The Dispatch
Christ the King, exalted by the Cross
Readings: • 1 Sam 5:1-3 • Ps 122:1-2, 3-4, 4-5 • Col 1:12-20 • Lk 23:35-43 “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I […]
crucifixion
The Dispatch
“They killed Him”: Deicide and Holy Saturday
The Christ is dead; the corpse of the Son of God lies on a cold slab in a suffocating, lightless tomb. Holy Saturday is a difficult day to keep holy. My parish marks it with […]
Columns
The Paschal Mystery proclaimed in creation
My last column delved into the Church’s belief that each creature—even those we find irritating or inconsequential—mirrors the beauty of the divine Logos in our world. Yet, even as every feature of the cosmos reflects […]
Essay
The San Damiano Crucifix: A Theological and Spiritual Interpretation
This Cross painted on wood initially hung in the Church of San Damiano, situated half way between hillside town of Assisi above and the Spoletan Valley below. It came to prominence when Jesus spoke to […]
News Briefs
Shroud of Turin gets ‘true crime’ treatment in science-driven documentary
Filmmaker Robert Orlando, standing before a negative image of the Shroud of Turin, says he was prompted to investigate the purported burial cloth of Jesus in part because of a search to answer "big questions" about life and faith follo… […]
The Dispatch
Palm Sunday and four direct, confounding questions
Readings: • Mt. 21:1-11 • Isa. 50:4-7 • Psa. 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24 • Phil. 2:6-11 • Mt. 26:14-27:66 When hearing a passage as dramatic as today’s Gospel, what do you focus on? What catches […]
The Dispatch
A Cross-less Christianity is a lie of the devil
Readings: • Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7 • Psa 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17 • Rom 5:12-19 • Matt 4:1-11 “He that seeks not the cross of Christ,” wrote St. John of the Cross, “seeks not the glory […]
News Briefs
Pope Francis: Through the paradox of the cross, Jesus ‘embraced our death’
Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of Asti, in northern Italy, for the Solemnity of Christ the King on Nov. 20, 2022. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Nov 20, 2022 / 07:25 am (CNA).
On the Solemnity of Christ the King, Pope… […]
The Dispatch
St. Anselm, Joseph Ratzinger, and the Atonement
In his 2013 book The Father’s Will: Christ’s Crucifixion and the Goodness of God (Oxford University Press), Fr. Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P., launched several severe critiques against St. Anselm’s model of the atonement. “Anselm’s solution […]
Essay
“My flesh for the life of the world”: Ronald Knox on the Mass as a Sacrifice
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” —John 6:51 […]