Tag: lange

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Fr. Donald Lange

Reflecting on the value of work

Labor Day is a public holiday which honors the American labor movement and contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. It also offers us opportunities to reflect upon the value of work.

Through Baptism and Confirmation, our daily lives are consecrated, through the indwelling Spirit, to proclaim, reveal, and witness to God’s Kingdom through our prayers, Eucharist, charity, and our daily work.

Be proud of work

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'”

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Fr. Donald Lange

Importance of fathers

In his general audience on January 28, 2015, Pope Francis stated, “In modern societies, we are experiencing a crisis of fatherhood.

“In the past, it was common to perceive fathers as authoritarian and sometimes repressive; but, today we sense father’s uncertainty and confusion about his role. Without father figures, young people often feel ‘orphaned’, left adrift at a critical moment in their growth and development.”

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Fr. Donald Lange

How do you spell love? M-o-t-h-e-r

In Isaiah 49:15 Isaiah asks “Can a mother forget her baby, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”

This passage praises mothers as symbols of amazing compassion, never forgetting their beloved children. Pope Francis said that a mother is concerned “above all about the health of her children. She cares for them with great and tender love the way Mary, our spiritual, heavenly mother, cares for us.”

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Fr. Donald Lange

Make each day an Earth Day by respecting creation

For some astronauts, an unexpected result of their participation in the space program was a deepening of their faith in God.

Frank Borman was commander of the first space crew to travel beyond Earth’s orbit. Looking down on Earth from 250,000 miles away, he radioed back a message, quoting Genesis 1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.”

He later added, “After viewing Earth from space, I experienced an enormous feeling that there had to be a power greater than any of us, that there was a God and a beginning.”

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Fr. Donald Lange

Continuing to follow Dr. King’s dream

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is an American federal holiday that marks the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January, which is around Dr. King’s birthday, January 15. This year it is observed on January 18.

In his speech to Congress in September of 2015, Pope Francis lifted up four Americans who worked for social justice. They were two non-Catholics, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., and two Catholics, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. Crux columnist John L. Allen Jr. called them the pope’s “Fantastic Four” who stood up for the poor.

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Fr. Donald Lange

New Year’s: A time to make and keep resolutions

A small business manager asked employees, who wished, to write out their New Year’s resolutions. He promised to post them by lunchtime on the bulletin board. It sounded like fun.

When the resolutions were posted, the employees gathered eagerly around the bulletin board. Suddenly one employee began to complain angrily to everyone there that her resolution wasn’t posted. She griped that she felt left out again.

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Fr. Donald Lange

At Christmas God embraces us with love

In John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world that God gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but have might have eternal life.”

Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote, “Out of love for us, the mighty hands that created the sun, moon, and stars became so tiny that they could not reach up to touch the noses of the oxen who tried to warm him with their hayed breath.”

Deeply moved by the infant Jesus, St. Thérèse of Lisieux asked, “Why should we fear God who became a tiny baby?”

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Fr. Donald Lange

During Advent, we remember Christ’s hope for peace

The word Advent comes from the Latin adventus, which means coming.

From the first Sunday of Advent to December 17, we await the second coming of Christ so that when he comes in glory, he will find us prepared to meet him. From December 17 to 24, we prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ at Christmas.

During Advent’s graced moments, we also experience the comings of Christ in our daily life.

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Fr. Donald Lange

Sharing our blessings at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a day when we gather with family and friends to share a meal, reconnect as family, and thank God for our cornucopias of blessings.

The roots of Thanksgiving Day began with the pilgrims. Despite a long, hard winter during which half of them died from scurvy and exposure to the elements, the pilgrims were so thankful some of them survived that they invited their Indian friends to share a three day feast of thanksgiving.

H.U. Westermayer wrote that the pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts during that first hard year, yet they set aside a day to thank God through prayer and through sharing their blessings with Indian friends.

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