catholic Herald we have argued in our articles that the Church of England has crossed such a line in allowing the naves of some of the UK’s greatest cathedrals – including Canterbury – to be temporarily repurposed for cocktail-fuelled silent discos (in which the revellers dance to music coming through headphones)

‘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

This Holy Week occurs amid an intensifying battle between the cultures of Life and Death

March 26, 2024

During his liturgical reflection for the Monday of this Holy Week, Dom Guéranger meditates: “This city [Jerusalem] is zealous for the exteriors of divine worship; but her heart is hard and obstinate, and she is plotting, at this very hour, the death of the Son of God.” In our own age we face a culture that

‘The Passion of Jesus’ returns to Trafalgar Square on Good Friday

March 26, 2024

A full-scale re-enactment of the Passion of Jesus is returning to Trafalgar Square this Good Friday in central London. First performed in 2010 by the Wintershall company, the open-air The Passion of Jesus production, commemorating the day Jesus was arrested, tried and crucified by the Romans, before miraculously rising from the dead on Easter Sunday;

The fiery death of self-immolation: a martyr’s moral clarity or misguided calumny?

March 25, 2024

As we enter Holy Week and commemorate the exemplary martyrdom, it seems that martyrdom in general – or a misplaced understanding of it – is reasserting itself. Last month, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old US airman, doused himself with liquid and set himself on fire outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, DC. In a livestream of the event, he

Why did Jesus refuse traditional painkiller before ‘horrific’ crucifixion?

March 25, 2024

“They offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he refused it.” (Mark 15:23) St Mark records this detail of Jesus refusing wine mixed with myrrh before his crucifixion. This drink was a rudimentary painkiller and so the fact it was offered to Jesus implies an act of mercy to one about to undergo horrific pain.

Cancelled new bishop for Plymouth resumes parish ministry

March 25, 2024

Canon Christopher Whitehead is resuming his parish ministry following the sudden cancellation of his ordination as the new Plymouth bishop two months ago, which included his role as a parish priest being put on pause during a subsequent investigation. In an unprecedented move at the start of the year, the bishops of England and Wales cancelled the

Italian school closes to ‘celebrate’ Ramadan, while another prevents Easter blessing

March 21, 2024

ROME – In examples which suggest the strains of a county navigating the transition from being almost entirely Catholic to a more multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, one Italian school has announced a day off to allow Muslim students to celebrate the end of Ramadan, while another has refused permission for a Catholic priest to offer