His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, May He Rest in Peace

 On this very sad day for Her Majesty the Queen, the British people, the people of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Her Majesty's other realms, the Commonwealth, and much of the world, I can think of no more fitting and beautiful words than those Alfred, Lord Tennyson addressed to Queen Victoria in dedicating to Prince Albert his great narrative poem, Idylls of the King.

Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure;

Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,

Remembering all the beauty of that star

Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made

One light together, but has past and leaves

The Crown a lonely splendour. 

May all love,

His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee,

The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee,

The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee,

The love of all Thy people comfort Thee,

Till God's love set Thee at his side again!

 

A Blessed Easter to All

 

A BLESSED EASTER TO ALL

“Surrexit Christus, spes mea” – “Christ, my hope, has risen” (Easter Sequence).

May the jubilant voice of the Church reach all of you with the words which the ancient hymn puts on the lips of Mary Magdalene, the first to encounter the risen Jesus on Easter morning. She ran to the other disciples and breathlessly announced: “I have seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18). We too, who have journeyed through the desert of Lent and the sorrowful days of the Passion, today raise the cry of victory: “He has risen! He has truly risen!”

Every Christian relives the experience of Mary Magdalene. It involves an encounter which changes our lives: the encounter with a unique Man who lets us experience all God’s goodness and truth, who frees us from evil not in a superficial and fleeting way, but sets us free radically, heals us completely and restores our dignity. This is why Mary Magdalene calls Jesus “my hope”: he was the one who allowed her to be reborn, who gave her a new future, a life of goodness and freedom from evil. “Christ my hope” means that all my yearnings for goodness find in him a real possibility of fulfilment: with him I can hope for a life that is good, full and eternal, for God himself has drawn near to us, even sharing our humanity.

- Pope Benedict XVI, Urbi et Orbi Easter 2012.

The Queen's Message and Celebration for Commonwealth Day 2021

Elevation Music - How Great Thou Art

In loving memory and gratitude for a special friend on her birthday.

Our Great and Prophetic Pope

 

"We will soon have priests reduced to the role of social workers and the message of faith reduced to political vision. Everything will seem lost, but at the right time, at the most dramatic stage of the crisis, the Church will be reborn. She will be smaller, poorer, almost catacombal, but also more holy. Because it will no longer be the Church of those who seek to please the world, but the Church of the faithful to God and his eternal law. Rebirth will be the work of a small rest, seemingly insignificant yet indomitable, passed through a process of purification. Because that's how God works. Against evil, a small herd resists."

~ His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

The Christmas Broadcast of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2020

Christmas Eve in Washington

One of my favorite songs which brings back so many memories of Christmases over the decades and of friends, many of whom now live with the Lord and in my heart.  It is a beautiful and exciting city where, when I was growing up, I wanted to spend my life, and with God's grace, I had so many rich and extraordinary experiences.  Deo Gratias!