Fifth Sunday of Lent*
*Final Lenten Sunday before Palm Sunday
Give me justice, O God, and plead my cause
against a nation that is faithless. From the deceitful
and cunning rescue me, for you, O God, are
my strength. - Entrance Antiphon (Today's Liturgy)
"Without the Eucharist,
the Church would not exist.
The holy Eucharist is the central point of our life.
I remember once a priest I met. He never talked at great
length about the sufferings, persecutions and tortures,
but he mentioned that even in prison,
all the priests would celebrate the liturgy.
We were amazed; how could this be possible? Where did you get a Chalice and a Paten?
He took off his glasses and said:
'This is what we used; one lens served as the chalice
with a drop of wine and on the other a piece of bread
was placed, which served as the paten.'
This is how they celebrated the liturgy in the prison
or around the premises of the concentration camps.”
Major-Archbishop Swiatoslav Schevchuk
Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
