On the threshold of Holy Week and amid the U.S. and Israel-Iran war gaining new fronts, and harvesting new victims daily, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem issued an annual Easter message, calling the war an “expanding wreckage” and its timing a “deep darkness.”

In the principality known for super yachts and sports cars, Pope Leo XIV urged Monaco’s wealthy citizens to remember the poor and protect every human life, calling on them to remember that the Last Judgment “places the poor at its center.”

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said an agreement has been reached with Israeli authorities to allow Holy Week and Easter celebrations to take place at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher after they were initially barred from celebrating Palm Sunday.

As much as we want to keep trying to fix a problem, maybe this is the time to hand it over to God. We can place whatever is troubling us into his hands, trusting that he will walk with us, moving mountains we cannot move and preparing us for the next step on our journey.  

What we call “Easter” is not only for the moment, as if it can just come and go like any other weekend. It’s about the past, present and future.