Did You Know...

The Resurrection, El Greco

Happy Easter to all of my readers of the Christian faith — and Happy Passover to all of my readers of the Jewish faith.

“Jesus Christ is Risen Today” performed by the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir:

And “Rejoice,” from Le choeur gospel de Paris:

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Worshipers practice their faith in fear in Iraq:

Iraqi Christians marked a restrained Easter weekend as fear of attacks kept many from openly celebrating their most sacred day of the year and church officials urged them not to give up on the country.

At Our Lady of Salvation, where gunmen and suicide bombers killed 52 worshipers and guards in October, the church was tightly locked, guarded by Iraqi police who said the doors would be opened only moments before the Saturday evening Mass.

Only the arch and cross on the church roof were visible behind 10-foot-high concrete walls like others that have turned most churches in Baghdad into miniature fortresses.

“Our churches have become like prisons,” said Monsignor Pious Casha, who arrived at Our Lady of Salvation during the siege moments after Iraqi special forces stormed the church. “The barbed wire and concrete are new. Yes they protect the churches, but they make the worshipers spiritually constrained.”

A roadside bombing outside Baghdad’s Sacred Heart church today:

An Iraqi police official says seven people have been wounded by a roadside bomb outside the entrance of a Baghdad church.

The official says the blast took place Sunday just yards (meters) from the Sacred Heart Church in Baghdad’s Karradah neighborhood. Shrapnel from the bomb struck the outside of the building.

The officer said no parishioners were inside and services had not been held in the building.

Four policemen and three civilian bystanders were wounded.

Troops in Afghanistan celebrate:

A large crowd gathered around a bonfire out in front of Bagram’s Enduring Faith Chapel on Saturday night.

Many in the group were in uniform and carrying weapons, but so unobtrusively that the sight barely registered here in a place where weapons are a fact of everyday life.

For the Catholic service known as Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, the American priest and his Polish assistants dedicated a candle and lit it from the bonfire, after which the large crowd lit individual smaller candles and began to file solemnly into the church.