Category: Bishop Hying’s Columns

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Bishop Donald J. Hying

Make this the best Lent of your life

Ash Wednesday, St. Bernard, Middleton
Fr. Brian Wilk, pastor of St. Bernard Parish in Middleton, distributes ashes to a parishioner during an Ash Wednesday Mass last year. (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash)

Every Lent, the whole Church goes on a retreat together with Jesus in the desert for 40 days. Through increased attention to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we grow in virtue and holiness, more attentive to the grace and love of the Lord, more dynamic in the practice of our faith, more spiritually ready to celebrate the great Paschal Mystery, the death and resurrection of Christ.

The etymology of “religion” is “relationship,” so we deepen the relationships in our lives this Lent. Through prayer, we grow in our experience and attention to the Lord; through almsgiving, we serve and love others by sharing our time and treasure, especially with the needy and suffering; through fasting, we empty ourselves out, so the Lord can more truly reign on the throne of our hearts.

More Jesus. Less me. If I am especially faithful to fasting, there will literally be less of me, come Easter!

More about subtraction than addition

In a sense, Lent is more about subtraction than it is addition. By removing the noisy demands of my selfishness and the distracting clutter of my heart, God has greater freedom and capacity to live, move, and act within me.

This path of self-emptying is imitative of Jesus, who followed a trajectory of remarkable humility, in order to reach, heal, forgive, love, and save us. Jesus Christ was laser-focused on doing the will of the Father, radically directing every aspect of His life and personality to His mission.

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Kevin Wondrash

Throw off darkness, embrace the Eternal Day

Acedia is an uncommon word that defines a common experience. Its Latin and Greek antecedents mean “negligence” and “lack of care.”

The definition is “a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one’s position or condition in the world. (Acedia) can lead to a state of being unable to perform one’s duties in life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to, but distinct from depression.”

Linked to boredom, lukewarmness, and apathy, acedia can particularly overwhelm us in our spiritual practice and pastoral ministry.

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Bishop Donald J. Hying

Work out our salvation by how we live

“Are you saved?” is a classic evangelical question which we have probably all been asked once or twice. Those posing the query usually view salvation as a specific event, the precise moment when they gave their lives to Jesus and experienced his forgiveness.

A gentleman told me once that he was saved at a Billy Graham crusade in 1978, which for him was a powerful spiritual transformation. As Catholics, we may fumble for an articulate answer to the question of salvation, which is a sign perhaps that our understanding of this central reality of faith is more nuanced.

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Bishop Donald J. Hying

Life and legacy of Blessed Frederic Ozanam

Bishop Hying blesses mosaic
Bishop Donald J. Hying blesses a mosaic of Blessed Frederic Ozanam at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington on January 26. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)

Last week, I was honored to celebrate Mass in the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and to bless a newly-installed mosaic of Blessed Frederic Ozanam, the founder of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Society’s presence in the United States.

I have been involved with the Vincentians for 20 years as a chaplain, serving for the last two years on the national level. In preparing my homily for the Mass, I dug deeper into the life and legacy of Frederic Ozanam, realizing with greater clarity his inestimable contribution to Catholic thought and the wisdom of the Church in addressing the social issues of the day.

Visionary founder

As a visionary founder of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, Frederic has helped millions of Catholics to live the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy in a practical and generous manner. He was a journalist, scholar, professor, social activist, husband, and father. He taught literature, history, and law, deeply engaged in the intellectual problems and social challenges of his day. Ozanam has much to say to our present age.

Frederic was born in Milan in 1813, going to Paris to study law, where he suffered a deep loneliness but also was befriended by André Ampère, a scientist exploring the wonders of electricity, in whose home Ozanam became a boarder.

Simultaneously a sophisticated scientist and a devout Catholic, Ampère showed his young charge that there was no inherent dichotomy between Christianity and science or between Catholicism and the social ills of workers and the poor.

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Kevin Wondrash

Lifting up contribution of Catholic education

We celebrate Catholic Schools Week in this last week of January with special Masses, fun activities, and service events in all of our schools.

This week lifts up the invaluable contribution of Catholic education to the lives of our young people and children, as they are formed to know Jesus, love Him, and serve Him as Catholic disciples of the Gospel.

I profoundly thank Dr. Michael Lancaster and everyone in our diocesan Schools Office, our principals, teachers, staff, students, and parents for the dedication, generosity, leadership, and service they offer to help our schools flourish and our children to realize their full potential as beloved children of God.

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Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison

Spreading the Gospel of life is our mission

This week, we once again commemorate the sad anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision in 1973 which legalized abortion throughout our country.

Since then, millions and millions of human lives have been legally snuffed out in the very beginning of their existence without the chance of making their contribution to the world or knowing the wonder of our human experience.

Last year globally, 41 million abortions occurred. These numbers are staggering when we compare them to any other human tragedy which destroys lives.

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Bishop Donald J. Hying

Importance of reading and studying the Bible

Recently, Pope Francis designated the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, which falls on January 26 this year, as the Word of God Sunday, to honor the Scriptures and to lift up the importance of Divine Revelation given to us through the Bible.

St. Jerome, who dedicated his life to translating the entire Bible into Latin, famously said that “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” As Christians, we are grounded in the Word, confident that the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical authors to write what they did as the definitive and inerrant expression of God’s communication to His people.

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Bishop Donald J. Hying

The power of Baptism

This Sunday, we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, the closing of the Christmas season and an opportune moment to thank God for the remarkable grace of our own Baptism.

Jesus receives the Baptism of repentance from John, not because He needs it, but to sanctify the waters of Baptism and to identify with us in our sinful, fallen state, without ever having sinned Himself.

This compassionate identification with our weakness and death reaches its ultimate saving conclusion in the mystery of the crucifixion and resurrection.

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Bishop Donald J. Hying

May Holy Family bless, strengthen, and heal us

This Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family, honoring the beautiful truth that God entered into the world through a family, an extraordinary one at that, but a human family.

Pondering this remarkable truth for 2000 years, the Catholic Church has a highly developed theology of marriage and family, seeing each Christian home as a domestic church, a sacred place where children are conceived, born, nurtured, and raised to know, love, and serve God.

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Kevin Wondrash

Going forth as missionary disciples

Bishop Donald J. Hying's column

The fourth part of the Kerygma is giving witness to the saving love of the Lord to others, to go forth as missionary disciples.

Too often as Catholics, we have quietly and individually lived out our faith, but seldom have we equipped believers to share that faith with those around them.

Missionary discipleship

Believers focus on their relationship with God; missionary disciples help others grow their own spirituality. Believers embrace a deep prayer life which is seldom shared with other people; missionary disciples boldly and joyously pray with others out loud and speak of their love for Christ.

Any pastoral renewal seeks to help our leaders and people grow in their understanding and practice of missionary discipleship. We can look at missionary discipleship through the lens of Jesus’ two commands, “Follow me” and “Go forth.”

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