Posted on 09/30/2025 21:10 PM (CatholicCulture.org - Catholic World News)
At his regular weekly public audience on October 1, Pope Leo XIV said that “Jesus’ Resurrection is not a bombastic triumph,” but a triumph of love.
The Resurrected Christ shows no sign of anger and no interest in revenge against those who unjustly persecuted Him, the Pope observed. His first words to his disciples are: “Peace be with you.”
”Jesus is now fully reconciled with everything that He has suffered, the Pope continued. “There is no shadow of resentment.”
The Pontiff concluded:
This is the heart of the mission of the Church: not to administer power over others, but to communicate the joy of those who are loved precisely when they did not deserve it.
Posted on 09/30/2025 04:09 AM (CatholicCulture.org - Catholic World News)
Pope Leo XIV has declined to offer a clear opinion on the controversy surrounding the Lifetime Achievement award that the Chicago archdiocese is scheduled to give Senator Richard Durbin.
Questioned by reporters at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, the Pope acknowledged that he is aware of the controversy, but said “I am not terribly familiar with the particular case.”
However, the Pontiff went on to give an unambiguous statement of the “seamless garment” approach, saying:
Someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life. Someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro life.
The Pope declined to give his support to either Cardinal Blase Cupich, who has defended the award for Durbin, or the ten American bishops who have protested the honor. Instead he said that it is important to “find the way forward as a Church. The Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear.”
Posted on 09/30/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
Today is the Memorial of St. Jerome (345-420). Jerome was born in Dalmatia of a Christian, was baptized in Rome, while taking his classical courses. He then studied under the best masters in foreign cities. But the Church had need of this extraordinarily gifted man. Jerome heard and obeyed the divine call, made a vow of celibacy, and withdrew for four years to a hermitage in the Syrian desert. The Holy Father soon summoned Jerome to Rome and entrusted him with the enormous task of revising the Latin Bible. This work, which took 30 years to complete, is the Vulgate version of the Scriptures. He also wrote many other works, mostly commentaries on the books of the Bible.
Posted on 09/29/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
The liturgy celebrates the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, archangels who are venerated in the tradition of the Church. Michael (Who is like God?) was the archangel who fought against Satan and all his evil angels, defending all the friends of God. He is the protector of all humanity from the snares of the devil. Gabriel (Strength of God) announced to Zachariah the forthcoming birth of John the Baptist, and to Mary, the birth of Jesus. His greeting to the Virgin, "Hail, full of grace," is one of the most familiar and frequent prayers of the Christian people. Raphael (Medicine of God) is the archangel who took care of Tobias on his journey.
Posted on 09/28/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
Gospel Excerpt, Cycle C, Lk 16:19-31: There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table.
Posted on 09/27/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
The Church celebrates the Memorial of St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), who was born in Gascony, France, and died in Paris. He studied theology at Toulouse and was ordained a priest in 1600. As a young priest he fell into the hands of Mohammedan pirates who carried him off to Africa. After his return to France he became successively parish priest, grand almoner of the galley slaves, and spiritual director of the Visitation nuns. He founded the Congregation of the Priests of the Mission or Lazarists to preach especially to country people. With the help of Louise de Marillac he established the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity to care for young girls, for the needy, sick, and foundlings. He died at the St. Lazarus House in Paris, which was the center of his Congregation. Leo XIII proclaimed him special patron of charitable institutions.
Posted on 09/26/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
Today is the Optional Memorial of Saints Cosmas and Damian (d. 303). According to tradition, Saints Cosmas and Damian suffered martyrdom in Syria during the Roman persecution of Diocletian. Not much is known about them, but tradition holds they were twin brothers and medical doctors, never charging a fee for their medical services. Their names are in the Roman Canon of the Mass and they are honored in both the Eastern and Western Church and highly celebrated in Italian communities.
Posted on 09/25/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
The Roman Martyrology commemorates St. Finbarr (550-623), bishop (and patron) of Cork, Ireland. He was a native of Connaught, and instituted a monastery or school at Lough Eirc, to which such numbers of disciples flocked, that it changed a desert into a large city. This was the origin of the city of Cork, which was built chiefly upon stakes, in marshy little islands formed by the river Lea. His baptismal name was Lochan; the surname Finbarr, or Barr the White, was given to him after. He was Bishop of Cork seventeen years, and died in the midst of his friends at Cloyne, fifteen miles from Cork. His body was buried in his own cathedral at Cork, and his relics, some years after, were put in a silver shrine, and kept there, this great church bearing his name to this day. St. Finbarr's cave or hermitage was shown in a monastery which seems to have been begun by our Saint, and stood to the west of Cork.
Posted on 09/24/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
The Memorial of Our Lady of Walsingham was reinstated to the liturgical calendar in England in 2000. The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is entrusted to Mary under this title. This feast day celebrates the shrine in Norfolk, England, which was a popular medieval pilgrimage site. In 1061, the lady of the manor of Walsingham, Richeldis de Faverches, was instructed by a vision of the Virgin Mary to build in her village an exact replica of the house in Nazareth in which the Annunciation had taken place. The original house was destroyed by Henry VIII, but by 1897 the chapel was reconstructed and pilgrimage was restored both for Anglicans and for Catholics. On March 29, 2020, England was rededicated as the "Dowry of Mary" with Our Lady of Walsingham being the central Marian devotion around the rededication.
Posted on 09/23/2025 00:00 AM (Catholic Culture Liturgical Year)
The Church celebrates the Memorial of St. Pius of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), more popularly known as Padre Pio was born in 1887 in the small Italian village of Pietrelcina. He joined the Capuchin Friars at the age of sixteen and was ordained a priest seven years later. For fifty years at the monastery of San Giovanni Rotundo he was a much sought after spiritual advisor, confessor, and intercessor whose life was devoted to the Eucharist and prayer. Yet despite such notoriety, he would often say, "I only want to be a poor friar who prays."
