The creation account in Genesis is a stirring, poetic narration of God — the Divine Artist — fashioning the universe and the world into wondrous being.
Tag: creation
Living together with all God has made
This autumn has been exceptionally beautiful. The colors on the trees, the warm, sunny days, the cold nights and the scuffle of leaves on the ground point to the wonder and grace of creation.
Fully embracing God’s creations
This past Sunday, I had Masses and parish visits in Boscobel and Muscoda, followed by another Mass at Camp Gray for young adult retreatants.
Contemplating eternity
One of my favorite newly-discovered places in our diocese is Natural Bridge State Park in Sauk County. I often take visitors there because of the beautiful drive, the opportunity to take a short hike in the woods, and to explore the wonder of the natural bridge carved from centuries of wind and rain.
Culinary Creations Catering participants with a criminal record face significant barriers to finding employment
MADISON — Culinary Creations Catering (CCC) serves individuals facing barriers to employment and offers them the tools they need to build a brighter future and success in the workplace.
These barriers can be anything from housing instability, physical or mental health issues, lack of meaningful educational or career opportunities, or even racial discrimination (one recent study in Milwaukee found that black men received significantly fewer interview callbacks than white men, even though the study subjects had equal qualifications).
Past criminal record
Here we explore one of these barriers, which is reported by one-third of Culinary Creations participants: a past criminal record.
Earth Day invites us to care for our home on Earth
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I gratefully recall the evening when Dad and I sat on our front lawn and studied the farmer’s green field across the road.
The sun like a beautiful orange-red host sank slowly into the chalice of God’s good earth. It was a heavenly moment of harmony between God, nature, Dad, and me.
The Earth is God’s
Dad broke the sacred silence by saying, “You know, we don’t really own anything!”
Godspeed, John Glenn
When astronaut John Glenn made his first orbit around the earth in 1962, I was in the seventh grade.
At that time, I was very interested in space exploration. In the sixth grade, I remember writing an essay about why it was important that we discover what was happening in the “final frontier.”
First to orbit earth
It was exciting to learn about Glenn’s experiences as one of our country’s first seven astronauts. He was the first to orbit earth aboard the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule. He traveled around the globe three times in a flight that lasted just under five hours on February 20, 1962.
Who we are and what role we play
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This is the first in a two-part series on the five “acts” in the drama of salvation history.
This fall, I am giving presentations to all of the high school teachers, staff, and administrators in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. These talks take place on an annual basis, and they are dedicated to a regular cycle of topics. This year, the theme is morality. Lucky me!
My guess is that disquisitions on doctrine or Church history or pastoral practice wouldn’t raise too many hackles, but ethics is practically guaranteed to rile people up, especially now when issues of same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and assisted suicide are so present to the public consciousness.
Who we are as Christians
I am not sure whether I’m delighting or disappointing my audiences, but I am not ordering my talks to address these hot-button questions. Indeed, it is my conviction that a good deal of mischief and confusion is caused precisely by characterizing Catholic morality primarily as a matrix for adjudicating such matters.
Facing pope’s challenge to protect creation
It doesn’t seem possible that almost a year has passed since Pope Francis issued Laudato Si’, his beautiful encyclical on care for our common home.
Released on June 18, 2015, the encyclical touched on many of the critical issues facing our world today, including the availability of fresh drinking water, the loss of biodiversity, decline in the quality of human life, the breakdown of society, and global inequality, to name a few.
Caring for creation: making it personal
As a small child, I can remember watching my grandmother work in the garden on the family farm. It was so peaceful to be outside in such a beautiful setting.
My father also had a garden in the backyard of our house in La Crosse when I was young. As a teacher, he had summers off and had the time to plant a big garden. At harvest time, he often went through the neighborhood giving away beets, tomatoes, and other extra vegetables.
I enjoyed helping him plant and care for the vegetables and flowers (which were my favorite part of the garden). To this day, there is nothing I like better than digging in the soil and planting flowers. The smell of the dirt and the sound of insects always make me feel good.