The Easter Season is 50 days of joyful celebration of the Lord's resurrection from the dead and his sending forth of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
We have provided some at-home faith formation resources to enrich you and your family during the Easter season.
Other resources can be found at https://ptdiocese.org/livestreammass.
Content on this page will continue to be added. Check back weekly!
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Social Teaching: Global Solidarity
Saint of the Week: Saints Marcellinus and Peter
Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church
Newlyweds in the Time of the Coronavirus
Pentecost Sequence: Veni, Sancte Spiritus
The Ascension Article
Saint of the Week: Saint Bede the Venerable
Prayer for Memorial Day
Trolls World Tour Movie Review
Made for Love Podcast: Praying as a Family
Prayer to Care for Our Common Home
Saint of the Week: Saint Rita of Cascia
Language About Heaven Article
Laudato Si Week – https://laudatosiweek.org
The Spiritual Benefits of Technology in a Time of Crisis
Happy Mother's Day! Please utilize the resources listed below for your family.
Good Shepherd Sunday occurs on the fourth Sunday in the Easter Season. The name derives from the gospel reading for the day, which is taken from the tenth chapter of John's Gospel. In this reading, Christ is described as the "Good Shepherd" who lays down his life for his sheep. Below are some resources for your family on Good Shepherd Sunday.
Activities for families with younger children
Article: The Good Shepherd – The Oldest Way of Portraying Jesus in Christian Art
In the 1930's St. Maria Faustina Kowalska had a series of revelations, where our Lord called for a special feast day, Divine Mercy Sunday, which was named by Pope Saint John Paul II at the canonization of St. Faustina on April 30, 2000. The feast day is celebrated the Sunday after Easter.
Please join the faithful from across the world in this celebration. Visit the links below to learn more.
Basics of Divine Mercy Sunday
Downloadable and Printable Divine Mercy Image
Sealing Your Home with the Divine Mercy Image
Praying the Divine Mercy at 3 p.m.
Optional Prayer service for Divine Mercy Sunday
The Daughters of St. Paul are doing a YouTube series for kids during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sisters introduce your children to wonderful Catholic content through storybooks.
Pflaum Publishing is offering a free digital version of their Children's Liturgy of the Word program for the Spring Quarter (March 1st - May 24th), Children Celebrate!
Magnificat is providing complimentary access to its online content to help people pray from home. Click here to access.
“The Plenary Indulgence is granted to the faithful suffering from Coronavirus, who are subject to quarantine by order of the health authority in hospitals or in their own homes if, with a spirit detached from any sin, they unite spiritually through the media to the celebration of Holy Mass, the recitation of the Holy Rosary, to the pious practice of the Way of the Cross or other forms of devotion, or if at least they will recite the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and a pious invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, offering this trial in a spirit of faith in God and charity towards their brothers and sisters, with the will to fulfil the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the Holy Father’s intentions), as soon as possible.”
The full text can be found here.
Preview the televised or live stream Masses offered to determine which may be most appropriate for your household. For a listing of Masses, click here.
• Set up a space in your home for prayer/worship. Consider covering a table with a tablecloth or another nice cloth of the seasonal liturgical color. Place a Bible, a candle and a cross or crucifix on the table.
• Straighten the space, and arrange enough furniture for all.
• Have everyone go to the bathroom, get drinks, wash faces and come prepared to attend to the Mass.
• Turn off and remove all devices that can distract from the space.
• Remind everyone that we do not kneel and perform the ritual gestures of Mass while we are watching it, since this does not take the place of attending Mass. But everyone should attend to it prayerfully and make a spiritual communion.
• Before the Mass begins, light the candle.
After the Angelus prayer on March 3, Pope Francis invited the faithful “to rediscover and deepen the value of the communion that unites all the members of the Church. United to Christ we are never alone, but we form one single Body, of which He is the Head.”
Pope Francis encouraged those unable to attend Church to pray for spiritual Communion, “a practice that is highly recommended when it is not possible to receive the Sacrament.” Archbishops and bishops in the U.S. join the pope in inviting the faithful to this practice.
In his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II explained how the essential role of the Eucharist in uniting us to Christ led to the practice of “spiritual Communion”:
In the Eucharist, “unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of communion] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: Here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union.”
Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of “spiritual Communion,” which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life. St. Teresa of Jesus wrote: “When you do not receive Communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual Communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God
will be greatly impressed on you.” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 34:68-70)
The Church has another liturgy (public prayer) with which people may be unfamiliar. That is the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, the daily prayer of the Church. This beautiful liturgy marks the hours of each day and sanctifies the day with prayer. The Hours are a meditative dialogue on the mystery of Christ, using scripture and prayer. Join priests and religious around the world each day, and particularly on Sundays, in praying the Liturgy of the Hours. You can find it at www.ibreviary.com.
Spiritual Communion is the practice of desiring union with Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It is used primarily by individuals who cannot receive holy Communion, such as the ill, the divorced and remarried, and those who have not yet been received into full communion with the Church. St. Thomas Aquinas described it as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the most holy sacrament and lovingly embrace him” at a time or in circumstances when we cannot receive him in sacramental Communion.
My Jesus,
I believe that you are
present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love you above all things, and I desire
to receive you into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment
receive you sacramentally,
come at least spiritually
into my heart. I embrace you
as if you were already there and
unite myself wholly to you.
Never permit me to be
separated from you. Amen.
“Communion is to the soul like blowing a fire that is beginning to go out, but that has still plenty of hot embers; we blow, and the fire burns again. “After the reception of the Sacraments, when we feel ourselves slacken in the love of God, let us have recourse at once to spiritual Communion. When we cannot go to the church, let us turn
towards the tabernacle; no wall cannot separate us from the good God.” ST. JOHN VIANNEY
Spiritual Communion is “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Holy Sacrament and a loving embrace as though we had already received Him.” ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
“What a source of grace there is in spiritual Communion! Practice it frequently and you’ll have more presence of God and closer union with him in your life.” ST. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ