Today is traditionally called “Low Sunday.” While some may think this refers to the typically low attendance following the Queen of Feasts the Sunday previous, this is not the case! “Low” refers to the ending of the octave of Easter. On the Octave Day of Easter, there are fewer expressions of solemnity, thus “lower” liturgically. For example, the double alleluia at the dismissal of Easter goes away, as does the Sequence, both of which were recited throughout the week-day Masses.
The somewhat cryptic Epistle for this Sunday is from the First Epistle General of S. John. Note that it begins, whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. Not, “whosover,” but “whatsoever.” The “what” referenced here is our faith. Our faith, which is a free gift from God, is given to us to help us overcome the world. By “world,” S. John does not mean the created order, made by God for man to enjoy. Rather, the “world” is all that is contrary to God’s intention for creation. The created order is meant to point us to the Creator Himself. However, ever since that first sin entered creation, the created order has been distorted. Now we experience many occasions where we are tempted away from the reality of God into the darkness of sin.
The object of our faith is the person of Jesus the Christ, the Anointed of God as foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. His divinity is revealed repeatedly in the Gospels. We see it in His baptism in the Jordan River at the hand of John the Baptist. He makes this claim in His teaching, and we are made aware of it in the Transfiguration. But most especially, we see His divinity, “the glory of God,” revealed on the cross.
Throughout His ministry, Our Lord claimed that He came solely to perform the will of His Father. By closely observing the words and actions of the Incarnate Son we see the Father revealed. The Son is the icon of the Father, the window through which we look to see the Father revealed to us. We see the will of the Father revealed on the cross, and more especially in the Blood of Our Lord’s Sacrifice poured out on the altar of the cross. The Perfect Sacrifice offers Himself, thus accomplishing the will of God. “It is finished.” God’s will has been carried out to its end and in so doing the Son gives Himself back completely to the Father.
In the midst of this is the witness of the Holy Ghost. All that God does is done by all of God. And so too is the Spirit present, testifying to the fact that the Son has carried out faithfully the will of the Father. The Spirit cannot lie, as God cannot lie. His testimony is infallibly true and so all three witnesses are in agreement: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The requirement of the Law of Moses that three witnesses must agree in their entirety to provide satisfactory evidence is met in the witness of the Blessed Trinity.
S, John is telling us in his epistle that when we place our faith in Christ and in His sacrifice on the cross, we are given the power to overcome the distractions and temptations that would divert us from our true end. We have been created to share in the divine life; we are meant for God. Through the cross, Our Lord has made it possible for us to regain that relationship lost in the Garden of Eden.
The Easter season is one of celebration. Our Lord’s victory over our ancient enemies of sin and death means that in Him we can share in His triumph. This is the essence of our faith. And although we recognize that our faith may grow weak or even be lost through carelessness, may we ever pray that this gift of faith be continually strengthened within us.
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Secularism, liberalism and Islam sapping the West’s rich religious tradition
Fewer worshippers and shifting beliefs signal a deeper cultural transformation
BY: Robert Knight, The Washington Times (March 29, 2026).
Last week, the Church of England made history by installing its first female archbishop of Canterbury.
A color photo of Sarah Mullally in full regalia, complete with her golden robe and miter, graced the front page of The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
For feminists, it was another cultural triumph. For traditionalists, it was yet another sign of the church’s surrender to woke ideology.
The Church of England is down from about 3 million members in 1955 to around 1 million today. Of those, about 413,000 attend weekly church services, compared with 1.5 million in 1955.
The cause of the decline has been linked to immigration and population trends, growing secularism (half of the British population now self-identifies as nonreligious) and the church’s gradual embrace of liberal doctrines.
Ms. Mullally, for example, once described herself as “pro-choice rather than pro-life.” She later added some nuance, saying, “This is a complex debate, and I don’t think my or others’ views can be so simply categorized.” Sure, they can.
She also champions the social justice and LGBTQ agendas that are turning the once-staid institution into an English version of a Marxist, San Francisco-style “church of what’s happenin’ now.”
She supports gay clergy and ceremonial blessings of same-sex couples but has stopped short of advocating same-sex marriage. She says she hopes this will help keep the worldwide Anglican Communion together. This is no easy trick when its only growth is in conservative, Third World congregations where they take the Bible seriously.
In the United States, the Episcopal Church USA, a member of the Anglican Communion, is in a similar tailspin, with left-wing leadership and a dwindling flock, some of whom have fled to conservative Anglican congregations. The Episcopal Church USA embraces gay clergy, same-sex weddings, transgender activism and unrestricted access to abortion for “those who can bear children.”
In 1955, there were about 2.7 million Episcopalians, of whom 1.5 million attended weekly services. By 2023, Episcopal Church USA membership was down to 1.5 million, with 413,000 people attending services. For some reason, they stopped issuing statistics in 2024.
They still do have a lot of beautiful, empty buildings from which the spirit has flown.
Why does all this matter? The Church of England was once the spiritual heartbeat of the whole English-speaking world, along with Roman Catholicism. It played a huge role in the formation of America’s Protestant ethic and the views of the founders of America’s constitutional republic.
When roots dry up, a plant dies and other things grow in its place. Among those things taking root in what was once America’s mother country are atheism, agnosticism and Islam.
Britain’s Muslims now number more than 4 million and account for 6.5% of the population, including 15% of Greater London. From 2011 to 2021, the Muslim population increased by 1.2 million.
Half the Muslims in Britain are British-born, and this segment is growing far faster than the general population, which now numbers around 68 million.
At the same time, Jews, who have played key roles over the course of British history, including the two terms of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, now number about 313,000, making them only the fifth-largest religious group behind Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus.
Not uncoincidentally, Britain has shown a rise in antisemitism, especially in urban areas once considered safe. On March 23, two men were arrested in London on charges of setting fire to four Jewish-owned ambulances. Police are investigating whether the perpetrators were part of an Islamist group with links to Iran.
Since the start of the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran on Feb. 28, several anti-Jewish attacks have taken place in Europe. On March 14, a bomb was detonated outside a Jewish school in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. A day earlier, five teenagers suspected in an arson attack at a Rotterdam synagogue were arrested. On March 9, a bomb was set off near a synagogue in Liege, Belgium.
The point is that Jews and Christians have reason not to be complacent as the West’s rich religious traditions are sapped by secularism, liberalism and a vibrant Islam. A culture that won’t defend its core values is ripe for replacement.
Think of what a young, radicalized Muslim thinks when he sees Zohran Mamdani take over New York’s Gracie Mansion and lead a ceremonial Islamic feast on the floor of the mayor’s office.
How about when he sees hundreds of his fellow believers occupy Times Square and Washington Square in Manhattan for open-air prayer sessions not far from 2001’s ground zero? You couldn’t blame him for thinking he was on the winning team and that America’s Judeo-Christian culture was on its way out.
Likewise, consider what a young, radicalized Muslim living in London thinks when he sees the Church of England being led by a woman quite comfortable with whatever modern conceits are pasted into her faith’s sacred text.
In “The Abolition of Man,” C.S. Lewis wrote that modern Western society was worse off because of the rise of what Arnold Schwzenegger later called “girlie men.”
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise,” Lewis wrote. “We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Or we replace them altogether with a female archbishop of Canterbury who is no Maggie Thatcher.
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What Happens If States Start Codifying Muslim Holidays In Their Calendars?
It’s an important question to ask because doing just that is on California’s legislative agenda.
BY: Denice Gary-Pandol, The American Thinker (April 2, 2026).
Should California codify Islamic religious observances into state-recognized holidays in the United States?
As a nation, the essence of who we are as a People is rooted in our Judeo-Christian values and principles, dating back to the Magna Carta. This shared moral vocabulary has shaped Western thinking since America’s founding. Why, then, would any State in the Union formally endorse or incorporate into our educational and other public institutions a religious doctrine with practices antithetical to the belief system?
AB 2017, introduced by Progressive Democrats Assemblyman Matt Haney and Senator Aisha Wahab, proposes adding Eid al-Fitr (Festival of Breaking the Fast) and Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) to California’s recognized holidays. If enacted, the bill would do the following:
- Authorize public schools and community colleges to close in observance of these holidays
- Expand the list of excused absences statewide
- Establish formal recognition of Islamic religious practices within taxpayer-funded institutions
What must be noted regarding this legislative proposal is the historical foundation in American law and government. What America’s Founding-era figures openly and in writing acknowledged is that our Judeo-Christian moral beliefs, not Islam, influenced the foundation of our system of government and legal system.
The Jews introduced monotheism into the earth realm and gave us the Holy Scriptures, including the Ten Commandments, which, since the Birth of our Nation, have been displayed on numerous public buildings as a “foundational” historical document. In truth, such documents were once taught in our finest schools and universities alongside Scripture and the Hebrew language.
These Judeo-Christian beliefs include deeply held concepts such as the inherent dignity of man, God-given Natural Rights, and the Rule of Law—all grounded in ethical and moral accountability.
To underscore this historical influence, note a letter from President John Adams to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp in 1809. He wrote,
I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing nations … [and] … I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, Almighty Sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
Consider, too, the obvious lack of justice in codifying a Muslim holiday. It has been Jewish Americans who have contributed so much to the exceptionalism that is America, and they are a people who never thought to fly planes into American buildings in order to kill thousands. Instead, Jewish Americans have made profound and numerous contributions to American society in the areas of medicine, science, technology, and our national security, without receiving state holidays in their honor.
Indeed, at the start of the American Revolution, approximately 2,500 Jews were living in the colonies. As part of their support for the Revolution, many individuals, such as Haym Salomon, were financial pillars of the war.
Not only did Saloman support the Patriots by providing rather large financial services, but he, like so many others, risked his life as a member of the Sons of Liberty, leading the British to arrest him repeatedly on espionage charges. Furthermore, other men, such as Colonel Isaac Franks, served as George Washington’s aide-de-camp and were personal friends.
If California passes legislation that formally recognizes Islamic holidays, would it also extend the same recognition to Jewish holidays, Hindu festivals, Sikh holy days, Buddhist observances, and/or Jain religious events, none of which are officially recognized? What is the limiting principle? Where would this precedent end? Should multiculturalism extend so far as to require equal recognition of all religious systems? This is neither practical nor sustainable. And note, the Jewish population exceeds the Muslim population by nearly 2 to 1.
In addition, the cultural and ethical implications of making Eid al-Fitr, the “Festival of Breaking the Fast,” and Eid al-Adha, the “Festival of Sacrifice,” holidays will set an unholy paradigm. Why? Because Eid al-Fitr is a celebration following Ramadan, which means great persecution and suffering against Christians and Jews, particularly in Muslim countries.
And Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, involves the ritual slaughter of animals as a religious act. Around the world, this practice includes the mass slaughter of sheep, goats, cows, buffaloes, camels, and other animals. Publications report Eid al-Adha as “the saddest day of the year” for animal lovers. In 2017, news outlets photographed “rivers of blood” and a photo of a little girl dressed in her best clothes, standing in a “river of blood.”
For many Americans—especially animal welfare advocates—this raises serious ethical concerns. Is it appropriate for the state to endorse or normalize such practices through official recognition? No. Once more, such an outcome would be multiculturalism run amok.
Religious asymmetry also raises concerns. Under Islamic law, celebration of non-Islamic religious holidays is forbidden for adherents to Islam. This raises an important question:
Why should a society rooted in religious pluralism extend recognition to a religious/political belief where celebration of a non-Muslim holiday is unlawful and a punishable offense?
And from a security and public policy perspective, consider the following: There are active threats to the homeland. In California alone, there are 16 active ISIS or Islamic State-related investigations. These investigations are in addition to the ongoing Islamic terrorist threat from Islamic Palestinian, Hizballah, and other groups.
In recent testimony from U.S. intelligence leadership at the U.S. Senate’s Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community on March 18, 2026, FBI Director Patel made clear that in December of last year alone, 4 Islamic terrorist attacks or mass casualty events were averted, including a “bombing campaign” in Southern California. Moreover, Christians and Jews continue to be tortured and/or murdered for their faith in Muslim countries.
This debate on Muslim holidays in California is about policy, precedent, and principles.
- Islam is a religious as well as a totalitarian (political) belief system. Islamism has been compared to both Communism and Nazism. It is not a race, nor is it an ethnicity.
- Critiquing public policy decisions is not intolerance, nor is it racist.
In conclusion, California—and the nation as a whole—faces a fundamental question:
- Do we continue to expand official recognition of religious observances across an ever-growing spectrum?
- Or do we preserve our foundational values, our legal traditions, and the integrity of our public institutions?
AB 2017 would erode the very nature of who we are as a People, what America stands for, our very culture and way of life.
If you’re a California voter, you can act by contacting your own representative or by contacting Assemblyman Haney at 916.319.2017 and Senator Wahab at 916.651.4410 to SAY NO TO AB 2017.
GFK
Observations From The Fifth Estate 