“ALL THE great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once; that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly.

“In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask: (more…)

HOLY WEEK in medieval England involved elaborate ceremony and intense religious emotion. The ceremonials began on Palm Sunday during which the entire community processed around the church courtyard behind a shrine with a silken canopy containing the Blessed Sacrament.

A crucifix was placed in an often elaborate sepulchre on Good Friday. Lay people would “creep to the cross” — a practice later abolished as superstitious during the Protestant Reform. It involved walking barefoot on one’s knees

In The Middle Ages, Thomas J. Shahan writes:

In the very popular fifteenth-century religious manual already referred to, the “Dives et Pauper,” the devotion to the crucifix, and especially the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday known as the “Creeping to the Cross,” is explained with admirable correctness and terseness. Few modern English books of devotion can boast a language so chaste and idiomatic, or so much clearness and conciseness of statement, or so much unction and pathos. And are not the following lines a noble paraphrase of the great mediaeval hymn to the dolors of Jesus Christ Crucified, notably the “Salve Caput Cruentatum “? (more…)

  

 "WE KNOW how great is the gift which Our Lord bestows upon us in the Blessed Sacrament when we consider that in this Adorable Sacrament He gives us something of Himself, aye, of His own Person; Himself really and substantial, whole and entire, in His humanity and in His divinity. He announced this to us in establishing this sublime and adorable Sacrament at the Last Supper. For then Jesus, Our Saviour and Redeemer, did not say, "This is bread, and that signifies My body," nor did He say, "This is and remains bread, and shall symbolize to you My body;" nor did the apostles hear from His divine lips, "As this was bread, so it remains bread, and shall be a memorial of My body." No, those truthful, holy lips said clearly and plainly to the apostles,"This which I have in My hand, which you see, which appears like bread is My body." And nowadays, people do violence to the words of Jesus, twisting them at their pleasure, and say we have nothing more in this wonderful Sacrament than in the other sacraments; they say that as in the other sacraments we have water, oil and chrism, so in this Adorable Sacrament we have but bread. Certainly it is true that we are purified by water in baptism; strengthened by chrism in confirmation; anointed in sickness by consecrated oils; but, ye who have true faith, your Lord does not…

"THERE is no sinner, however great may be his crimes, there is no heretic, or infidel, who has not his share in this Precious Blood, whose infinite merit is such, that it could redeem a million worlds more guilty than our own." --- Dom Prosper Guéranger, "Holy Wednesday," The Liturgical Year  

"THIS—to me—looks like part of an overall setup to destroy the American economy and usher in Schwab’s 'Great Reset': plummeting markets, rising inflation, digital currency, massive unemployment, and (eventually) universal basic income and social credit scores. "Just so there is no confusion, let me restate: I am a “pro-tariff man.” But the time to retain those tariffs was 30 years ago, before so many of our industries lay in their graveyards." --- James Perloff  

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“OUR Lord’s word effected what it said. It made her the Mother of men therefore, not merely by an outward official proclamation, but in the reality of her heart. He opened up there new fountains of inexhaustible love. He caused Her to love men as He loved them, as nearly as her heart could come to His. He as it were multiplied Himself in the souls of sinners millions of millions of times, and gave her love enough for all. And such love! so constant, so burning, so eloquent, so far above all earthly maternal love both in hopefulness, tenderness, and perseverance! And what was this new love but a new power of sorrow? We cannot rightly understand Mary’s sorrow at the Crucifixion under any circumstances, simply because it is above us. But we shall altogether miss of those just conceptions, which we may attain to, unless we bear in mind that she became our Mother at the foot of the Cross, not merely by a declaration of her appointment, but by a veritable creation through the effectual word of God, which at the moment enlarged her broken heart, and fitted it with new and ample affections, causing thereby an immeasurable increase of her pains. It was truly in labour that she travailed with us, when we came to the birth. The bitterness of Eve’s curse environed her spotless soul unutterably in that hour of our spiritual nativity.”

— — The Foot of the Cross, Frederick William Faber, D.D. (more…)

"THE WORLD IS A MYSTERY. Life, time, death, doubt, good and evil, and the uncertainty which hangs about our eternal lot, are all mysteries. They lie burning on the heart at times. But the Crucifix is the meaning of them, the solution of them all. It puts the question, and answers it as well. It is the reading of all riddles, the certainty of all doubts, and the centre of all faiths, the fountain of all hopes, the symbol of all loves. It reveals man to himself, and God to man. It holds a light to time that it may look into eternity and be reassured. It is a sweet sight to look upon in our times of joy; for it makes the joy tender without reproving it, and elevates without straining it. In sorrow, there is no sight like it. It draws forth our tears and makes them fall faster, and so softly that they become sweeter than very smiles. It gives light in the darkness, and the silence of its preaching is always eloquent, and death is life in the face of that grave earnest of eternal life. The Crucifix is always the same, yet ever varying its expression so as to be to us in all our moods just what we most want and it is best for us to have. No wonder saints have hung over their Crucifixes in such trances of contented love." --- The Foot…

"WHAT cross we shall meet today we know not; sometimes we cannot guess. But we know that if we meet Jesus we shall meet a cross, and evening will find us with the burden on our backs." -- The Foot of the Cross, Frederick William Faber, D.D.1858  

  

AND when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it. Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side. And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. St. Luke, Chapter 19:41-44  

"THERE is nothing more peculiar to God's nature than to be merciful and to spare. To understand this rightly, ft must be considered that God is our father. Our divine Saviour assures us of this. He has taught us to pray, "Our Father who art in heaven." Again and again in Holy Writ He calls God by the endearing name of "Our Father." Now, what is meant by the term " father "? Let us try to understand fully the meaning of this beautiful word. We see a poor man laboring day and night, watching and praying, suffering cold and hunger. Who is he? Why does he endure all this ? It is a father. He has children whom he loves, and would wish to see happy. That thought makes him forget all his own sufferings. Should one of those children go astray and become wicked, how sorely is the heart of that poor father grieved ! But still he keeps on suffering and toiling, even for his wayward child. He says to himself, " Who knows? perhaps my child will have more sense by and by. Perhaps he will be sorry for his faults, and lead a better life." "Now, such a father is God — a good, kind, compassionate father, who is infinitely merciful." --- The Prodigal Son, or, The Sinner's Return to God, Fr. Michael Müller, 1875  

  

In The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580, Eamon Duffy describes Palm Sunday before Protestantism took hold in England:

The Palm Sunday procession was by the end of the Middle Ages the most elaborate and eloquent of the processions of the Roman rite, with the possible exception of the Sarum rite. The parish Mass began as usual with the blessing and sprinkling of holy water. Immediately that had been done the story of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and greeting by the crowds with palms was read from St. John’s Gospel. The priest then blessed flowers and green branches, which were called palms but were usually yew, box, or willow. The palms were distributed and clergy and people processed out of the church, led by a painted wooden cross without a figure. The procession moved to a large cross erected in the churchyard, normally on the north side of the building at its east end, the choir singing a series of anthems recapitulating the biblical story of Palm Sunday (Pl. 3). (more…)

  

YOU don't need to follow the Austin Metcalf and Karmelo Anthony show to know how serious black crime is. In March, 2025 alone, 17 whites lost their lives to black violence. Here is a quick round-up. These cases didn't make the national news. A white person is killed by a black person every 12 hours in the United States. That's two white people killed every day by black people. Compared to one black person killed by a white person every 96 hours in the United States. That's one black person killed every 4 days by white people. Now, inject total population size comparison. Whites are 196 million of the United States' total population at 60%. Blacks are 42 million of the United States' total population at 13%.