The Sri Lanka chief of police resigned this week after bombings left
dead more than 200 Christians on Easter morning. An official at the
defense ministry has also stepped down.
Pujith Jayasundara stepped down April 25, and the announcement was made the following day.
Two big pharmaceutical powerhouses recently threw in the towel on
testing their highly-touted Alzheimer's drugs. At the same time, the
Journal of the American Medical Association warned against the
"pseudo-medicine" of Alzheimer's supplements.
Despite those hits,
there's still hope for today's Alzheimer's sufferers and those destined
to develop it. Newly published research proves 100 patients enjoyed
significant, measurable symptom reversal using the protocol developed byDr. Dale Bredesen, making a huge gain over the initial 19 success stories.
To stop the spread of evil in the world, Catholics must go above and
beyond, loving and forgiving others even when it is undeserved, Pope
Francis urged Wednesday.
“Jesus inserts the power of forgiveness into human relationships. In
life, not everything is resolved with justice,” he said April 24.
“Especially where we must put a barricade against evil, someone must
love beyond what is necessary, to start a story of grace again,” he
said, warning that “evil is familiar with its revenge, and if it is not
interrupted it risks spreading and suffocating the whole world.”
While members of Zion Church gathered last Sunday to celebrate the
resurrection of Jesus, children were meeting for a Sunday school lesson
in another part of the building. At one point, their teacher asked the
kids if they were willing to die for their faith. Every hand went up.
The
teacher then led the children to the main sanctuary for morning
worship. Suddenly a powerful bomb went off, sending chairs and body
parts flying. "Half of the children died on the spot," says the Sunday
school teacher. The assistant pastor's 10-year-old son was killed, along
with nine other children from Zion.
Violence is nothing new for
Christians in Sri Lanka, but the horrific bombings that happened on
April 21 left a permanent scar. At least 321 people died in six
blasts—three of which targeted churches during Easter services. Sri
Lanka's government announced on Tuesday that suicide bombers affiliated
with ISIS carried out the attacks.
This is the
moment in history where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, voluntarily laid
down His life so that humanity might be set free from sin and restored
to life, Christians have believed through the ages.
Yet this
pivotal moment that has so much meaning to believers in Jesus worldwide,
God incarnate crucified, is fraught with vigorous debate about what
exactly Jesus accomplished.
Jon Tyson, pastor of the Church of the City New York, says Jesus'
final words on the cross are a challenge to believers to relinquish
control and trust in God. He says it's a particularly difficult lesson
for Christians to internalize today, given the breakdown of trust at so
many levels—relationally, politically, institutionally. Yet Jesus felt
that dismantling the idol of control and demonstrating trust in God was
the most important lesson He could impart before His death.
"What
is it that Jesus wants to leave in our minds on earth—the Son of God,
what is it He wants to leave us with?" Tyson asks. "And these are the
words we hear: 'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.' Jesus'
final act was an act of trust. An act of surrender to His father. This
is the declaration He wants to leave. In the garden, Adam believed the
lie, 'You can't trust God.' And here is Jesus' final words, trusting,
'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.'
"Now the reason I
think this carries particular weight for us, the kinds of modern people
that we are, is that it's very very hard for us to genuinely surrender
and to entrust ourselves to other people. Isn't it? We've basically had a
nuclear meltdown of trust in our society."
A large Illinois church will host an Easter weekend event on its
property that will feature a helicopter dropping 30,000 Easter eggs.
Metro
Community Church, a congregation with campuses in Edwardsville and
Vandalia with an average worship attendance of around 1,600, will host
its second annual Easter Egg Drop event on Saturday.
John
Helmkamp, director of Operations at Metro Community, told a local media that the idea for the event came from a member who offered to drop
the 30,000 Easter eggs.
“We made several adjustments to the event
this year based on the high level of interest and attendance last year,”
said Helmkamp.
While the Stations of the Cross are a worldwide Lenten devotion for
Catholics, the faithful in Vietnam have an additional practice that
blends ancient traditional chants with Catholic prayer and meditation on
the Crucifixion.
“The ‘Ngam Nguyen’ are…a unique Vietnamese Catholic practice of
intoning a series of meditations recounting the Passion of Christ,” said
Fr. Anthony Le Duc, national chaplain for the Vietnamese community in
Thailand.
