The faithful gathered April 15 at Holy Family of Nazareth Catholic Parish in Irving for a Diocese of Dallas Synod listening session on Sacraments and Sacramental Preparation.
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Every year we commemorate the season of Lent, which culminates with the celebration of Easter. This is always a reflective season that helps us examine our spiritual lives, identify with the suffering of Jesus, and share in the glory of His resurrection at Easter. During the season of Lent many of us resolve to model our lives on the example of Christ. During Lent, Christians take up Lenten observances such as fasting, almsgiving and prayer, and many Catholics abstain from several things in order to attach themselves more closely to God. Some of us gave up certain behaviors, foods, practices and places as part of Lent. Now that Lent is over and Easter Sunday has come and gone, what next? What happens to our abstinence, those things we gave up? What happens to the renewed prayer life that we had during Lent? What happens to our acts of charity and almsgiving that we exercised during Lent? Are they going to be our new way of life, or will we abandon them and go back to our “former ways”?
On a bright spring morning, Pope Francis prayed that Christians would experience the joy of Easter and allow Christ’s resurrection to be “the light that illumines the darkness and the gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped.”
Over two millennia of Church history, several standards of orthodoxy have served as the pillars on which a correct understanding of the Christian mysteries must be built. One of them is what I would call the incarnational principle: a proper acknowledgement of the goodness of the material world and the human body.
As part of the celebration of Holy Week, Bishop Edward J. Burns, joined by Auxiliary Bishop Greg Kelly and priests of Catholic Diocese of Dallas, presided at the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe on Tuesday, April 4. During the celebration of the Mass, Bishop Burns consecrated the sacred oils used in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, and Holy Orders.
During Lent this year, residents of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where Pope Francis lives, decided to clean out their closets and give away things other people could use. “You can’t imagine how much stuff there was,” the pope said.
From an early age, Helen Ta has always had a deep passion for serving the Catholic Church. Now, she has the opportunity to serve on a diocesan scale.
“I’m still alive,” Pope Francis joked to reporters who asked how he was doing as he left Rome’s Gemelli hospital April 1.
Speaking alongside his brother Texas bishops at the Texas State Capitol, Bishop Edward J. Burns said legislators need to act now on school choice legislation so that “parents will be able to truly exhibit their sacred responsibility of educating their children.”
More than 24 hours after he entered the hospital, Pope Francis’ doctors reported a “marked improvement” in his condition, which they attributed to treatment with intravenous antibiotics. The tests the pope underwent after entering Rome’s Gemelli hospital with difficulty breathing revealed he had bronchitis, said a medical bulletin released by the Vatican press office March 30. “Based on his expected progress, the Holy Father could be discharged in the coming days.”