TV Picks March 30-April 5, 2008

All Times Eastern

SUNDAY, all day

EWTN’s Divine Mercy Sunday

EWTN Today’s shows are the film Faustina (1:30 a.m.), A Time for Mercy (5 a.m.), Generations Unite in Prayer: The Chaplet of Divine Mercy in Song (6:30 a.m.), Divine Mercy Preview Show (noon), Solemn Mass and Celebration of Divine Mercy (1 p.m., live), Divine Mercy Holy Hour (4 p.m.) and Reminders of God’s Mercy: The Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy at 5:30 p.m.


SUNDAY, all day

Familyland’s Divine Mercy Sunday

FAMILYLAND TV Today’s shows: The Divine Mercy (12:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11 p.m.), Divine Mercy Novena and Chaplet (2:30 a.m., 6 p.m.), Divine Mercy: No Escape (3:30 a.m., 12 noon, 8 p.m.), Trust in My Mercy (4:30 a.m., 1 p.m.), Divine Mercy, Our Lady and John Paul II (6 a.m., 2 p.m.) and Time for Mercy (7 a.m., 3:30 p.m., 9 p.m.)


MONDAY, 9 p.m.

American Experience: Minik, the Lost Eskimo

PBS Brought to New York City at age 7 by Arctic explorer Robert Peary with five other polar Greenland Eskimos in 1897, the boy Minik was soon orphaned. Adopted by museum director William Wallace, Minik tried to adapt to urban life. He returned to Greenland in 1909 but had forgotten his Inuit language, and he struggled to learn hunting and fishing skills and other Eskimo ways. He returned to New York City in 1916, only to die in the terrible flu epidemic of 1918. Advisory: TV-PG.


TUESDAY, 9 p.m.

The Universe: Nebulas

HISTORY CHANNEL Astronomers’ images and computer graphics take us on a tour of nebulas, the multicolored gas clouds that are stars’ birthplaces. Advisory: TV-PG.


WEDNESDAY, 8 p.m.

Ocean Adventures: Return to the Amazon, Part I

PBS Airing tonight and same time next Wednesday, this Jean-Michel Cousteau documentary explores the world’s longest and widest river. The diving teams swam with anacondas, crocs and dolphins, probed environmental problems and surveyed locals’ and others’ conservation efforts. Catholic viewers do not have to accept all of Cousteau’s notions in order to enjoy his scenes of the Amazon’s flora and fauna. TV-G.


FRIDAY, 12 noon, 6 p.m.

Man, Moment, Machine: Alexander the Great and the Devastating Catapult

HISTORY CHANNEL A powerful catapult was one of the means Alexander the Great used to take the fortified Phoenician coastal island-city of Tyre in 332 B.C. Advisory: TV-PG.


SATURDAY, 5 p.m.

Santa Anita Derby

NBC First run in 1935, this $750,000 race at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia is the last major California stakes for 3-year-olds heading to the Kentucky Derby.


Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.

Palestinian Christians celebrate Easter Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City on March 31, amid the ongoing battles Israel and the Hamas militant group.

People Explain ‘Why I Go to Mass’

‘Why go to Mass on Sundays? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church. … We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with his living presence in us and among us, can we put into practice his commandment, and thus be his credible witnesses.’ —Pope Francis

Palestinian Christians celebrate Easter Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City on March 31, amid the ongoing battles Israel and the Hamas militant group.

People Explain ‘Why I Go to Mass’

‘Why go to Mass on Sundays? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church. … We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with his living presence in us and among us, can we put into practice his commandment, and thus be his credible witnesses.’ —Pope Francis