Cardinal O'Malley celebrates the Easter Vigil at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Unlike previous years, this year there were no baptisms or receptions into the Church. Pilot photo/Gregory L. Tracy
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As we left off last week, we were in the midst of our Triduum celebrations. This year, for obvious reasons, I was unable to join the Memores Domini at their home in Cambridge for my traditional Holy Saturday lunch.
Dr. Lorenzo Berra, who usually cooks the meal for us, is working very hard at Mass. General Hospital and he told me very sad stories about whole families that are hospitalized, and about how many Hispanics and working-class people are among the afflicted.
Easter Vigil
On Saturday night, we had our bilingual celebration of the Easter Vigil at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
It was a very beautiful celebration, but unlike other years, there were no baptisms or receptions into the Church. So, I had a message in my homily to all of those who are catechumens or candidates and are waiting patiently for the day when we can officially receive them into the Church.
Easter Sunday
On Easter Sunday, once again, we had Mass in English here at the cathedral.
We also recorded an Easter Mass in Spanish at the studios of CatholicTV.
We are very pleased with the large number of people who have participated in our celebrations through the CatholicTV Network.
This week, Bishop Bob Reed shared with me several very encouraging statistics about viewership during this time. Over the past month, there have been over 1.6 million views of the Mass on the CatholicTV YouTube channel and there were 2 million visits to CatholicTV.com during the Triduum alone. Of course, these are just internet views. Through cable, CatholicTV reaches nearly 19 million homes, and our Easter Mass was rebroadcast by 20 different stations throughout the country.
The O'Malleys
Ordinarily, my family likes to gather very frequently but, of course, with the coronavirus, we were unable to be together for Easter this year. So, on Easter Sunday, I had a family reunion with the O'Malleys over Zoom. It was a very nice way to touch base with everybody. There were probably 60 or 70 of us, and my cousin, Deacon Rob O'Malley's son, was hosting it, sitting at a desk in front of a huge coat of arms of the O'Malley clan. I got a great kick out of that!
I led the family in prayer, then we exchanged Easter greetings. It was a great joy for me to be able to participate in that virtual gathering -- the only thing missing was the Easter ham!
Meeting with the Papal Foundation
During the week, I have had a series of online meetings with the Schools Office, our auxiliary bishops, the Presbyteral Council, and the Papal Foundation.
During the meeting of the Papal Foundation, we authorized funding for a number of projects that are supported by the Holy Father. Among them was support for the hospitals in Syria that are in such dire need at this time. So, I was very happy that the Papal Foundation is addressing these very great needs that the Holy Father has identified.