Category: Guest column

On
Fr. Gregory Ihm

Awakening deeper faith during the Year of Consecrated Life

Pope Francis has declared this year as the Year of Consecrated Life and you will see from his letter that he has several objectives for this year.

Among them being: thanksgiving for all the Lord has accomplished through the various Religious communities, a greater fidelity to the mission established by the founders and foundresses, and embracing the future with hope.

Diocese involved

The Diocese of Madison is looking to assist the Holy Father with these objectives by engaging the priests, Religious, and laity in various events and activities throughout the year.

We are inviting our consecrated men and women to use this year as an opportunity to highlight the many graces received through the living out of their community’s charisms throughout the history of the diocese.

We also look forward to opportunities to joining the various Religious communities in their prayer which is crucial to their identity.

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On
Ask IPS

How to cope with the seasonal blues

QUESTION: While everyone else seems joyful, I often feel depressed around the holidays. Could you suggest some ways to cope with the holiday blues?

RESPONSE: By William McKenna, M.S., clinical extern at the IPS Center for Psychological Services

We so often hear Christmas songs with lines such as, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” and “Christmas time is here. Happiness and cheer!”

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On
Fr. Rick Heilman, For the Catholic Herald

It’s time for a new Holy League
Man crisis

According to Matthew Christoff, “There is a serious ‘man-crisis’ in the Catholic Church. It is widespread and serious. Unless the Church, including its bishops, priests, and lay men begin to take notice and make the evangelization of Catholic men a priority, the Catholic Church in the West will decay, as more and more men abandon the Church. Unchecked, the exodus of Catholic men from the faith is likely to continue as men become increasingly casual about Catholicism.”

Recognizing this crisis, Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “In vast areas of the earth the faith risks being extinguished, like a flame without fuel. We are facing a profound crisis of faith, a loss of a religious sense which represents one of the greatest challenges for the Church today . . . The renewal of faith must, then, be a priority for the entire Church in our time.”

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On
Sr. Constance Veit, For the Catholic Herald

Cultivating ‘spirituality of encounter’ this Advent

Guest Column

In September, Pope Francis celebrated “the blessing of long life” with thousands of senior citizens and their families.

In his homily that day, he spoke about the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, calling it “a Gospel of encounter.”

The pope encouraged those present — and through them, all of us — to follow Mary’s example and re-establish a covenant between the young and the old.

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On
Janeen Otis

A ‘miracle baby’ is born

On March 3, 2013, I received a telephone call from a pretty distraught gentleman who was waiting in his car in the Planned Parenthood parking lot while his girlfriend had her abortion consult appointment.

Curtis kept referring to abortion as “intrinsic evil,” yet he felt that abortion was the only option to hide the fact that he had premarital sex.

Curtis had recently come to the Catholic faith and held a position on a board and was involved in prison ministry. He couldn’t imagine his peers knowing of his choice to engage in premarital sex.

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