“The people who come are not dead in a technical sense, but they have lost their lives. And they don’t have a new one yet, so they are terribly beaten, and terribly vulnerable.”

By listening we all walk together. Along the route of life we must encourage forgiveness but not exoneration.

“It is clericalism that prevents the church today from being missionary,” Bishop Cipollini said. “I have great hope that the synod on synodality can make clericalism collapse—perhaps not entirely, but at least in its major strongholds.”

A Reflection for the Saturday of the First Week of Lent, by Simcha Fisher.

If you think meatless Fridays or forgoing sweets for the duration of Lent is hard, imagine giving up English—or whatever your primary language is.