Pope Francis, baptized Jorge (George) Mario Bergoglio, celebrates his Name Day on April 23, the feast of St George the Martyr. It is traditional in some parts of the world for people to celebrate in a special way the feasts of the saints for whom they are named.

The Rosaries donated to the young pilgrims were made with olive wood from the Holy Land specifically for the most recent World Youth Day, which took place in Panama in January; and for Youth Day at the Diocesan level on Palm Sunday…

Religious and civil leaders have responded with condolences, prayer, and calls for justice after several explosions at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka killed more than 200 people and injured hundreds more on Easter Sunday.

Calling it “a very, very sad day for all of us,” Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, cancelled all remaining Easter Masses for the day in the Colombo district…

At least 100 people were killed in explosions Easter morning, detonated in churches and hotels across Sri Lanka. Hundreds more are reportedly injured.

At 8:45 a.m., explosions were detonated during Easter Mass at churches in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, and in Negombo, a city 20 miles to its north. At the same time, a bomb exploded at a service at the Evangelical Zion Church in Batticaloa, on Sri Lanka’s east coast…

1.       The women bring spices to the tomb, but they fear that their journey is in vain, since a large stone bars the entrance to the sepulchre. The journey of those women is also our own journey; it resembles the journey of salvation that we have made this evening.  At times, it seems that everything comes up against a stone: the beauty of creation against the tragedy of sin; liberation from slavery against infidelity to the covenant; the promises of the prophets against the listless indifference of the people.  So too, in the history of the Church and in our own personal history.  It seems that the steps we take never take us to the goal.  We can be tempted to think that dashed hope is the bleak law of life…