Jubilee Holy Year 2025: Pilgrims of Hope
April is the month dedicated to the Divine Mercy
By His wounds we are healed.
DIVINE MERCY, INSPIRING HOPE AGAINST ALL HOPE,
I TRUST IN YOU.
OUR LADY OF SORROWS,
SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL,
PRAY FOR US.
And to strengthen Him an angel from heaven appeared to Him.
(Luke 22:43)
Welcome to Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord and our entrance into Holy Week 2025.
You ask, "Why, why, why?" and rightly so. Look at the cross, venerate it, embrace it in your prayer. Jesus had to go through darkness, pain, and death so as to give meaning to our darkness, our pain, and our death. But more than this: suffering and death become friends because through them we have received new life which will be ours now and after death, and for always.
(Cardinal Basil Hume, The Mystery of the Cross)
For our reflection this Holy Week, here are the Communion Antiphons for each day. When was the last time you prayed with a Communion Antiphon?
Father, if this chalice cannot pass without my drinking it, your will be done.
(Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord)
Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress.
Turn your ear towards me; on the day I call, speedily answer me.
(Monday of Holy Week)
God did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all.
(Tuesday of Holy Week)
The Son did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
(Wednesday of Holy Week)
I will sing for ever of your mercies, O Lord, through all ages my mouth will proclaim your fidelity.
(Chrism Mass)
This is the Body that will be given up for you; this is the Chalice of the new covenant in my Blood, says the Lord, do this, whenever you receive it, in memory of me.
(Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper)
And for Friday, the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord, the verse before the Gospel.
Christ became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because us this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every other name.
We continue to "look forward to holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing" (RB 49:7) and pray:
O God, who in this season
give your Church the grace
to imitate devoutly the Blessed Virgin Mary
in contemplating the Passion of Christ,
grant, we pray, through her intercession,
that we cling more firmly each day
to Your only Begotten Son
and come at last to the fullness of grace.
Dear Jesus, grant us the grace to resolutely follow you all the days of our lives. Venerable Fulton Sheen gives us something else to ponder ...
So when God pulls down the curtain on the drama of the world's redemption, He will not ask what part we played, but only how well we the played the role assigned to us.
(The Wisdom of Fulton Sheen, Blue Sparrow, 2021, entry for April 13, p. 39)
POPE SAINT MARTIN I,
SAINT MARGARET OF CASTELLO, OP,
BLESSED LUCIAN BOTOVASOA,
BLESSED PETER GOONZALEZ, OP,
SAINT BERNADETTE SOUBIROUS,
SAINT DONAN,
BLESSED BAPTIST SPAGNOLI OF MANTUA,
BLESSED CLARA GAMBACORTA, OP,
BLESSED MARIA MANCINI, OP,
SAINT LASERIAN OR MOLAISE,
BLESSED MARIE-ANNE BLONDIN,
BLESSED MARY OF THE INCARNATION,
SAINT ALPHEGE,
BLESSED ISNARD OF CHIAMPO, OP,
BLESSED SIBYLLINA BISCOSSI, OP,
PRAY FOR US.
Today's photo: Passionflower. From the archives, July 11, 2018.
© Gertrude Feick 2025
