Fidei Catholicae

Walking with Jesus Christ Through The Week Called Holy

This Sunday marks the official end of Lent and the beginning of the high holy days of our faith. Holy Week is not just any week of the year: it is the hinge upon which our Christian faith and life hangs. If we wish to benefit spiritually from the week, we must decide to get under the surface of the ceremonies that Church offers for our edification and experience the true meaning of these events. We must commit ourselves to walk through the great mysteries of our salvation with Jesus this week and discover how good God has been to us in calling us out of the darkness of our sin into the light of His Life.

Palm Sunday connects us with the enthusiasm of the people of Israel for their salvation. In Jesus they saw, at least for a moment, their Messiah. They welcomed their humble Savior riding a donkey into Jerusalem but they did not recognize that humility was the only doorway to His Kingdom. We must admit that we are like them: fickle, quick to follow a fad and then just as quick to drop it, shouting praises one week and then murderous threats the next. This is where the journey of Holy Week has to start: we must examine our lack of constancy in the practice of the faith and ask Christ to strengthen us for worship.

On Monday of Holy Week we read in the daily Mass readings that the Pharisees deliberately plot to kill Him. Imagine how this attempt to annihilate their Savior must have pierced the Sacred Heart! On Tuesday, the Church announces the sad reality that members of the Lord’s own inner circle betrayed and denied Him; and on Wednesday, Judas is shown negotiating our Blessed Lord’s life for a few pieces of rotten silver. If we have the honesty, we will admit that we are no better than these disciples—we can’t pass the testing that the devil metes out to us. The only question is whether we will despair of our weaknesses like Judas and die or conquer them like Peter and become holy.

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by Father Euteneuer

Teach us true respect for all / Stir response to duty’s call / Strengthen us the weak to cherish / Give us vision
lest we perish.

These inspiring words are from the Jamaican National Anthem. They perfectly encapsulate the kind of commitment to the vulnerable that Jamaica needs to manifest if it is to have a future. The good pro-life people on this island are struggling hard—before abortion gets legalized—to convince their nation that abortion is a deal with the devil that will kill their national soul.

I am writing primarily to ask your prayers for Jamaica right now. Jamaica is a very Christian nation with deep-seated Christian values that often get trampled upon by hedonistic lifestyles that they have learned from their northern neighbors. Their unwed pregnancy rate is high, poverty is endemic, crime and murders are rampant and they always talk about themselves as a Third World Country. However, even though they are a relatively small island lodged in between two huge American continents they are second to none in their love for life. The vast majority of Jamaicans really understand that there is no reason to kill a baby, ever. They call in to radio talk shows and write letters to the editor to let their pro-life opinions be known, and their pro-life heart will save them.

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Dear Spirit and Life® readers,

I take this opportunity to invite you to a marvelous pro-life pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico from April 6th through April 10th! I myself have been on pilgrimage to this spiritual center of the Americas more than 15 times and never pass up an opportunity to visit this blessed place which showed so clearly the victory of life over death.

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“Rick Majerus is more of a basket case than a basketball coach. His sicknesses all fit so neatly together: He has a modern anti-Catholic ‘Jesuit’ education; he embraces superficial, undigested rhetoric about the issues; he is a jock pretending to be a scientist; and he exhibits a defiant disobedience to religious authority. Dante would have a field day — no pun intended — putting this guy in the pit of hell. He should be excommunicated along with all the Jesuits who ‘educated’ him.” - Father Euteneuer in response to the Rick Majerus, Archbishop Raymond Burke controversy

The source of the quote is on Matt Abbott’s site, here.

by Father Euteneuer

It goes without saying that the annual March for Life is one of the most exciting and unifying events in the international movement to defend life. 100,000+ pro-lifers converged on our nation’s capital this week, more than half of whom were under the age of 25, and declared that the slaughter of the innocents is never going to be accepted as a permanent institution in our nation. Abortion-promoters would be hard-pressed to show the world that they could sustain such a massive public movement in their favor for 35 straight years. I can only say, “Bravo!” to all the people—especially the kids—who made great sacrifices to join us in Washington this week.

It also goes without saying that the little tin gods in the media did their level best to ignore and obfuscate this colossal event. When the homosexual propaganda film star, Heath Ledger, died of a drug overdose on two nights before the March, that provided the hedonistic media the perfect reason to wail and gnash their teeth for a prolonged period of time about their immoral agenda and derail coverage of the life event. I will pray for Mr. Ledger’s immortal soul, but at the same time his death is a study in contrasts with the March for Life. The Brokeback Mountain star was only 28 at the time of his demise. It was his massage therapist who discovered his body that morning. A thumbnail sketch of his adult life might look something like this: Hollywood glitter, money and status, cohabitating with a girlfriend, a child out of wedlock, an activist for an immoral lifestyle, drug overdose and then death at a very young age. It’s a real tragedy, but the culture of hedonism and death was dramatically played against the culture of life and life in Washington DC that day.

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