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Easter Friday! One of the few Fridays of the year that is completely free from any penitential acts, and, in fact, should be treated like a Sunday! Feast! Eat meat! Have dessert after every meal! The Lord has truly risen!
(And your probably wondering, “great, what is with the half-eaten croissant?” Well, I forgot to take a picture before I ate it, and the crumbs look so flaky, you get a better idea of how wonderful it was.)
This photo has been making the rounds on the internet, you’ve probably already seen it, but I wanted to share it again. Pictured here is Bl. John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. Note: There has been some discussion as to if the man in the middle is in fact Cardinal Bergoglio. I google the photo several times, and found a couple of newspapers carrying it and captioned as being Benedict XVI, Francis, and John Paul II. However, this does not mean the media is infallible (are we shocked?), nor am I for that matter. If in fact the third man in the photo is not Bergoglio, well, my friends, you have experienced a true sacred-monkeys-in-the-Vatican-moment! 
In the mean time, just appreciate the photo for what it is worth.
(Do we call him Pope Francis or Pope Francis I? I think it is Pope Francis until there is a Pope Francis II, and then he would be Francis I. Just like a John Doe, doesn’t become John Doe Sr. until there is a John Doe Jr., but I don’t know for sure. Need to do some research on that one.)
This morning Pope Francis visited the basilica of Mary Major in Rome, to pray to our Lady. If you haven’t been (or even if you have) to Mary Major, check out the 3D views here, it is an amazing church!
The Installation of Pope Francis as Bishop of Rome is scheduled for March 19, 2013 – the feast of St. Joseph. They should reveal his coat of arms them, I can’t wait to see what it will be!
We have a new pope! Pope Francis! Formerly Cardinal Jorge Marie Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aries!
Happy feast of St. Lucy! I found this painting by Domenico Veneziano, but I am not sure it is the right St. Lucy simply because she still has her eyes (they were put out as torture before she was killed), but then I don’t know everything about St. Lucy.
Source: etsy.com via Trena on Pinterest
Today is the feast of everyone’s favorite, St. Nicholas! I was Christmas shopping on etsy.com and I found the cool postcard up above, I wish I had found it a few weeks ago, but maybe I’ll buy a few now and save them for next year. . .
And one more post before the weekend!
Today is the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran! Check out the amazing panoramic views of the basilica posted by the Holy See.
A few interesting facts about St. John Lateran:
1) There is no St. John Lateran – in Italian the basilica is Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano, or the Basilica of St. John in the Lateran. Lateran refers to the name of the family that owned the palace and grounds before they were seized. I forget who seized them, but I am pretty sure it was an emperor and I think it might have been Nero. Later the Lateran Palace was given to the Pope by Emperor Constantine.
2) The Basilica is the official seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, not St. Peter’s Basilica. Although the Pope resides at the Vatican he reigns from St. John Lateran.
3) Oooh, sources, yay! I was right, the palace was seized during the reign of Nero. . .
Today is the feast of Blessed Pope John Paul II! I had the enormous grace to live during the life of Pope John Paul II, he was the only pope I knew until recently. I was also blessed to be in Rome while Pope John Paul II was dying – I also there while he was lying in state, for his funeral, and for the election of Pope Benedict XVI.
During his last days I was particularly struck by one thing, the pope of the youth was willing to grow old and die. He let us see him as his body succumbed to age and Parkinson’s disease. When the current world practically shouts in our faces “Be young and beautiful always! Youth is everything! Never grow up! Never grow old!” Pope John Paul II showed us that we truly had nothing to fear in this life, even age and death, if our eyes were firmly fixed on the next.
(The picture above is from the Marvel Comic The Life of Pope John Paul II.)
Happy belated feast day of St. Augustine (it was yesterday)! And the day before was the fest of his mother, St. Monica. St. Augustine could be one of the patrons of this blog because Sebastian mentions him in Brideshead Revisited. Sebastian uses a modified quote from Augustine’s Confessions saying at one point, “God, make me good – but not yet.” St. Augustine had a pretty wild life before answering the call of God, in many respects just like Sebastian.
Check out this cool medal that incorporates both St. Monica and St. Augustine! I particularly like the shape of this one. I wish it came in gold. . .
Mass of the Assumption ~ Responsorial Psalm ~ Ps 45:10, 11, 12, 16R.
R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.
The queen takes her place at your right hand in gold of Ophir.
R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.
Hear, O daughter, and see; turn your ear,
forget your people and your father’s house.
R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.
So shall the king desire your beauty;
for he is your lord.
R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.
They are borne in with gladness and joy;
they enter the palace of the king.
R. The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.
A few years ago I had an opportunity to visit Auschwitz while I was in Poland. I can’t say it was on the list of things I wanted to do, but it needed to be done.
Walking around the compound was beyond depressing. Not necessarily because of the immediate appearance of evil either. When you first walk up to the gate it looks like an elementary school, just the taunting words over the gate remind you this isn’t a school. There is an atmosphere that sets your teeth on edge, and worries your gut. And as you walk further and further in, layer upon layer of the camp is exposed, and you realize that your body can sense evil that happened over 50 years ago. The further into the buildings you go, you find yourself going farther and farther down into the darkness of the Nazi mind. The camp stops looking like an elementary school, and more like a horror film. Then you come to death row, the starvation bunker.
Eventually, when I was so completely sick of the place I thought I was going to vomit, I came to a different cell. It wasn’t different in appearance, it was dark and damp, and horrible. But the peace that emanated from that cell was palpable. It was shrouded in a calmness and tranquillity that did not exist anywhere else in that horrible camp. And it was light. Not a visible light, but a brightness that shone through the evil that saturated that place. It cut through time.
It was here, in this cell, that St. Maximilian Kolbe laid down his life in exchanged for the life of another. As I stood there, in the very room where this saint died I was not sad, but triumpant. Even the horribleness of Auschwitz could not make love disappear, vanish or go away. It could not even diminish love in the tiniest bit; no greater love exists than to lay one’s life down for another.
