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Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien – Thoughts on Our Church

The following columns were written by Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien and appeared in the Catholic Review.

Above all else let us take this opportunity to think back and to express our gratitude to God for having called us to share in his priesthood, for inviting us to give our lives at the service of announcing the Good News of Salvation, and beg him for the grace to continue to live out this call faithfully, that we might imitate what we celebrate and conform our lives to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.

The work is so very important. The ministry is so very challenging. The needs are many. But as you leave here take heart: This is God’s work. It will endure. God can take the love and goodness you offer to those who need his healing and multiply that in abundance –such that many may once again know the love and mercy of God.

If we have been mentored by others, let us in turn mentor others in the faith, not only by what we say but by the way we think, decide, and live, by our love for others, especially the poor, and by our readiness to give an account of our hope – with respect, gentleness, and kindness.

For like the Apostles in the reading from the Acts of Apostles, Bl. Michael McGivney bore courageous and loving witness to the Risen Lord, and not only that, he created a pathway for the laity to grow in holiness and to bear witness in their own lives to the truth and reality of the Resurrection, the source of new life, the reason for our hope, the cause of our joy.

In English Para publicación inmediata: 14 de abril de 2024 (BALTIMORE, MD) – La iniciativa Busquemos la Ciudad Venidera ha entrado en su fase de comentario público con la difusión…

The Seek the City to Come initiative has entered its public comment phase with a proposal for the Catholic Church in Baltimore City to include investment and ministries, the realignment of parish communities designed to offer a strong sense of belonging for all and the merging of parish campuses.

I am deeply grateful to the victim-survivors for their courage today and I am moved by their heartrending experience. To the victim-survivors who long to hear that someone is sorry for the trauma they endured and for its life-altering consequences – I am deeply sorry.

But, dear friends, if we had to sum up in one word what it is we believe in, what would that word be? That word would be “mercy”. We believe in God’s mercy, in divine mercy.

Divine Mercy is the source of our newness as an Order and remains the reason why we strike a contrast to the society around us.

To believe in this greatest of mysteries requires us to rely on witnesses – on Mary Magdelene, on Peter and John, all of whom we met in today’s Gospel, and on St. Paul who saw the Risen Lord seated at the right hand of the Father, and on the Apostles bearing witness to the Risen Lord after Pentecost.