MSI Press Blog

  Holy Saturday is the most easily overlooked day of the Triduum. It has no liturgy until nightfall, no sacraments, no proclamations. The tabernacle is empty. Christ is in the tomb. The Church keeps vigil in stillness. It is the one day in the Christian year when the Church feels what it is like to live without visible signs of God’s activity. This is not an accident. It is pedagogy. Holy Saturday teaches that God’s silence is not God’s absence . In Catholic tradition, Christ is not idle; He is descending to the dead, breaking open the realm of death from within. The world sees stillness; heaven sees movement. Waiting becomes the place where God is at work in ways we cannot yet perceive. Why Waiting Matters in Catholic Spirituality 1. Waiting trains the heart in hope Hope is not optimism. It is the decision to trust God when the outcome is not visible. Catholic theology insists that hope is forged precisely in the gap between promise and fulfillment. Waiting is where th...

  On Maundy Thursday, the Church kneels. Priests wash parishioners’ feet, and in some communities parishioners wash one another’s. The gesture is not symbolic theater; it is a reenactment of the moment in John 13 when Jesus rises from supper, ties a towel around His waist, and takes the posture of a servant. In a world where feet were dusty and status was everything, He reverses the hierarchy. He kneels before His friends. The early Church understood this act as three things at once: Humility embodied — the Lord takes the lowest place. Preparation for communion — a cleansing before receiving His Body and Blood. A command to imitate — “I have given you an example,” He says, not a suggestion. That command is the heart of the day. What “Maundy” Means “Maundy” comes from the Latin mandatum , the first word of the antiphon sung during the foot washing: Mandatum novum do vobis — “A new commandment I give you.” The name points not to the Last Supper meal itself, but to the c...

  Catholics venerate the Cross because, in Catholic dogma, the Cross is not merely the instrument of Christ’s death but the place where the entire mystery of salvation is accomplished. Veneration is not worship of an object; it is reverence for what God did through it. The Cross as the Center of Salvation Catholic teaching holds that Christ’s Passion is the decisive act by which humanity is redeemed. The Cross is therefore: the altar of the New Covenant, where Christ offers Himself to the Father the instrument of victory, where sin, death, and the devil are defeated the revelation of divine love, where God shows the full extent of His mercy This is why St. Paul can say, “We preach Christ crucified” and “May I never boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Cross is not an unfortunate detail in the story of Jesus; it is the hinge of the entire Christian faith. Why Catholics Venerate (Not Worship) the Cross Catholic dogma makes a clear distinction: Worship (latria)...