From 1982: “When unemployment and nuclear weapons sound the notes of despair and dread in our land, many Catholics too may find the sober lessons of Lent more instructive than ever this year.”

“Isn’t it odd that 2,000 years after the Resurrection the emphasis in Christianity is still more on the cross than on the empty tomb?” wrote Frank Moan, S.J., in 1982.

Fasting, in addition to being obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, remains a common Lenten practice for many. But there are nuances to fasting that are not always well-known.

Whatever else sin is, it is always a forgetting that we are loved by God. And the more we sin, the more we forget.

The message of Easter is not a mirage or a magic formula, Pope Francis said. But it does offer hope to a world suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic and many sources of conflict.

If Christians, especially white Christians, vilify Derek Chauvin, we absolve ourselves of our own complicity in the racist structures that permitted him to place and pin his knee on George Floyd’s neck. Surely it is not us, Lord?