McGrath Institute Blog

In times of stress or confusion, the beauty of music can provide a much-needed balm for a weary heart. Sadly, most if not all public music performances have been canceled these past few months, a pattern that is likely to continue in the months ahead. While nothing compares to the gift of attending a live concert, through the gift of technology, we are still able to discover and enjoy and benefit from listening to music.

As the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Fatima today, the McGrath Institute for Church Life is releasing a free resource: Celebrating Mary in the Month of May: A Resource for the Domestic Church.

If you haven’t had a chance yet to make the McGrath Institute’s “Journey with The Saint John’s Bible,” there’s still time. This free, six-unit online course offers a glimpse into the history and production of illuminated manuscripts from thousands of years ago up to The Saint John’s Bible itself, a modern, hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible commissioned by Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and spearheaded by Welsh calligrapher Donald Jackson.

“‘O truly blessed Night,’ sings the Exultet of the Easter Vigil, ‘which alone deserved to know the time and the hour when Christ rose from the realm of the dead!’ But no one was an eyewitness to Christ’s Resurrection and no evangelist describes it. No one can say how it came about physically.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §647)

“‘By the grace of God’ Jesus tasted death ‘for everyone.’ In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only ‘die for our sins’ but should also ‘taste death,’ experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb, reveals God’s great sabbath rest after the fulfillment of man’s salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §624)