We all know the quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.”
Although we will someday face death, most of us would rather not think about dying — let alone talk about it. However, the Catholic bishops of Wisconsin are encouraging us to do just that.
MADISON — The Madison Area Chapter of The Compassionate Friends is having their 17th annual Worldwide Candle Lighting Service on Sunday, Dec. 8, at St. Peter Catholic Church, 5001 N. Sherman Ave. (across from Cherokee Country Club), at 6 p.m. The Compassionate Friends is a support group for parents who have lost a child/children.
PRINCETON — As […]
MADISON — Wisconsin’s Catholic bishops have released the third edition of their pastoral letter on end-of-life health care decision-making and advance care planning, Now and at the Hour of Our Death.
The letter voices the bishops’ concern and compassion for those facing critical health care decisions, and shares a moral and ethical framework for making such decisions.
“The conference issued the first edition of this pastoral statement in 2002. That edition and the second one issued in 2006 have proven to be our most frequently requested document,” explained Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) Executive Director John Huebscher.
“In the seven years since the second edition, we have seen even greater interest in the moral questions surrounding death and dying. The bishops are resolved to keep responding to that interest. Reissuing the document is an effective way to do that.”
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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. |
“Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous: The Prince of Life, who died, reigns immortal.”
“Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining. Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!”
(Easter Sequence – Roman Missal, 1964 translation).
I choose those two lines to focus upon in this Easter Season, because they are exactly reflective of the themes that our Holy Father, Pope Francis struck during many of the early days of Easter. He has asked the question and raised the issue from Scripture, “why do you seek the living among the dead (Lk 24:5)?”
“Death and life have contended,” and life won out, so, the Holy Father asks, echoing the message of the angel, “why do you seek the living among the dead?”
A second point that the Holy Father has focused upon is reassuring us, once again, that no one with a good and open heart is outside the bounds of the mercy of Jesus Christ, won by His death on the Cross, and confirmed by His Resurrection.
And so, we’ve got two words, or groups of words: “death and life,” and “mercy,” on which we should meditate in this Easter season.
“Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Christ died that there might be mercy. Let’s calmly look at our world today, and let’s look around for mercy.
Fr. Henry Kalscheuer, retired priest of the Madison Diocese, died on Monday, March 18, 2013, at the age of 79, at Agrace HospiceCare in Fitchburg.
Walter Michael Heilman, age 83, father of Fr. Richard Heilman, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff, St. Ignatius Parish in Mt. Horeb, and Holy Redeemer Parish in Perry, died on Saturday, Dec. 1, surrounded by his family at St. Mary’s Care Center.
Sister Antoinette Drabeck, OP, died Nov. 26, 2012, at St. Dominic Villa.
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As a child I idolized my grandfather. One of my fondest memories is of him taking us to a neighborhood restaurant that had a little juke box in each booth. He would give my sisters and me a few quarters and we’d flip to the oldies to play Grandpa’s favorites.
From time to time I still hear those classics playing in my memory from “Moon River” and “Doctor Zhivago” to “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”
School Sister of Notre Dame Mary Olivia Reindl died on October 4, 2012, at Our Lady of the Angels Retirement Community, Greenfield, Wis. She was 94.
