“If you don’t behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.” — Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
In my humble mind of seeing how the citizens of the United States are on “the slippery slope” of not believing in God and thus they believe in “nothing”.
The fatal decision by the United States Supreme Court on June 25, 1962, which declared school-sponsored prayers unconstitutional in the landmark case of Engel v. Vitale. |
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In June, it’ll mark 23 years since I graduated from a Catholic school (sorry, Mom and Dad, if that makes you feel old).
I attended Two Rivers (Wis.) Catholic Central School (TRCCS), in the Diocese of Green Bay, from 1989 to 1998, from kindergarten to eighth grade. Like some students in the Diocese of Madison, I attended school in two buildings throughout those nine years — St. Mark for grades K to four and St. Luke for grades five to eight.
Unfortunately, the school, later known as St. Peter the Fisherman, is no longer open.
Name changes and school closings are also known to some people in this diocese, so my experience was somewhat “universal” with what other Catholic school students go through all over. |
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Several years ago (I’ve been here that long?), I wrote a feature story on a young woman who was in her parish’s RCIA program and was on the path to being a full member of the Catholic Church come Easter Vigil.
During my interview with her, she remarked, with a huge smile of anticipation, that she couldn’t wait to receive the Eucharist for the first time.
It made me pause and wonder if I ever felt that excited about Holy Communion.
I don’t think I felt that way at age eight when I received for the first time, and any sort of pumped up and glowy feeling probably lessened after that.We have survived 2020 and made it into 2021. What a year this has been!
Who would have thought that COVID-19 would alter our lives here, in our country, and throughout the world. |
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It’s January 7, the morning after the latest installment of “I never thought this could happen here”.
Yesterday, January 6, 2021, gave us images of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., being invaded by violent persons who fought with law enforcement, damaged the parts of the building, and even found time to take selfies as they occupied various legislative parts of the facility.
This was all done while U.S. senators and representatives were doing their thing with the electoral votes from the 2020 Presidential Election and later had to be evacuated for their safety
Because of the conflicts, that work was paused until the late evening hours and into the early morning.
I had a hope that yesterday’s breaking point leading to those images and actions would create an immediacy for unity and calm.
I was wrong.
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Welcome to the future! If you’ve dragged yourself through A.D. 2020 and just wanted to move onto the next year, congratulations! Here we are! 2021 — the future. This is what we wanted, right?
The way I’m looking at it, one of two things is going to happen as we make our way through “’21”.
Either things are going to be way better, relatively speaking, than they were in 2020, or things are going to reach new levels of 2020-ness, and instead of saying things are “so 2020,” we’ll be saying things are “so 2020s”.
How about that?
We could have an entire decade like the year we just had. Instead of the “Roaring 20s,” we’d have the “Abhorring 20s”? |
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Dear Santa,
For Christmas, I would like:
A case of Caffeine-Free Pepsi, a package of bacon, an Amazon gift card, and some Babcock Hall cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream.
I’d also like the energy, ambition, and desire to pray more. I want the habit of opening my Bible more and embracing God’s word. I want to make Holy Mass a centerpiece of my life and feel like every time I am going up for Communion that it’s the most important thing I’m doing that day.
I want an increase in discipleship and evangelization. I want Catholics to know and live their faith so well that leading others to Christ is a natural and normal occurrence.
Dear Mr. Wondrash, I write to urge you to do what you can as editor of the Catholic Herald to promote unity in the Catholic Church in our diocese.
In recent weeks, when reading the editorial page of the Catholic Herald, I feel accusations coming through the letters people have submitted.
I give Catholics who voted for Trump or for Biden the benefit of the doubt that they did not vote for abortion rights and that they felt they had (grave) reasons consistent with their faith to vote for the presidential candidate they did.
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Other than the strong few that are holding on to tradition and doing things as they’ve always been, in spite of 2020 doing its 2020 things all around them, I can divide everyone into two groups.
Those who started their Christmas season as early as possible (12:01 a.m. on November 1) and those who haven’t gotten around to their shopping, putting decorations out, getting the tree up, etc., yet all because “it doesn’t feel like Christmas yet.”
And yes, Church-ily speaking, it’s Advent, now, not Christmas.
One of the most heartbreaking results that has come out of this most recent election comes to us out of Colorado. Some faithful pro-life groups were able to put the question of banning late-term (after 22 weeks in utero) abortion on the ballot, and a majority of voters in Colorado voted in favor of late-term abortion. Let that sink in for a minute.
Do you know what late-term abortion entails? It entails the abortionist injecting the baby’s heart (through the mother’s abdomen) with a chemical that will cause cardiac arrest in the baby. Then, the mother is sent away until her baby is dead. Next, labor is induced. This labor can last for more than one day. The mother will give birth to an intentionally dead baby. There are 100,000 late-term abortions in the United States every year. Let that sink in for another minute. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do!