On the last Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast in 1925 with the Encyclical Quas Primas so that the Church may honour Christ’s kingship and meditate on what it means to be subject to His ‘sweet’ rule. Indeed, the feast is […]
St John Lateran’s Basilica in Rome is the “Mater et Caput”, ‘Mother and head’, of all churches in Rome and the world. This fact is solemnised by the relief that adorns the entrance to the Basilica. The name “Lateran” is derived from the fact that this Basilica was constructed on the territory that belonged to […]
“Never Stop Saying the Holy Rosary. I am always with you to help you” Virgin of Revelation, 1947, Rome. With these words, in 1947 at Tre Fontane Rome, Our Lady, under the title of Virgin of Revelation, taught the then anti-clerical Protestant, Bruno Cornacchiola, the importance of praying the Holy Rosary assuring us of […]
The Rosary is the favourite prayer of Popes and saints alike. It is therefore not surprising that we find a very powerful image that symbolises the power of the Rosary in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, which is the Main Chapel of the Popes. Looking closely at the detail we can see two […]
Dear friends, Each year we celebrate the feast of Our Lady’s Assumption into heaven and so it is fitting that we, like the Apostles who all gathered around her during her lifetime, come together around our celestial Mother to celebrate this great feast. Eventually, the time came also for Mary to pass from this world […]
The account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles is filled with powerful imagery. The Holy Spirit overcomes the confines of the Upper Room where the Apostles are gathered and, with the sound of wind and the appearance of tongues of fire, descends on each of them. The effects are instant. The Church is […]
From 9.00pm on the 21 April 2025 the Seat of Peter became known officially as Apostolica Sedes Vacans, awaiting the election of the new Holy Father. The preparations are now underway to elect the new Pope in the historic setting of the Sistine Chapel. As the Conclave approaches, the Sistine Chapel – “la Cappella Magna” […]
Once again this year, the Lenten journey is interrupted by the great solemnity in honor of St. Joseph, the Church’s most powerful and humble saint. Resounding in the celebration of this day is the remembrance of Pope Gregory XV, who in 1621 declared March 19 a feast of precept. The evangelist Matthew, giving greater prominence […]
“Of you my heart has said, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Yahweh, I seek” (Ps 27, 8) Man has always searched to contemplate the face of God. Jesus told us that “to see Him is to see the Father” (Jn 14:9) and so, the contemplation of Christ’s face is the very contemplation of God. To […]
The feast of the Chair of Peter, already present in the Church since the 3rd century, and definitively set on February 22 by Pope John XXIII, recalls the authority that Jesus entrusted to Simon, the fisherman of Galilee, to accompany and guard, as his vicar, the people of God towards Salvation. Once again Rome, in […]