Thaddeus, better known as Jude and most famous as the patron saint of lost causes, may have been Simon’s companion in death. They are venerated on the same day. There is a tradition to connect them - that they travelled together to Persia where they were martyred, after earlier and separate missionary journeys: Simon’s to Egypt and Jude’s to Syria.

The Annunciation is the prologue to the mysteries of Holy Week: the Incarnation happened so that we could be redeemed; the child conceived on this day was born to die for our sins and conquer death.

Help children learn about and understand the rituals and traditions that make up Holy Week and Easter, from Palm Sunday to the Easter Vigil.

Time and time again Israel’s prophets spoke about the need to go back into the desert where Moses had led Israel’s ancestors. Today, we too find it valuable to go back into the desert, so that as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we are armed with weapons of self-restraint.

‘Do you understand’ he said ‘what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.’

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In permitting himself to endure everything that we human beings have to endure, so Christ chooses to share this deepest of existential pains: the sense of being alone, without a loving father, or even a loving God. Here on the cross, Jesus cries out and gives voice to the deep sorrow of soul that afflicts so many of us.