As we come upon Christmas, I’d like to take a moment to put on my old hat from my time as a philosophy professor — but I’ll try to do it in a way befitting this limited space and broad audience.
Tag: column
Reliving Christ’s Passion, Death, Resurrection
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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 stand at the threshold of the holiest of weeks, reliving the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Indeed, the Sacred Triduum — Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday — comprise a microcosm of our whole life lived in Christ.
To enter as fully as possible into the mysteries of these days is to enter more fully into the mysteries of the life of each one of us. For instance, in the fervent celebration of the days of Holy Week, we can come to have an initial grasp of the mystery of why good people suffer.
Meaning of life unveiled
The meaning of life is unveiled by a fervent and serious celebration of the mysteries of these days.
So, please make every effort to be present for the Holy Thursday evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the solemn commemoration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, and the great Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday.
Our churches really should be full (and then some) on these days, because of the gifts of grace available to us at so special a time — and available in a way that they are not otherwise available.
Following Jesus ‘outside the camp’
Dear Friends,
I hope that your Lent has gotten underway in a way that is already prayer-filled and fruitful. Furthermore, I hope that it continues to be so.
On the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the readings provided me with a few points for reflection — they are three simple points about being “outside the camp.”
During Lent, stop whining and listen to God more
Dear Friends,
It’s hard to believe Lent is upon us again, but here it is! And though it might not always be our first response to that reality, I wish to say first, “thanks be to God for that!”
“Grand Mom” writes her last column
A few weeks ago I learned that my lung cancer had crept into my bones and is likely to take my life within six months. That’s the bad news.
Core of the Christmas and Easter Mysteries
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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,
Please let me first wish you every blessing of Christmas, and abundant blessings for the year to come — blessings of joy, health, and above all, always deeper faith.
Live in the glow of Christmas
I hope that you are continuing to live in the glow of the Christmas season, for we should remember that Christmas is not something that begins at Thanksgiving (or even as soon as Halloween has ended) and ends when presents are returned on December 26.
Our commemoration of Christmas should start on Christmas Eve and carry forward through the Epiphany and beyond. For indeed, Christmas should serve as an annual reminder of the tremendous gift and mystery of the Incarnation.
Christmas is a mystery
Christmas is a mystery, and there is a danger, between the commercialism and the outwardness of Christmas (all of the arguments about if and where you can put a Nativity Scene, and how you greet people), that the fact that Christmas is a mystery gets lost.
Christmas is a time when budgets get challenged, when people get defensive about their beliefs or lack of beliefs, and now where people have all kinds of parties as an excuse to eat and drink too much! (Not that I am immune from the fault of eating too much!) But Christmas is so much more!
Reclaim the gift of Fear of the Lord
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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,
Last week I joined with a group of faithful men for their monthly time of prayer and spiritual reflection. With them I focused upon the seventh gift of the Holy Spirit, and I’d like to do the same with you here.
Hopefully you recall the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So many of us older folks have them memorized while unfortunately, some of the middle-aged and younger don’t even know that they have access to such gifts.
The gifts are: wisdom, understanding, council, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and Fear of the Lord. All of these gifts belong to the Christian first by way of their Baptism, and especially by the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation.
If we use them and count upon them, these gifts help to perfect virtues in us and aid us in living the moral life and in obeying divine inspiration in our life.
Fear of the Lord
While it’s likely that all of us could use a refresher on every one of these tremendous gifts, I want to focus on that seventh gift at the moment: Fear of the Lord. Perhaps the timing will seem odd, because we’re getting ready to commemorate the coming of God into the world as a tiny baby, but Fear of the Lord properly understood, dovetails perfectly with God’s plan for our salvation, and I hope to help you understand why.
How a sandwich taught me to trust in Jesus
Last month and for the second year in a row, I went on a private retreat. Basically, I took some time off from everything in my life, spent a weekend at an area retreat center, and used my self-imposed “free time” to pray, read, reflect, (and sometimes nap!).
An extraordinary synod, indeed
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According to Vatican-speak, a specially scheduled session of the Synod of Bishops is an “Extraordinary Synod,” meaning Not-an-Ordinary Synod, held every three years or so.
In the case of the recently-completed Extraordinary Synod of 2014, extraordinary things did happen, in the “Oh, wow!” sense of the word. And if this year’s Extraordinary Synod was a preview of the synod for which it was to set the agenda, i.e., the Ordinary Synod of 2015, that synod, too, promises to be, well, extraordinary.
How was the Extraordinary Synod of 2014 extraordinary? With apologies to the Bard, let me count the ways:
A ‘miracle baby’ is born
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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.