“Christ, in his abandonment, stirs us to seek him and to love him and those who are themselves abandoned. For in them we see not only people in need, but Jesus himself, abandoned.”

Pope Francis, recovering from bronchitis, delivered a forceful Palm Sunday homily asking us to remember the “many abandoned Christs” in our own time, or those who experience suffering and solitude.

We should focus on what today’s reading outlines as a uniter, that being a sanctuary under God.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that amid all the polarization and turmoil found online among Catholics, we can still come together to pray for an old man who happens to be our pope.

A Reflection for Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent, by Zac Davis

“If those full seminaries had forged holy pastors, and the traditional formation imparted to them (were) solid and true, we wouldn’t have to mourn so many scandals today,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, said.