A message from Salesian Life and Campus Ministry:

Last Sunday, Christian churches celebrated Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. What began with rejoicing as Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, becomes Christ’s surrender as we approach the days of his Passion, Death and Resurrection.

For Pope Leo, Christ’s Passion was a pure act of love and obedience to the Father. Despite suffering and death, God’s love remains. When we take up our crosses out of love for God, our own surrendering and suffering can be redemptive. In a message to the General Audience in October, 2025, Pope Leo emphasized that Christ’s wounds of suffering are a sign of God’s unending love and mercy for us. From these wounds we are given hope, peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Saint Francis de Sales believed that our crosses, “...those we struggle against the most in the depths of our heart,” are opportunities to unite our own suffering with that of Jesus, knowing we too, are surrounded by God’s unending love. By humbling ourselves to,  “...accept the crosses gladly which are laid on you,” we are invited to share in this redemptive hope and experience God’s divine love and mercy. 

During the Lenten season, Visitation students were given the opportunity to participate in Stations of the Cross prayer services. The assemblies were a time to reflect prayerfully on Jesus’ Passion and Crucifixion as a class, as a school community, and to pray for those who carry the heavy crosses, as well as what Saint Francis de Sales refers to as “crosses of straw” or the daily struggles we all encounter. Together, students, faculty and staff reflected on Christ’s suffering and love for us, and renewed the call to courageously Live Jesus more fully in our lives, beyond the Lenten and Easter seasons.

May we encounter God’s love this Holy Week as we journey together with Christ, bringing us hope, peace, courage, and the promise of Easter joy.

Pictured: 

Stations of the Cross, created and gifted by Mary Kay Volk '64. Photo courtesy of Mendota Heights Visitation Archives