Year: 2014

On
Jacqueline von Zwehl

A simple lesson learned from a child

Gifts for Your Soul column by Jacqueline von Zwehl

As a parent, one of my favorite rituals is the evening story time routine with my two girls. They are four and two years old, and sometimes getting them to quiet down takes a few prayers. With patience, they always settle down and look forward to story time as much as I do.

After they’re both in their pajamas, each of them is allowed to pick one book and one story in their Bible. We read the books first and then the two Bible stories.

It amazes me which stories the girls seem to love most and which ones they don’t seem to identify with yet. We’ll talk about the bible stories and I’ll do my best to explain God’s lesson in a way they can understand.

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On
Carolyn Averill, For the Catholic Herald

Faith is alive during Lent on UW-Madison campus

MADISON — College students are known for “pulling an all-nighter” to stay up through the night writing a paper or studying for an exam.

For Audrey Hilts, a sophomore at UW-Madison and student leader at St. Paul Catholic Center, her first all-nighter last year was a little different.

“The night before Ash Wednesday, St. Paul’s offered all-night perpetual Eucharistic Adoration — praying with the Blessed Sacrament in the middle of the night was such a powerful way to begin Lent!”

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On
Fr. Robert Barron

‘Priest, prophet, and king’

Word on Fire column by Fr. Robert Barron

Editor’s note: This week we begin publishing the column “Word on Fire” by Fr. Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire Ministries, which reaches millions of people by utilizing the tools of new media to draw people into or back to the Catholic Faith. Father Barron is the creator and host of Catholicism, a groundbreaking, award winning documentary series about the Catholic faith. The series has aired across the country on PBS and EWTN and has been seen and broadcast in parishes, universities, schools, and media outlets throughout the world. The documentary received a Christopher Award for excellence. Father Barron and Word on Fire also released the documentary Catholicism: The New Evangelization in 2013.

A classic characterization of Jesus is that he is priest, prophet, and king. As priest, he sanctifies, that is to say, he reestablishes the lost link between divinity and humanity; as prophet, he speaks and embodies the divine truth; and as king, he leads us on the right path, giving guidance to the human project.

You might say that, as priest, he is the life; as prophet, he is the truth; and as king he is the way.

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On
Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

Pope’s Lenten message: Follow Jesus seeking out poor, sinners

Msgr. James Bartylla, vicar general of the Diocese of Madison, distributes ashes on Ash Wednesday in the chapel of the Bishop O’Connor Center, Madison. Ash Wednesday is observed on March 5 this year. (Catholic Herald file photo)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Courageously follow Jesus in seeking out the poor and sinners and in making difficult sacrifices to help and heal others, Pope Francis said in his message for Lent, which begins March 5.

Christians are called to confront the material, spiritual, and moral destitution of “our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own, and to take practical steps to alleviate it,” the pope said in his Lenten message.

Saving the world will not come about “with the right kind of human resources” and token alms, but only “through the poverty of Christ,” who emptied himself of the worldly and made the world rich with God’s love and mercy, Pope Francis said.

Focus on Christ’s poverty

The pope’s message focused on the theme of Christ’s poverty, with the title: “He became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich,” from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.

Pope Francis said he chose the passage to explore what St. Paul’s references to poverty and charity mean for Christians today.

There are many forms of poverty, he said, including the material destitution that disfigures the face of humanity and the moral destitution of being a slave to vice and sin.

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On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Church needs ‘dynamic’ fraternal correction

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,

Last week in my column I talked a lot about conscience, and I’d like to pick the theme back up, as our Gospel from this past Sunday touches on that very same message.

Conscience should always drive us toward perfection. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5:48),” is the parting exhortation from our Lord in this past Sunday’s Gospel. A correctly formed conscience never says to you, “How little can I do and still call myself a Catholic?”

Conscience doesn’t make us minimalistic

Conscience does not open the door to be a minimalist. It is not a tool for our saying, “How can I give myself permission to do the minimum?”

Conscience opens the door to perfection, to the heroic, to the maximum, because the well-formed conscience serves as that truth-seeking radar, by which we choose to follow the law of the Lord.

As I said, we very much need to spread the word about conscience, and the readings of this past Sunday really help us with one detail of how to do that.

If we’re going to spread the good word about conscience, that means we’re going to have to correct others, especially our brothers and sisters who are Catholic. We know that this is not easy.

What is easy, when we seek to inform the consciences of others, is to seem as if we are judging the person themselves. We have to avoid that judgment of the individual, but we must not hesitate to help them, by offering the truth about their actions.

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On
Chris Lee

La Iglesia necesita la “dinámica” de la corrección fraterna

Esta columna es la comunicación del Obispo con los fieles de la Diócesis de Madison. Cualquier circulación más amplia va más allá de la intención del Obispo.

Queridos amigos:

La semana pasada en mi columna hablé sobre la conciencia y me gustaría volver a ella, ya que el Evangelio del domingo pasado contiene el mismo mensaje.

La conciencia debe siempre llevarnos a la perfección. “Sean perfectos como es perfecto vuestro Padre celestial (Mt 5:48)”, es la exhortación de nuestro Señor en el Evangelio del domingo pasado. Una conciencia correctamente formada nunca te dice “¿Qué es lo mínimo que debo hacer para llamarme todavía católico?”

La conciencia no nos hace minimalistas

La conciencia no abre la puerta del minimalismo. No es una herramienta para que digamos “¿Cómo puedo permitirme hacer lo mínimo?”

La conciencia abre la puerta a la perfección, a lo heroico, a lo máximo, porque la conciencia bien formada sirve como un radar que busca la verdad, por medio de la cual elegimos seguir la ley del Señor.

Como dije, necesitamos mucho difundir la palabra sobre la conciencia, y las lecturas del domingo pasado realmente nos ayudan con un detalle sobre cómo hacer eso.

Si vamos a difundir la buena palabra sobre la conciencia, eso significa que vamos a tener que corregir a otros, especialmente a nuestros hermanos y hermanas que son católicos. Sabemos que eso no es fácil.

Lo que es fácil, cuando buscamos informar las conciencias de otros, es que parezca como si estuviéramos juzgando a la persona misma. Tenemos que evitar ese juicio del individuo, pero no tenemos que dudar en ayudarlos, al ofrecerles la verdad sobre sus acciones.

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