The streets of heaven have grown more crowded this week. The Catholic community mourns the loss of several area students, a principal, a teacher, and others. Lent is upon us indeed. As we mourn, we pray for the strength to remember the hope and promise that comes at the end of our Lenten journey.

The Passion of the Christ premieres today in movie theaters across the county. The Offices of Religious Education, Catholic Youth Ministry, and Communications have collaborated to provide a website replete with resources, movie reviews, discussion guides, and more. Please use this site as a means of preparing yourself and your young people for the powerful conversations we hope will take place in the coming days and weeks.

If you come across any links that you think share pertinent information to the discussion of the film, please contact CYM.

Let Us Pray: O God of Lent, remember us. Help us to remove all the ways we try to camouflage your death and dying because our faith has not grown strong enough. Help us to look at death as it really is: an emptiness that brings us face to face with Life. Deep down, we know that if we would ever dare get close enough to dying, to death, it would fall over into life. O God of Lent, let your love open our eyes. It is our own cluttered crosses that have broken our hearts. But your cross has saved us. - Adapted from Seasons of Your Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr