Pope Francis said today that he was deeply moved and encouraged at having received more than 100,000 small video messages of thanks and support on the eighth anniversary of his election as pope.

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?

Louise Glück’s poem, “Wild Iris,” begins with a description of death, the sort of death something made of earth and growing there might recount if it could speak.

I needed my beloved son to teach me once more to gaze with desire upon the Blessed Sacrament, to receive with joy the body and blood of Our Lord.

Read Pope Francis’ homily at the Chrism Mass: “The Lord always gives us what we ask for, but he does so in his divine way. That way involves the cross.”

The early Christian record is not what we should expect from the human weakness to exploit the truth to serve one’s own ends.