MCFARLAND — How do we show love to those who are hostile to us because of our Christian beliefs? How do we persevere in the faith when others would like to eliminate God and religion from this country?
What can we do to bring the light of Christ’s truth and mercy to the attacks on our religious liberty?
 |
|
Recently, Stephen Colbert gave an interview in which the depth of his Catholic faith was on pretty clear display.
Discussing the trauma that he experienced as a young man — the deaths of his father and two of his brothers in a plane crash — he told the interviewer how, through the ministrations of his mother, he had learned not only to accept what had happened but actually to rejoice in it: “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10; that was quite an explosion . . . It’s that I love the thing that I wish most had not happened.”
 |
|
| Ask IPS |
QUESTION: “I had an abortion some years ago. While I’ve been to therapy and looked to Project Rachel* for help, with all of the media hype about Planned Parenthood I’ve been having nightmares, flashbacks, and I’m just angry all the time. Will I ever find healing?”
RESPONSE: William McKenna, M.S., Clinical Extern at the IPS Center for Psychological Services
Work is part of everyone’s life, whether it’s paid or unpaid. Yet how often do we think about how we witness to our faith through our work?
As the editor of a Catholic newspaper, I have more opportunity than others to integrate my work with my faith. But it is still a challenge to keep a faith perspective in every aspect of my work.
For some insights on this topic, I recalled a statement made by the state’s bishops in 2001. It is called Making Wisconsin Work Well: A Labor Day Challenge by Wisconsin’s Roman Catholic Bishops (still available on the Wisconsin Catholic Conference website at www.wisconsincatholic.org and well worth another look).
BARABOO — The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) is an organization of lay Catholic Americans concerned about the moral crisis shaking the remnants of Christian civilization.
Its origins date back to January 1971, when the first TFP members started to group around the publication Crusade for a Christian Civilization.
Today, with over 120,000 active members, volunteers, and donors, the TFP is on the front lines of the “Culture War,” peacefully defending the values of tradition, family, and private ownership.
 |
|
Bill Droel, a Labor Day historian, wrote that Labor Day began in 1882 when machinist Matthew Maguire and carpenter Peter Maguire organized a worker’s parade in New York City.
Both were Catholic laymen who were active in the Knights of Labor, the first successful national union in our country. In 1894, Congress voted that Labor Day be a national holiday.
 |
|
|
Fr. Bart Timmerman, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Madison, leads more than 200 people in praying the Rosary outside the Planned Parenthood clinic on Madison’s east side as they protested the selling of baby body parts from abortions. (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash) |
MADISON — Prayer.
That’s what it will take to end abortion.
That’s what rush hour commuters saw as more than 200 people prayed on the sidewalks near the Planned Parenthood clinic on Madison’s east side to do their part to see that facility close and protect the lives of the unborn.
The protest on Monday, Aug. 24, was held in unity with nationwide protests following reports of Planned Parenthood harvesting and selling the organs and tissue of aborted babies.
As people’s workdays ended, they arrived at the Orin Rd. site for the 5 p.m. protest, despite the unseasonably cold and gloomy late August weather.
Fr. Rick Heilman, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff and St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Mount Horeb and Perry, welcomed everyone who came out.
“With man it’s impossible, but with God all things are possible,” he said. Encouraging everyone to pray and be in a state of grace, he added, “We need to lean on God and his grace . . . lean on Our Lady as much as you can. She is the one who steps on that satanic head.”
A Sunday afternoon Mass, Aug. 16, at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Monona, was part of the annual Diocese of Madison Celebration of Wedding Anniversaries.
MARSHALL — There aren’t many women in their mid-20s who would give up a teaching career and move to a southern African country to help young women in need — but sometimes all it takes is one person to make a difference.
Twenty-eight year old Marshall native Mary-Kate Martin is one of those women.
The member of Holy Family Parish in Marshall and Waterloo is the founder and executive director of Hosea’s Heart.
MADISON — When the Red Mass is mentioned, people often express some curiosity about it and wonder what it is, where it originated, and why it is called “red.”
The last question is the easiest to answer. It is because the celebrant of the Mass wears red vestments and long ago, some of the royal judges also had red vestments.
But what is a Red Mass? It is a Mass, usually celebrated as the new judicial term begins, to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance for all those engaged in the justice and legal systems.
