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 in the parish’s 150 year history include:
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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.
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, 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.
A Mass of Christian Burial was offered for Deacon John James Kraus, who died on Sunday, March 27, 2016.
