Author: Chris Lee

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Chris Lee

Making a world of difference

Propagation of Faith by Msgr. Delbert Schmelzer

Mukuru, a slum in the Kenyan capital city of Nairobi, is home to some 10,000 people living in wood and corrugated metal shacks, crowded together, with no running water, electricity, or sewage systems.

Sunday Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Mukuru is packed. At the Offertory procession, with the gifts of bread and wine are baskets of vegetables, flour, rice, bread, and other necessities for the less fortunate members of the parish.

Spreading the Good News

Then, at the end of Mass, the new words of dismissal — “go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” — come to life immediately as the missionary priest and others navigate narrow dirt paths, spreading the Good News of God’s love to the sick and those suffering in any way.

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Chris Lee

Encountering the risen Lord

Seeing with Jesus' Eyes, by Fr. Don Lange

Cecil DeMille, the famous movie director, was enjoying an overdue vacation at a Maine lake resort.

He was reading a book in a canoe, when he noticed a water beetle crawling up the boat’s side. When the beetle got halfway up, it stuck the talons of its legs to the canoe’s wood and died.

DeMille resumed reading. Three hours later he glanced again at the water beetle. What he saw amazed him. The beetle had dried up and its back began to crack open. First, a moist head, then wings, and finally a tail emerged. Out of apparent death, new life emerged in the form of a magnificent dragonfly.

As the dragonfly dazzled his eyes with its acrobatic flight, Cecil De Mille nudged the dried out beetle shell with his finger. It looked like a tomb.

From Good Friday to Easter

The water beetle’s amazing transformation reminds us of what happened to Jesus on Good Friday when he truly died on the cross and rose from the dead.

Jesus’ body that rose on Easter was different from the body buried on Good Friday. It was not a resuscitated body, restored to its original life like that of Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter. It was a risen glorified body.

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Chris Lee

Libertad religiosa, libertad de consciencia

Queridos amigos:

La semana pasada tuve el privilegio de ser testigo de la libertad religiosa y la libertad de consciencia con casi 500 fieles en el edificio federal del centro de la ciudad de Madison. Esas manifestaciones han sido organizadas rápidamente en toda nuestra nación y sé que no todos los que podrían haber participado lo hicieron (o incluso supieron sobre estos eventos).

Los que pudieron congregarse allí, sin embargo, eran en su mayoría católicos (aunque no todos) y al estar allí estaban cumpliendo lo que el Concilio Vaticano II quiso decir cuando hablaba de la “misión de los laicos”, es decir, aplicar los estándares del Reino de Dios al mundo real.

Ese es el verdadero papel que la Iglesia estaba tratando de asignar a los laicos a través del Concilio Vaticano II: fieles que testimonien activamente al mundo de hoy, haciendo presente a la Iglesia hoy (algo opuesto a la idea de que la manera principal de ser un “católico” activo es tener distintos roles litúrgicos).

Las mujeres, hombres y niños reunidos en Madison la semana pasada estaban tomando la misión de laicos de la Iglesia, que es testimoniar la presencia santificadora de Dios en el mundo. Alentaría a que todos recordemos nuestro llamado a esa misión en nuestra vida cotidiana mientras miramos al futuro de nuestra nación.

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Chris Lee

Atraídos por la luz de la Verdad

Queridos amigos:

El fin de semana pasado celebramos el domingo Laetare, es decir el “Domingo de la alegría”. Como alguien que ve y lee muchas noticias, estuve tentado a no alegrarme y a no ponerme de un ánimo laetare, porque no hay mucho como para alegrarse.

La gran mayoría de noticias, de hecho, me deja de un ánimo muy triste. Honestamente temo mucho que nuestro país se encuentra en un camino muy pero muy peligroso. Temo que nuestro país esté escogiendo la oscuridad, en vez de la luz, y temo por las consecuencias de ello (como hemos escuchado en el Evangelio del domingo pasado, Juan 3: 14-21).

Pero, a decir verdad, eso no hace que evite alegrarme, porque mi vida no se trata de las noticias, y mi vida no lo es todo sobre este país, o incluso de este mundo. Lo principal en mi vida es Jesucristo, ¡quien ha resucitado de entre los muertos! Y esa es la razón por la que el Domingo pasado, a mitad de la Cuaresma, pudimos celebrar el “Domingo de la alegría”, ya que nuestra celebración de la Semana Santa está solo a tres semanas.

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Chris Lee

Pilgrimage was truly an experience of love and unity

To the editor:

From the first time we went to Rome, we could sense the greatness and beauty of the Catholic Church, the priests and nuns dressed in their habits walking through the streets of Rome as a visible sign of Christ and his Church.

But the recent Diocese of Madison Ad Limina Pilgrimage took me beyond my imagination. To be in the excavations below St. Peter’s Basilica and to visit the place where St. Peter’s bones remain, I felt transported — in those moments neither time nor space existed. I realized the triumphant, suffering, and militant Church is One, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman. I cried like Mary Magdalene because I could not contain my emotions.

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Chris Lee

Sisters issue statement on Patient Protection, Affordable Care Act

Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of the Church

Following is a response of the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of the Church to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Sisters minister in the Diocese of Madison at St. Elizabeth Home in Janesville and St. Elizabeth Manor in Footville.

The Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of the Church publicly and without reserve support the Catholic Bishops of the United States in opposing the Health and Human Services mandate requiring that all group health plans and health insurance issuers provide the full range of contraceptive methods and services under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA).

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Chris Lee

Will state Supreme Court take Brennan’s advice?

Eye on the Capitol by John Huebscher

For over 30 years, Associate Supreme Court Justice William Brennan was among the most influential members of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, he and Earl Warren led the court’s “liberal wing” through the 1960s. Brennan’s background was somewhat unusual in that his prior judicial experience occurred not in the federal courts, but on the New Jersey Supreme Court.

As the U.S. Supreme Court became more conservative, Brennan began urging lawyers and other advocates of individual liberty to pursue what he called a “new Federalism.”

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