WAUNAKEE — The Rite of Election of Catechumens and Call to Continuing Conversion for Candidates for Full Communion in the Catholic Church will be celebrated by the parishes of the Diocese of Madison on Sunday, March 9, at 3 p.m. at St. John the Baptist Church in Waunakee.
Tag: Lent
Pray, examine conscience, guide others
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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,
This week we’ll have come upon Lent and in that regard I’d like to ask a few things:
1) Let’s keep one another in prayer. Please know that you can count on my prayers, just as I renew them for every person in the diocese, every blessed day, and I’d ask that you try to remember me as well.
2) If you would, please go back and read my columns from the past two weeks — on conscience and fraternal correction (they’re available at the Madison Catholic Herald website — www.madisoncatholicherald.org — if you’ve already discarded your previous issues).
Take some time to reflect upon them, to examine your own conscience. Spend some real time doing so this Lent, and think about what changes you can make in your own life — in accord with a conscience well-formed by the Church and oriented toward Truth.
3) Think of two people with whom you might engage personally and directly in the ways I mention in that second column. Really try to purify your intentions as you consider approaching them (do not fall into sin in carrying out this exercise!) and do so in love and with joy.
Our Holy Father, in his message for Lent, speaks of the types of poverty affecting our world. He speaks, of course, of material destitution, and he challenges us to help our brothers and sisters in that regard — and so we must!
Faith is alive during Lent on UW-Madison campus
MADISON — College students are known for “pulling an all-nighter” to stay up through the night writing a paper or studying for an exam.
For Audrey Hilts, a sophomore at UW-Madison and student leader at St. Paul Catholic Center, her first all-nighter last year was a little different.
“The night before Ash Wednesday, St. Paul’s offered all-night perpetual Eucharistic Adoration — praying with the Blessed Sacrament in the middle of the night was such a powerful way to begin Lent!”
Pope’s Lenten message: Follow Jesus seeking out poor, sinners
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| Msgr. James Bartylla, vicar general of the Diocese of Madison, distributes ashes on Ash Wednesday in the chapel of the Bishop O’Connor Center, Madison. Ash Wednesday is observed on March 5 this year. (Catholic Herald file photo) | |
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Courageously follow Jesus in seeking out the poor and sinners and in making difficult sacrifices to help and heal others, Pope Francis said in his message for Lent, which begins March 5.
Christians are called to confront the material, spiritual, and moral destitution of “our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own, and to take practical steps to alleviate it,” the pope said in his Lenten message.
Saving the world will not come about “with the right kind of human resources” and token alms, but only “through the poverty of Christ,” who emptied himself of the worldly and made the world rich with God’s love and mercy, Pope Francis said.
Focus on Christ’s poverty
The pope’s message focused on the theme of Christ’s poverty, with the title: “He became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich,” from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.
Pope Francis said he chose the passage to explore what St. Paul’s references to poverty and charity mean for Christians today.
There are many forms of poverty, he said, including the material destitution that disfigures the face of humanity and the moral destitution of being a slave to vice and sin.
It’s a moral imperative: We must take care of both our souls and our bodies
As Catholics, we hear a lot about making sure we have a healthy spiritual life by attending Mass, praying regularly, and doing good works. Taking care of our souls should be a priority in our lives.
However, that does not mean that we should ignore our bodies. It is very important to take care of our bodies, too.
In religion class in Catholic grade school, I remember learning that our bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit.” The complete quote from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
Evening of reflection for extraordinary ministers
MADISON — Join Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, and other Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion (EMHC) on Wednesday, March 26, from 7 to 9 p.m. for a mini-Lenten retreat at St. Maria Goretti Church, 5313 Flad Ave., Madison.
This evening is intended as an enrichment opportunity for veteran eucharistic ministers and does not fulfill the requirement of training at one of the regularly-scheduled workshops for EMHC.
Sacrament of Reconciliation prepares us to celebrate Easter
Somerset Maugham, the famous British novelist, once remarked, “I have done things that I am unable to entirely forget. If I had been fortunate enough to be Catholic, I could have delivered myself of them at confession, received absolution, and put them out of my mind forever.”
His statement makes us realize how blessed we are to have the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Bring Lent to life: Look for opportunities to nourish your faith by praying, fasting, and giving
Lent is a special time set aside by the Church to prepare for Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection through 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
There are many ways we can observe the Lenten season. In his message for Lent this year, Pope Benedict XVI asked us, especially in the context of this Year of Faith, to “meditate on the relationship between faith and charity: between believing in God — the God of Jesus Christ — and love, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and which guides us on the path of devotion to God and others.”
Pope Benedict emphasizes that faith and charity are linked together. “Everything begins from the humble acceptance of faith (‘knowing that one is loved by God’), but has to arrive at the truth of charity (‘knowing how to love God and neighbour’), which remains for ever, as the fulfilment of all the virtues (cf. 1 Cor 13:13).”
Lenten Regulations
The following are the minimum regulations for the faithful to follow Lent, as laid out by the bishops.
How we respond to shock and scandal
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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 the Gospel readings of this past Sunday we encountered a moment of tremendous shock and even of scandal. So often when we hear the word “scandal” in the Church these days, our minds are drawn immediately to the horrific travesties carried out by some who had promised to serve the Church but instead abused some of the most innocent of their flock.