Good Tuesday morning. The world kept moving overnight. Here's what happened, and what your faith has to say about it.
✝ Tuesday of the 5th week of Lent
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Pope Leo XIV
Pope on Middle East: 'What harms them, harms all of humanity'
Pope Leo XIV calls for an end to violence around the world after praying the Angelus, urging perseverance in prayer because we cannot remain silent in the face of innocent suffering. His words offer a direct papal response to the escalating Middle East crisis dominating today's news.
Response to World Events
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John 8:21-30
"Jesus said to the Pharisees: ‘I am going away; you will look for me and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. ’ The Jews said to one another, ‘Will he kill himself."
| Rosary Mystery of the Day | |
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Today's Mysteries |
Tuesday: Sorrowful Mysteries |
Sorrowful Mysteries
- 1. The Agony in the Garden
- 2. The Scourging at the Pillar
- 3. The Crowning with Thorns
- 4. The Carrying of the Cross
- 5. The Crucifixion and Death of Our Lord
The Objection
"Why do Catholics believe in Purgatory? It's not even in the Bible. It sounds like something the medieval Church invented to sell indulgences and scare people."
The Catholic Response
The concept actually appears in 2 Maccabees 12:46, where Judas Maccabeus takes up a collection for sacrifices on behalf of the dead, "that they might be freed from sin." Jesus himself refers to a sin that "will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come" (Matthew 12:32), implying some sins can be forgiven after death. The Catechism teaches that Purgatory is not a second chance at salvation but a final purification for those who die in God's grace yet still carry the residue of sin (CCC 1030-1031). The abuse of indulgences was a real scandal that the Church itself condemned at the Council of Trent, but the abuse of a doctrine does not invalidate the doctrine any more than a corrupt doctor invalidates medicine.
CCC 1030-1031 | 2 Maccabees 12:46 | Matthew 12:32 | 1 Corinthians 3:15
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Test Your Faith IQ |
Scripture |
In today's first reading, God tells Moses to mount a bronze serpent on a pole so that anyone bitten can look at it and live. Jesus references this event in a famous New Testament verse. Which one?
- A) Matthew 16:24
- B) John 3:14-15
- C) Revelation 12:9
- D) 2 Corinthians 5:21
Answer at the bottom of this newsletter.
 Photo: NPR
NPR
Iranian missiles struck four sites across Israel including central Tel Aviv, injuring at least six, while Iran dismissed diplomatic overtures as market manipulation.
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FAITH & THE WORLD |
Isaiah 30:15 |
"For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: By waiting and by calm you shall be saved, in quiet and in trust shall be your strength. But this you did not will."
Just War Doctrine (CCC 2307-2317)
The Catechism insists that war is never an end in itself: "the damage inflicted by the aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain" before force is justified (CCC 2309). When both sides reject diplomacy as theater, the people bleeding in Tel Aviv and trembling in Tehran pay the price that pride refuses to acknowledge.
Reflect → Where in your own conflicts have you dismissed a chance at peace because it felt like losing?
 Photo: The Verge
The Verge
Two juries are deliberating landmark cases that could force Meta to face real consequences for how its platforms harm children.
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FAITH & THE WORLD |
Matthew 18:6 |
"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
CCC 2389 and the Rights of the Child
Jesus didn't say "study the data first" before protecting children. The Church teaches that society has a strict obligation to safeguard the conditions that allow children to grow in trust, innocence, and faith (CCC 2526), and that anyone who profits from their corruption bears a grave moral weight.
Reflect → What digital doors have you left open in your home that you wouldn't leave open in your front yard?
 Photo: CBS News
CBS News
The Taliban pardoned and released American citizen Dennis Coyle after a letter from his family, timed to the celebration of Eid.
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FAITH & THE WORLD |
Isaiah 61:1 |
"The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives."
Corporal Works of Mercy: Ransom the Captive
"Ransom the captive" was once so central to Catholic life that entire religious orders, like the Mercedarians and Trinitarians, were founded for exactly this purpose. A family's letter accomplished what diplomacy could not, reminding us that personal, persistent intercession still has the power to unlock prison doors.
Reflect → Who is captive in your life, whether literally or by addiction, loneliness, or despair, and what letter could you write them today?
 Photo: Good News Network
Good News Network
Volunteers planted a 15-mile hedge connecting England's South Downs and New Forest national parks, creating a wildlife corridor across fragmented land.
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FAITH & GOOD NEWS |
Genesis 2:15 |
"The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it."
Laudato Si' (Pope Francis, 2015)
Pope Francis writes that "each organism, as a creature of God, is good and admirable in itself; the same is true of the harmonious ensemble of organisms existing in a defined space" (Laudato Si' 140). These volunteers did something beautifully literal: they stitched creation back together, hedge by hedge, the way God first wove it.
Reflect → What small act of repair could you do this week to reconnect something that's been broken or fragmented?
 Photo: Positive.News
Positive.News
Emerging research is exploring the direct link between soil health and human health, with science on the verge of confirming what farmers have long intuited.
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FAITH & GOOD NEWS |
Genesis 2:7 |
"Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
Integral Ecology (Laudato Si' 137-139)
Genesis wasn't being poetic when it said we were formed from dust. Pope Francis calls this "integral ecology": the recognition that human health, soil health, and spiritual health are not separate categories but one interconnected gift from the same Creator (Laudato Si' 138).
Reflect → How often do you think about where your food actually comes from, and what it costs the earth to feed you?
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DAILY WORD GAME
Test your Catholic vocabulary
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Saint of the Day |
March 24 |
St. Oscar Romero
Before his conversion, Romero was considered so conservative and "safe" that the Salvadoran government actually celebrated his appointment as archbishop. Within three years, he was publicly denouncing the regime from his cathedral pulpit. A single event changed him: the assassination of his friend, Jesuit Fr. Rutilio Grande, who was shot dead for organizing poor farmers.
Today is the feast of St. Oscar Romero, martyred on March 24, 1980, shot through the heart while consecrating the Eucharist at Mass.
Trivia Answer
B . In John 3:14-15, Jesus says, 'Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.' It's the verse right before the famous John 3:16, and it directly connects the bronze serpent to the crucifixion.
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