The Diocese of Madison received two great gifts on Friday of the Easter Octave.
Deacon Jared Holzhuter and Deacon Luke Syse were ordained to the transitional diaconate at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Monona.
Day: April 7, 2016
Lessons derived from the Resurrection
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The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the be-all and the end-all of the Christian faith. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, all bishops, priests, and Christian ministers should go home and get honest jobs, and all the Christian faithful should leave their churches immediately.
As Paul himself put it: “If Jesus is not raised from the dead, our preaching is in vain and we are the most pitiable of men.” It’s no good, of course, trying to explain the Resurrection away or rationalize it as a myth, a symbol, or an inner subjective experience. None of that does justice to the novelty and sheer strangeness of the Biblical message.
St. Vincent de Paul hosts first Care Café
MADISON — It was a change-of-pace start of the day for many supporters of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) in Madison.
The organization recently held its first Care Café community fundraising breakfast at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.
It was a chance for SVdP to show the community the local work it does to help neighbors in need.
Should we push our children to aim for perfection?
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| Ask IPS |
QUESTION: “I was wondering about the balance of aiming for perfection. As a parent, I want my children to do well in life, and especially in school, but I also do not want to push my child too far. Is working for perfection with your children a positive thing?”
RESPONSE: William McKenna, M.S. Clinical Psychology Extern at Catholic Charities
Excellent question! Before answering, however, I would like to present to you a quote from Coach John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach who led his team to 10 championship victories in 12 years. He said, “Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility.”
What’s POLST? Another medical decision tool . . . with big problems
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| John Bohn, M.D. |
Medical care decisions can be difficult, emotional, and often very confusing. And adding more forms to fill out can make it seem overwhelming. This is especially true for serious medical decisions involving end-of-life issues or other situations that may call for life- sustaining treatments.
In recent years, a new form has been heavily promoted as a “tool” to deal with such matters in hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics across the country. It is called the POLST form. POLST stands for “Physician’s Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment.”
Think twice about POLST
But should you have a POLST form on file? Promotors see it as a tool to effectively translate patient wishes about life-sustaining treatment into medical orders that is easily accessed from their medical record.
Dr. Ralph Martin to give St. Thérèse Lecture Series
MADISON — Dr. Ralph Martin will present the next St. Thérèse Lecture on Wednesday, April 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Bishop O’Connor Center. His topic will be “Mercy and Mission: Living as a Catholic in Challenging Times.”
This special lecture during the Year of Mercy will help all the faithful enter more deeply into their understanding of mercy and their call to mission and to bring mercy into their daily lives.
Spring Green parish celebrates 150th anniversary
SPRING GREEN — St. John the Evangelist Parish in Spring Green is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year with a Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday, April 17, at 10:30 a.m.
A reception will follow in the parish center.
Significant dates
Significant dates in the parish’s 150 year history include:
Have faith in the invisible realities
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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,
This past weekend we celebrated our Second Sunday of Easter — Divine Mercy Sunday — and the readings point in a particular way to the way we as a Christian people are called to respond, when acting simply in faith.
In the Gospel, we saw our Lord appear in His resurrected body, and we heard him speak to Thomas and the Apostles saying, “Blessed are they who have not seen but have believed (Jn 20:29).” These are words which are terribly important for our country and for our culture and for our day and age.
Some say truth found only in science
Our country and our culture and our day and age have tried to convince us that the only truth is to be found in science, that is, seeing what is visible by some method of physical observation, by some scientific method. If there is some kind of physical seeing possible, then we have truth. I see it with my own eyes!
Our strides in science are wonderful and our knowledge impressive, but what does Jesus say to us? “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”
The Gospel tells us that knowledge by grace, knowledge from God’s point of view, gives us far more certainty than science, which is limited to picturing how things go in the physical world. We continue to have a greater and greater understanding of how things work in our physical world, but there is far more to understand.
Her work reached across the globe
Her work, begun in the cloister, reached across the globe, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement following the death of Mother Angelica.
“She was a convincing sign as to how even the humblest of beginnings can yield abundant fruit,” he added.