Light Of The East

In most areas of the world, the Eastern Catholic Churches are small and sparse. What does a small and sparse Church have to offer in confronting the big and powerful issues of our day?

We are coming up on 40 days after the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ where we will see Christ’s Ascension into heaven and the ascension Saints Cyril and Methodius as co-patrons of Europe.

Pope St. John Paul II said that every encounter in the Bible between God and womanhood was an encounter of the newness of life. It was so at the Annunciation, the empty tomb and now at Jacob's well.

We are half-way between the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the sending down of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. It is a week filled with miracles, martyrs and Apostles.

In the details of His Bodily Resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ reaches back to the beginning to retrieve and redeem his original plan for creation, as The Myrrh-bearing women, Joseph and Nicodemus will explain.

On the Sunday after Pascha both lungs of the Church converge at the theme of God’s mercy. For the Latin rite, it is Divine Mercy Sunday. For many Eastern churches, it is the Sunday of doubting Thomas.

As we have died with Christ, we now rise with him in His Bodily Resurrection making all things new not just 2,000 years ago but even at this very moment and forever.

In many Eastern Catholic Churches, the Season of Lent has ended. But a separate and more ancient period of fasting and penance has begun - the Week of the Bridegroom.

On this last Sunday of Lent in many Eastern Catholic Churches a woman is put before our eyes who is a model of repentance, reverence for the Eucharist and hope for women experiencing the pains of shame.

Three great ascetics are put before our eyes as our guides at this point of Lent. As Pope Saint John Paul II said, 'Monasticism is the reference point for all of the baptized.'

Getting weary of the Lenten fasting? Sneaked that piece of chocolate or gossiped about someone? Take heart, encouragement is here on this Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross.

Abstaining from meat, dairy, sweets, wine, oil I-phones and entertainment and adding more prayer seem unreasonable? It is actually the norm that Lent seeks to bring us back to,

Behold the Church is covered with a heavenly garment by the icons thus preserving the true faith. May those who do not believe this be covered with shame.

The season of Lent emphasizes almsgiving for which the Eastern Catholic Churches are a worthy focus as they are at the epicenter of much global strife.

In a temple the Elder Simeon holds Christ in his hands and then asks to be dismissed from this world. What do we say with God entering our entire being.

St. John Paul II reminded us that the Church breathes with two lungs, two complementary expressions of the one same Faith. But what is it that the two lungs have in common?

St. John Paul II reminds us that the Church breathes with two lungs, two complementary expressions of the one same Faith. But what is it that the two lungs have in common?

In a baton race, two runners overlap for a moment as the baton is being passed. So it is with the past and upcoming seasons in the Church's Liturgical "passing of the baton."

As though being born and laid in a manger in Bethlehem was not humbling enough, Our Lord chose to lower himself in the lowest spot in the Earth’s surface, the river Jordan. There he would be baptized for our sake and God as Trinity would be revealed.

Providentially in the civil calendar as we cut away from the previous year and open to a New year, Our New Born Savior likewise undergoes a cutting away and an openness to the new.