NEWSLETTER INSERTS - FOR FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

‘Easter does not eliminate the cross, but defeats it in the miraculous duel that changed our human history. Even our time, marked by so many crosses, invokes the dawn of Paschal hope. Christ’s Resurrection is not an idea, a theory, but the Event that is the foundation of faith. He, the Risen One, through the Holy Spirit, continues to remind us of this, so that we can be His witnesses even where human history does not see light on the horizon. Paschal hope does not disappoint. To believe truly in the Pasch through our daily journey means revolutionizing our lives, being transformed in order to transform the world with the gentle and courageous power of Christian hope’.

Pope Leo, General Audience, 12^th November 2025

‘If you want to cultivate peace, care for creation. There is a clear link between peacebuilding and the stewardship for creation. The quest for peace by people of good will surely would become easier if all acknowledge the indivisible relationship between God, human beings and the whole of creation… In the midst of a world that is in flames, as a result of both global warming and armed conflicts, this Conference should become a sign of hope, through the respect shown to the views of others in the joint endeavour to search for common language and consensus, while putting aside selfish interests, bearing in mind the responsibility for one another and for future generations’.

From Pope Leo’s Message for COP 30, Belem, Brazil.

‘The thief who received the kingdom of heaven, though not as the reward of virtue, is a true witness to the fact that salvation is ours through the grace and mercy of God’.

St John Cassian

‘All of us who have lain crucified on beds of pain, remember that an hour will come when we will be taken down from that cross, and the Savior shall look upon our hands and feet and side to find the imprints of his wounds which will be our passport to eternal joy. The cross is not something that has happened; the crucifixion is something that is happening and it can be found at any place and at any hour in the human race. Like I am, every person is on a cross. Some ask to be taken down like the thief on the left; others, like me, ask to be taken up like the thief on the right”.

Quoted in Scars, by Fr Paul Murray OP.

‘It is said in the Gospel that God will come like a Thief. He will come to steal me away very gently. Oh, how I'd love to aid the Thief’.

St Therese of Lisieux

‘The essence of our faith is an encounter and a friendship with a person named Jesus Christ who looks at us with tender mercy and calls us to a new life in him. We see this with the good thief on the cross who looks across at Jesus only to discover Jesus looking at him. And it is with this look and meeting of their eyes that the good thief asks to be remembered and when Jesus responds with the promise of paradise. Jesus came to reveal God’s merciful face and in that face of mercy is our life and hope’.

Fr Billy Swan