The events of Pentecost day were among the most spectacular with the most far-reaching effects of any day in human history.

BOB MCKEON

On Good Friday, I was part of the 30th annual Outdoor Way of the Cross in inner city Edmonton. Several hundred people of all ages and backgrounds participated in this annual ecumenical event. People make the connection between Jesus' unjust arrest, torture and execution on the first Good Friday, and the different ways people today experience pain and suffering and early death in the face of injustices in our time. Jesus' death on Good Friday was not the final word. It led to the resurrection event of Easter Sunday where life conquers death, good conquers evil and hope conquers despair.

John the Baptist was surprised, disappointed. After the incidents at the Jordan where he had baptized Jesus with water, and the skies had opened, a dove rested on Jesus and a voice declared, "You are my Son, the Beloved," John had expected more.

I was born into this world with a tortured complexity. For a long time I have puzzled over the causes of my psychological anguish.

Ruth Burrows, the renowned Carmelite writer, begins her autobiography with those words.

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord has a rather muted emphasis in the life of the Western Church. Coming in early January, it is dwarfed by the earlier celebrations of Christmas and even the Epiphany.

  It is not necessarily a bad thing that major media are asking questions about what Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger knew and didn’t know and how he acted and did not act in sexual abuse cases under his purview before he became pope. Once there was even one mishandled case of clergy sexual abuse discovered during his stint as archbishop of Munich, it was inevitable that questions would be asked.   That such questions are asked while Pope Benedict is alive is better than if they only arose decades after his death. The pope and other people familiar with the situation can respond and set the record straight. We need only recall the difficulty in responding to accusations that Pope Pius XII was soft on the Holocaust, which only began after Pope Pius’ death, to see how much easier it is to deal with accusations about events that are within living memory.   The Church’s first task must be to achieve complete transparency. Unfortunately, a legacy of cover-up of sexual abuse cases makes it difficult to ...