Month: March 2016

On
Bishop Robert Barron

The disorienting quality of real prayer

Editor’s note: Because of its length, this column by Bishop Robert Barron is being published in a two-part series. This is the second part of the series.

Hans Urs von Balthasar observes that the beautiful elects the observer and then sends him on mission to announce what he has seen.

Not many years ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked a number of prominent popular musicians to name the song that first “rocked their world.”

Some of the responses were relatively banal, but the vast majority of them had a Joycean resonance: the respondents knew instinctively the difference between songs (however great) that had merely pleased them and songs that had shaken them out of their complacency and rearranged their vision things.

This kind of aesthetic encounter is the spiritual exercise that Irish Murdoch is speaking of.

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On
George Weigel

Easter is not a question mark

Excavating my desk recently, I found the program notes from a Tallis Scholars concert my wife and I had attended a few months ago.

The Tallis Scholars are a marvelous a capella ensemble, but most of their music that night was rather too minimalist for my tastes. In any event, the author of the program notes described Arvo Pärt’s I am the true vine and its “qualities of stasis and timelessness,” as reminiscent of what “former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has described as ‘silently waiting on the truth, pure sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark’.”

Changes in Harvard’s crest

Which put me in mind of an old joke that used to circulate in the editorial offices of First Things. Harvard University’s crest, it seems, used to read Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae [Truth for Christ and the Church].

Christ and the Church were jettisoned over a hundred years ago; the crest now reads, simply, Veritas.

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On
Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Two to be ordained deacons on April 1

MONONA — Bishop Robert  C. Morlino will ordain Jared Holzhuter and Luke Syse, seminarians for the Diocese of Madison, as transitional deacons on Friday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Monona.

A transitional deacon is a man who has completed his third year of theology studies and intends to be ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church.

Holzhuter is the son of Tammie and John Holzhuter, members of St. John Vianney Parish in Janesville. Syse is the son of Patty and Jim Syse of St. Isidore Parish in Blanchardville.

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On
Joan Carey, For the Catholic Herald

St. Paul’s Spring Wine Fest: Toasting new era of campus ministry

MADISON — If anyone has taken a stroll down State St. in the past two months, one will notice a vast difference at 723 State St. The old St. Paul University Catholic Center has been dismantled to make way for the construction of the larger, new St. Paul’s Church and Student Center!

While each year has brought changes and new faces to the primarily student-based center, the heart of the mission remains consistent: providing frequent sacraments and many programs designed to engage the hearts and minds of students, build authentic community, and foster a friendship with Christ that provides a foundation for a lifetime of discipleship.

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On
Tony Magliano

What we can do to help end Christian genocide

For many of us who strive to seriously practice faith in Jesus Christ, and to extend that practice out into the marketplace, the political square, and society at large, persecution rarely means more than being ridiculed, verbally harassed, and to a certain degree socially and politically marginalized.

But for so many other Christians throughout the world who courageously refuse to deny Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior — with all that means — persecution means torture, rape, enslavement, and death.

Global war on Christians

In his well-researched book, The Global War on Christians, Catholic journalist John Allen, cites studies that indicate the number of Christians killed for the faith every year ranges from 7,300 to 100,000 worldwide.

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On
Jean Mueller

Having an ‘adult’ conversation with a parent

I suddenly feel as though I cannot communicate with my father.

Our conversations have become more like a parent-child check-in rather than a pleasant visit. What I mean by that is I feel as though I am taking on a more parental role in our relationship.

My dad lives alone and has some chronic health conditions but nothing too serious. Lately my visits have become focused on whether or not he took his medications, or if he has eaten, or when he last did.

I want dad to be safe and happy but I don’t want to be the person drawing attention to all of the things he is not doing to care for himself.

Is this typical of aging parents? I have no siblings and most of my other relatives live far away.

(From a daughter in Baraboo.)

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