This past Sunday, I was able to offer Mass and spend some time with our young people gathered for Frassati Fest, which is organized by our diocesan Office of Evangelization and Catechesis, and put on for our high schoolers, with the help and cooperation of so many good people.
It was a terrific gathering. What I told them, I think, is a good message for all of us.
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends:
In our Second Reading of this past Sunday (1 Thessalonians 5), we hear: “Rejoice in the Lord always,” and “Pray without ceasing.” The idea of rejoicing always is, from a human point of view, unthinkable, without that second half: pray without ceasing.
One of the Christmas cards that I opened recently said simply this: “Bishop, please pray for us. It’s been tough.”
How is that person, from a human point of view, expected to rejoice? The answer is, they’re not.
And consider St. John the Baptist. If you go through his teaching, mentioned in the Gospels, you will see that never once did he tell a joke. So, there was a sort of rejoicing from a human point of view, in which St. John the Baptist did not indulge.
Yet, John was full of joy, just as the family who wrote me the card is called to be full of joy, the family for whom things have been pretty tough.
Dear Friends,
I pray that you and yours enjoyed a very happy Thanksgiving this past week.
Further, I hope that you are able to enter into a very blessed season of Advent. Please God, it will be an excellent time of preparation for the glorious celebration of Christmas.
Last week, I sent a letter to your priests with regard to an addition to the Prayers of the Faithful and a particular prayer of heavenly intercession I am asking to be included during (at least) every Sunday Mass, at parishes within the Diocese of Madison.
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John Joy |
You might run into the term “practicing Catholic” in various contexts: if you teach in a Catholic school, for example, or if you serve as a catechist in your parish, or as a Confirmation sponsor or a godparent, you are supposed to be a “practicing Catholic”. But what does that mean exactly?
According to the Wisconsin Catholic Conference’s Standards for Educators in Catholic Schools and Parishes, it means: “a Catholic in good standing who participates fully in the worship and life of the Church, and who understands and accepts the teachings of the Church and moral demands of the Gospel, as articulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
Dear Friends,
It seems like just yesterday that I was writing to you about Christmas and about the depth, the richness of our hymn “Silent Night.”
We just observed Palm Sunday, and were listening, at the beginning of Holy Week, to the story of Our Lord’s suffering and death.
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
I’m not certain how it accomplishes this each year, but Lent seems always to surprise me.
I just looked at the calendar and saw that Ash Wednesday is only two weeks away! It seems as though we’ve just finished marking the season of Christmas — with all of the joy and exuberance that that brings.
On the other hand, there’s a part of me that has the sense that we just completed a Lent not so long ago.
And yet, I can recall some of the resolutions that came from my prayer, fasting, and almsgiving last Lent, and I cannot say that I’ve perfected them — or rather that they’ve been made perfect in me — over the past year.
And so it is, this cycle of conversion and reversion continues, and thanks be to God, it comes each year.
Dear Friends,
We find ourselves in the wake of an election season that has divided our country, broken friendships, and even estranged families to an extent I’ve never witnessed in my life.
Now, engaging in and taking the human science/art of politics seriously is an objectively good thing.
But that anyone would or could allow their politics, a candidate, or an election to keep them from talking to a friend or loved one, for any period of time, or to “unfriend” someone is beyond my comprehension.
MADISON — Tony Magliano, a writer whose column appears regularly in the Catholic Herald, will speak at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church in Madison on Thursday Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. in the church gathering space.
The title of his talk is “Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century.” He will speak on the spectrum of life issues, including abortion, poverty/hunger, war, capital punishment, and environmental degradation.
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
We are right in the middle of the month of May and this past Sunday we celebrated the great Feast of Pentecost, so what better time to say something about the Blessed Mother and the Holy Spirit?
The Blessed Mother’s relationship with the Holy Spirit is powerful and unique.
This is made very clear by some of the most pivotal moments in Scripture and in all of human history.
In the first place, we know that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Our Lady when Jesus was conceived.
Dear Friends,
Prior to launching into a reflection upon our readings from this past Sunday, I find myself desiring to reflect for a moment upon the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, of our United States Supreme Court.
I only met Justice Scalia twice, very briefly, and so my reflections are not necessarily drawn from personal experience. But they are certainly from the reliable and personally related experience of his family and of friends, who were very close to the Justice.
