Next week, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on March 2. Year after year, we come to the Lenten season soon after the joyful Christmas season ends.
Tag: Lent
‘Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone)’
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“These are the good old days” — William Powell as “Nick Charles” in The Thin Man (1934).
Someday, Lent will pass and spring will have arrived. Someday, winter will be back. Someday, I’ll hit age 40. Someday, I will no longer be the editor of the Catholic Herald. Someday, I will die. (Well, that escalated quickly.)
Everything we know, love, and treasure on this Earth will be lost to us or will pass away.
Despite the initial emotional reactions to those statements, they are facts.
All of our “stuff” will either leave us or we will leave it. The same goes for our friends and loved ones. For life to go on, ob-la-di, ob-la-da, someone has to depart from someone.
That’s not a bad thing
Because it is Lent, you get to read the obligatory “but that’s not a bad thing . . . because Heaven” spiel.The ‘joy’ of Lent
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As I was well into Ash Wednesday, last week, I was experiencing an interesting emotion. I was happy it was Lent.
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, what is the matter with you?
You’re happy it’s Lent? You’re happy it’s a time of sacrifice and penance? You’re happy it’s a time when the joyous “A” word is not to be said or sung? You’re happy it’s the “sorrowful” time in the Church for 40-days until we get to Easter?
Yes, I am. Here’s why.
Let’s receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation during Lent
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A college student wrote in her school newspaper that sometimes she wished that she were a Catholic. She explained that if she were a Catholic, when she sinned, she could go to confession like her Catholic classmates and say, “Father, I sinned. I am sorry!”
The priest would then give her a penance. She would do the penance and feel forgiven.
She added, “But I’m not a Catholic. When I sin, I don’t confess to a priest. I confess directly to God.”
Don’t ‘give up’ during Lent
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By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be in the season of Lent — the annual 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that leads us to Easter.
Being blessed with the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago, it might seem like we never really left the last Lent we had.
With how we’ve been living the past almost 12 months, we might not feel we have to give up anything for Lent this year. We might feel like we’ve been giving things up this whole time.
Here’s my uneducated, unscientific, un-everything else thought: Don’t. Don’t “give up” anything this Lent.
Add, don’t take away
OK, truth be told, I am still giving up some things this Lent. I’m giving up soda and desserts (I’m sweet enough already?).
Celebrating Lent as family
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Lent is the Church’s primary penitential season. It is the season of conversion when we seek to become more Christ-like by choosing a Lenten penance which helps us to renew our Baptismal promises at Easter with a deepened faith.
The three traditional practices of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. A genuine commitment to these practices leads to a deepened awareness of God and conversion of the heart. Since the family is the domestic Church, in this article I will focus on some ways that we can live Lent as a domestic family. Some of these ways may also apply to the extended family and the Church family.God’s wake-up call to what’s most important
Although it is Ordinary Time in the Church year, I think it often feels like Good Friday these days. Don’t you?
One, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church
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One silver lining for me during this weird coronavirus shutdown has been the opportunity to return to some writing projects that I had left on the back-burner.
One of these is a book on the Nicene Creed, which I had commenced many months ago and on which I was making only very slow progress, given my various pastoral and administrative responsibilities.
The last several weeks, I have been working in a rather concentrated way on the Creed book, and I find myself currently in the midst of the section on the Church: “I believe in one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.”A walk to retreat, reflect, and remember
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| ‘[Assistant] Editor’s View’ Kevin Wondrash |
Those who know me well know that I like to walk. I’ll try to walk the one mile to Mass every weekend (when it is being celebrated publicly), and I’ll occasionally walk the 2.5 miles to work from my apartment on Madison’s west side.
If it were up to me, I’d walk everywhere instead of driving.
In my mind, unless you’re Richard Petty or A.J. Foyt, nothing good comes from driving.
Other than for practical reasons, I’ll also go for walks to satisfy the clichéd check boxes such as “getting out of the house” and “getting my steps in”.
Apostolate gives retreat at St. Coletta
JEFFERSON — Earlier this month was a special time for 45 individuals served at St. Coletta of Wisconsin.
A Lenten retreat was planned and facilitated by the Apostolate for Persons with Disabilities-Diocese of Madison (Msgr. Larry Bakke, Deacon Jim Hoegemeier, Kayla Schiesser, and Kellie O’Brien).
The theme of the retreat was “Jesus Comes to You,” and is part of our Lenten preparation looking forward to Easter.