the christian calendar on Martyrdom

Valentine’s Day commemorates the date on which Valentine, a roman priest, was executed by order of Emperor Claudius II. Claudius II was embroiled in a number of wars and believed that married men mad...

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were ...

Reflection Sister Helen Prejean’s 1993 book Dead Man Walking , adapted into a 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, tells the story of her work with two convicted killers on death row. Sh...

Leader: O righteous Father, Your Son obeyed Your holy will for the sake of our salvation. Through Your Spirit, give Your Church on earth unity of faith, that the world may know that You sent Your So...

Pastor: Almighty and everlasting God, who willed that your Son should bear for us the pains of the cross and thereby remove from us the power of the adversary, help us to remember and give thanks al...

Suffering is nothing by itself. But suffering shared with the passion of Christ is a wonderful gift, the most beautiful gift, a token of love.

Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the huma...

Reflection It is striking that after Jesus’ death there are no close companions left to claim his body. All his public followers scattered. Only a secret follower, Joseph of Arimathea, accompanied by...

Pastor: Almighty and everlasting God, as Isaac once carried the wood of the sacrifice on his back up the mountain, only to be delivered, so You willed Your Son Jesus Christ to carry the wood of the ...

For the glory of God is most fully revealed in the descent of the Son into suffering, death and the passivity of the grave, that which is the kenosis of all beauty.

I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.

Leader: O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus,  People: the founder and perfecter of our faith, Leader: who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, ...

Leader: For him who knew no sin God made to be sin on our behalf; so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. People: For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the u...

"Maundy" What? Maundy Thursday takes its name from the Latin version of John 13:34: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are ...

Mount Calvary is the academy of love.

Gracious God, you freely embraced death for us. Every day we choose our own will. We choose not to die to ourselves for you. We take the gift you gave us and squander it. Please give us the courage ...

Let all your thoughts be with the Most High, and direct your humble prayers unceasingly to Christ. If you cannot contemplate high and heavenly things, take refuge in the Passion of Christ, and love to...

Alleluia. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;     therefore let us keep the feast, Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,     but with the unleavened bread of since...

Introduction Only John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus washed his disciple’s feet during his last meal with them. The other texts for this day remember the Passover and the context it sets for Jesus’s w...

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find...

This vortex of dying and rising—Jesus’ and ours in him—is the paschal mystery. Christians still tell it and taste it, especially when we gather for worship on Sunday. Christ’s Pascha—the word for the...

In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to evade being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ; [people] have sought to procure the carrying out of God’s order by a shortc...

Pastor: Almighty and everlasting God, as Isaac once carried the wood of the sacrifice on his back up the mountain, only to be delivered, so You willed Your Son Jesus Christ to carry the wood of the ...

Amazed, bewildered, they are gathered around him, whose pondered resolution comes to rest, withdrawing him from all the ties that bound him--a stranger gliding by with thoughts unguessed. He feels tha...

The story of Passion-Tide and Easter is the story of the winning of that freedom and of that victory over the evils of Time. The burden of the guilt is accepted (“He was made Sin”), the last agony of ...

Ride on, ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die; O Christ, thy triumphs now begin O’er captive death and conquered sin

Reflection “I took the money, I spiked your drink, you miss too much these days if you stop to think… waves of regret and waves of joy, I reached out for the one I tried to destroy,” sings Bono of Ju...

Reflection In Isak Dinesen’s 1958 short story, “Babette’s Feast,” we see Babette Hersant, a 19th century French chef from Paris, seek political asylum in the Jutland region of Denmark in the home of ...

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always enjoyed the public nature of Ash Wednesday. That is to say, what happens when we leave an Ash Wednesday service and there is the sign of the cross, for all who ...

Self-denial means knowing only Christ, and no longer oneself. It means seeing only Christ, who goes ahead of us, and no longer the path that is too difficult for us… . Self-denial is saying only: He g...