The Church is not a throwaway society — quite the opposite. In God’s economy there is no person pointless enough to throw away.

It is a fine thing — a very fine thing — to consider those around you as essential contributors to your identity. Not everyone is a spouse. Not everyone is a parent. But everyone is someone’s someone.

The answers to life’s biggest questions and challenges aren’t to be found in yet one more new book, but in one very, very old one.

Though the Gospel we preach may be “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,” God’s beloved children are no fools. We know what really happened on Easter.

Even though we know how the story of Christ’s passion ends, the sacred readings, hymns and services of Holy Week keep our longing for Easter fresh and real each and every year.

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor.1:18).