BARABOO — Parishioners at St. Joseph Parish in Baraboo helped Fr. Francis Xavier Gray — later Monsignor Gray — buy the land for a Reedsburg youth camp on Shady Lane in the early 1950s.
Not long after, they used dynamite to clear stumps from the athletic field and built cabins from wood they salvaged from crates of ordnance produced at the nearby Badger Army Ammunition Plant just outside of Baraboo.
What advice would a couple married for 50 years give to couples getting married today?
MADISON — The Madison Diocesan Council of Catholic Women (MDCCW) announces its fall vicariate (formerly deanery) meetings. All women and parish priests are invited to attend. Dates and host parishes are:
• Sauk Vicariate — St. Luke Parish, Plain, Tuesday, Sept. 10, mid-afternoon/evening (see information following this listing).
MADISON — Pope Francis has captivated the attention of many people around the globe with his simplicity, humility, directness, and outreach to the marginalized.
He calls us to be in dialogue with the world reaching out to build a culture of “solidarity” or “encounter” in which a society shares and includes. This desire to love flows from the love we have received from Christ.
To help us better experience God’s love in the Scriptures and thus grow in loving, the Blessed Sacrament Parish Adult Faith Formation Committee will be offering various Bible studies this year:
In the 15th century in a village near Nuremberg, Germany, Albrecht Durer and his brother Albert dreamed of attending art school.
But Albrecht Sr., their father who supported 18 children, understandably couldn’t afford to send them. So the two brothers made an agreement. Albrecht would attend art school while Albert worked in the mines to pay his expenses. When Albrecht graduated, he would use his artistic talents to pay for Albert’s tuition and other expenses.
Many children and adults in Wisconsin (myself included) have admired Ryan Braun during his years playing with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Whenever I went to a Brewers’ game, I saw plenty of fans wearing T-shirts with Braun’s name and the number eight. The fans applauded when Braun came up to bat, knowing that he would do his best to get a hit (his career batting average through July was .312).
Braun also seemed to be a nice guy. He accepted his many baseball awards modestly, including the National League’s Most Valuable Player award for the 2011 season.
It was therefore painful for me and other Brewers’ fans to accept the news that Braun might have taken performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). At first we thought it must be a mistake. However, this summer Major League Baseball suspended Braun for the rest of the season and the postseason due to his involvement with the Biogenesis clinic in Florida.
Now we know that Braun lied to us. We wonder why he and other successful athletes took PEDs. Were they greedy for more money and fame? Were they worried about sustaining their athletic prowess? Did they think they would never get caught?
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This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends.
On Sunday, August 19, I was honored and privileged to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving for those in the diocese marking 50 years of marriage.
It was a joyful moment, gathering about 60 couples from throughout the diocese and, in a particular way, I felt called by the Lord to point out that the durability and the steadfastness of their married lives is a “school of forgiveness,” from which all can learn.
I could see the twinkle in their eyes as I recalled that beneath the marriage covenant of each and every couple present there was a mountain of forgiveness built on 50 years of forgiveness and mercy, with and through the Lord.
It is no small feat to have built that mountain, and it is a tremendous sign for the whole world. In fact, it is one of my most cherished occasions of the whole year when I am in the company of those who, with Mary, have said their “fiat” — their, “let it be” — and continue to mean it.
