Author: Chris Lee

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Chris Lee

Bless our Priests Collection

Dear Friends in Christ,

The Year of Faith, begun in October, offers each of us a challenge to rediscover our faith and share it with others. It offers us a unique opportunity to reflect on the gift of faith we have been given and grow in that faith.

In reflecting on those who have influenced our lives in faith, most of us have our parents, grandparents, other family members, and great friends to thank. We certainly have great catechists and Catholic school teachers to thank, as well. Those of us of a certain age owe a great debt to the religious sisters who taught in our schools. But every single one of us has a number of priests to thank for the faith we have been given by God.

 

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Chris Lee

Sacraments of Christian Initiation: baptism for infants

Year of Faith column logo

The previous installment in this series spoke of Baptism for Adults. The Church has shown its understanding of this sacrament’s importance by creating the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

But the Church has always had the tradition of baptizing infants and children also. Thus, Acts 16 and 18 speak of three instances in which the “whole household” was baptized. Patristic evidence assures us that the practice of Infant Baptism continued unbroken in the first centuries — and so it has been down through the ages.

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Chris Lee

A busy month at Jefferson school

JEFFERSON — The month of November at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Jefferson was filled with several special events that concluded with the school’s annual Thanksgiving Food Drive.

The eighth graders and Student Council members sponsored the event, which collected over 600 items donated to the Jefferson Food Pantry. Fifth graders helped their “buddies” in pre-kindergarten make special turkey food bags for the many families given donations for Thanksgiving.

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Chris Lee

Catholics must be vigilant to protect religious freedom

To the editor:

As Thanksgiving Day passes into history, I was reminded this morning at Mass to give thanks to the Catholic martyrs who have died because of their resistance to anti-religious freedom laws. In particular this day, we remember Blessed Miguel Pro, a Jesuit priest in Mexico during the violent anti-Catholic persecutions in the 1920’s. On this day in 1927, he was taken to a police firing range and shot to death. His crime against the Mexican government was simply to minister to the Catholic people in their worship of Jesus Christ.

Mexico’s President Calles personally ordered Father Pro’s execution. Before the execution, Father Pro prayed, and then held out his arms in the form of a cross. As the police took aim with their rifles, he spoke the words, “Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”).

Father Pro was not alone in his opposition to religious persecution. According to some sources, more than 200,000 Mexican people from every socio-economic background were killed or martyred by 1930. In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized 25 Catholic martyrs in Mexico, among them being Blessed Miguel Pro.

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Chris Lee

Using sacred language for sacred acts

The Catholic Difference column by George Weigel

It was just about a year ago that U.S. parishes began using the new translations of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal — an implementation process that seems to have gone far more smoothly than some anticipated.

Wrinkles remain to be ironed out: there are precious few decent musical settings for the revised Ordinary of the Mass; the occasional celebrant (not infrequently with “S.J.” after his name) feels compelled to share his winsome personality with the congregation by free-lancing the priestly greetings and prayers of Mass.

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