Alleluia! Today Paul and Silas are beaten, jailed, and chained in the innermost cell. At midnight they are praying and singing hymns - and the prisoners are listening. Then the earthquake: foundations shake, every door flies open, every chain falls loose. The jailer wakes, draws his sword, assumes the worst. Paul calls out: "Do yourself no harm - we are all here." The jailer falls to his knees trembling: "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). That question - asked in the dark, by a man who was about to kill himself - is the question underneath everything in today's news.

📰 Quick Hits

1. Supreme Court Will Hear Case on Catholic Preschools Excluded from Colorado's State Program

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Colorado - a case brought by the Archdiocese of Denver and two Catholic preschools who were excluded from Colorado's taxpayer-funded universal preschool program because their faith-based admission policies don't align with the state's nondiscrimination requirements. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, representing the parishes, put it plainly: "Colorado created a universal preschool program that funds families to send children to the public or private preschool of their choice - but not the Archdiocese of Denver's Catholic preschools." The case builds on Espinoza v. Montana and Carson v. Makin, in which the Court ruled that states cannot exclude religious schools from public funding because of their beliefs. A ruling is expected next term.

Faith Lens for the Home: The Church teaches that parents are the primary educators of their children - not the state. Ask your family: "What does it mean that a Catholic school could be excluded from a program that funds every other school? What are we willing to do to protect the right to pass on our faith?" This case will shape Catholic education for a generation. Pray for the families and parishes in Colorado who brought it.

2. Haiti Opens Its First-Ever Embassy to the Holy See - While Sisters Run Schools in the Slums

On Sunday, Haiti inaugurated its first-ever embassy to the Holy See, near the Vatican walls - a deepening of diplomatic ties at a moment when Port-au-Prince is experiencing some of the worst gang violence in its history, with hundreds of thousands displaced. At the same time, a community of French sisters - the Kizito Family - continues operating seven homes and eight schools in one of the city's worst slums, surrounded by the violence. They have not left. The sisters and the new embassy represent the same thing: a Church that stays, that insists on presence when everything argues for absence.

Faith Lens for the Home: Paul and Silas were still there when the doors flew open - they had not run. Ask your family: "Is there a situation in our life, our neighborhood, or our parish where the right thing is simply to stay - to be present when it's hard?" Then pray tonight for the people of Haiti and for the sisters who remain.

3. A Canadian Parish Breaks Ground on Pentecost Sunday After a Decade of Prayer

St. Patrick's Parish in Brampton, Ontario - one of Canada's fastest-growing communities - will break ground on May 24, Pentecost Sunday, on a new church after more than ten years of planning, fundraising, and patient faith. The new building is modeled on the 6th-century Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish in Tabgha, Israel - a Romanesque design with rounded apse, cruciform shape, and pillars up the aisles. The parish expects 50,000 to 60,000 new neighbors in the next 15 years. An anonymous parishioner pledged $1 million upon the first dig. The groundbreaking will begin with Mass, followed by a procession to the new site, and end with a barbecue and celebration.

Faith Lens for the Home: A community prayed and waited ten years and then built something beautiful on Pentecost Sunday. Ask your family: "What is something our family has waited and prayed for that we haven't given up on? What would it look like to celebrate when God finally opens the door?" The jailer's question - what must I do to be saved? - gets answered one parish at a time, one family at a time, one new church at a time.

⛪ Family Saint Spotlight

Sts. Nereus and Achilleus, and St. Pancras - May 12

Nereus and Achilleus were Roman soldiers who, after their conversion, threw down their weapons and refused to continue in military service, saying they would no longer serve a power that persecuted Christians. They were martyred under Diocletian. Pancras was just 14 years old - a Syrian orphan brought to Rome by his uncle - who refused to apostatize and was beheaded on the Via Aurelia. Three young men who heard the question "what must I do to be saved?" and answered it with everything.

Ask at dinner: "Pancras was 14 when he chose his faith over his life. What do we think gives a teenager that kind of courage - and what are we doing to build that in our own kids?"

✋ One Simple Action

Tonight, ask your family the jailer's question - not dramatically, but genuinely: "What are we doing, as a household, to be saved? What habits, what prayer, what choices are pointing us toward God?" Let the answers sit. You don't need to fix anything tonight. Just ask the question. The earthquake already opened the doors.

📚 Read More

• Supreme Court takes up Catholic preschool case: SCOTUSblog (https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/supreme-court-will-hear-religious-liberty-case-on-catholic-preschools-and-lgbtq-families/) and Becket Fund (https://www.becketlaw.org/case/st-mary-catholic-parish-v-colorado/)
• Haiti's first embassy to the Holy See: NCRegister (https://www.ncregister.com/cna/haitis-first-embassy-to-the-holy-see-inaugurated-near-the-vatican-walls) and EWTN News (https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/americas/haiti-opens-first-ever-embassy-at-holy-see)
• St. Patrick's Brampton groundbreaking: NCRegister (https://www.ncregister.com/cna/historic-parish-in-toronto-archdiocese-to-finally-break-ground-on-new-church) and Catholic World Report (https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2026/05/11/historic-parish-in-toronto-archdiocese-to-finally-break-ground-on-new-church/)
• Sts. Nereus, Achilleus, and Pancras: Catholic Culture (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2026-05-12)

The jailer fell to his knees in the dark and asked the right question. A court will decide whether Catholic schools can answer it in Colorado. Sisters are answering it in the slums of Port-au-Prince. A parish answered it over ten years of waiting and is about to break ground on Pentecost Sunday. What must I do to be saved? Ask it tonight in your home.