In the last days of Lent leading up to Easter, Christian liturgies place an emphasis on the final days and hours of Jesus of Nazareth. The liturgical season of the Triduum brings us through the Last Supper and Jesus’ Passion and death, carrying us finally into what might be called the “empty time”—that mournful 24-hour period when the seemingly defeated Christ lay in the tomb and the world was bereft of the God-man, the Teacher and Redeemer. For us, within the Triduum, there is no Sacrifice of the Mass between the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil—an interruption of the way things are done. The most important act of worship in the world is stopped, and how we go on, with prayer services and acts of devotion, only makes us feel that loss more keenly. The desolation of the Triduum is a full immersion into the realities…
POPE FRANCIS TO CONFER NEW LAY MINISTRIES FOR FIRST TIME IN ST. PETER’S BASILICA
The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will confer the ministries of catechist, lector, and acolyte upon lay men and
