BERLIN — Students at All Saints Catholic School, Berlin, collected socks and basic need items for Father Carr’s Place 2B in Oshkosh during Catholic Schools Week.
The campaign was called Socks of Love. The fourth, fifth, and seventh grade classes filled the socks with items such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soaps, deodorant, and more.
MADISON — “I love ‘Freshly Brewed.’ Topher, Lindsay, and Sara are the perfect combination.”
Like most trends and anything else that is “cool,” the youth, like the one quoted above, are on top of the latest creation of awesome for teens in the Diocese of Madison.
On Sunday, Oct. 19, there were at least two “sell-out” crowds in the state that showed high energy and devotion. One was at Lambeau Field in Green Bay as the Packers routed the Carolina Panthers. The other, at the exact same time, was 130 miles away at St. John the Baptist Church in Waunakee.
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Pope Francis has called a special session of the Synod of Bishops, which will meet from October 5 to 19 and prepare the agenda for the ordinary session of the synod that is scheduled for the fall of 2015; both sessions will focus on the family.
In my view, the synod should focus on two related themes: marriage culture is in crisis throughout the world; the answer to that crisis is the Christian view of marriage as a covenant between man and woman in a communion of love, fidelity, and fruitfulness.
To focus the conversation elsewhere is to ignore a hard fact and a great opportunity.
The collapse of marriage culture throughout the world is indisputable. More and more marriages end in divorce, even as increasing numbers of couples simply ignore marriage, cohabit, and procreate.
MADISON — Love Begins Here (LBH), an apostolate of the Catholic Diocese of Madison’s Office of Evangelization and Catechesis, works to provide the youth with an opportunity to encounter Jesus Christ in a life changing way through weeklong, local mission trips where they live in Catholic community and continue His work on earth.
This week we mark 40 years since the Supreme Court of our nation made abortion legal. Since that time, over 55,000,000 children have been destroyed by means of surgical abortion (that we know of).
Last summer, I was honored to be part of a Conference of the Napa Institute with regard to Catholic leadership. There I addressed the relationship between freedom, beauty, and feelings, in the context of the truth that democracy requires authentic freedom on the part of those who are blessed to live out that form of government. I’ve touched briefly on some of those themes here before, but would like to examine them anew.
I remember how Dad liked to plant a garden. First, he plowed and harrowed God’s good earth. This made the soil more receptive to receive and nourish seeds.
Next, he skillfully tied a string between two stakes to help make the rows even. We children watched with awe as he reverently planted seeds in the garden’s rich soil. This was sacred time.
We waited patiently for plants to push through the soil. Finally, one memorable day we discovered a shoot that had risen from the earth. We joyfully raced to be first to share the good news. Now whenever I see a garden, I think of Dad.
In a 1999 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, patients with serious illness were asked to identify what was most important to them during the dying process.
Many indicated they wanted to achieve a “sense of control.” This is understandable. Most of us fear our powerlessness in the face of illness and death.
We would like to retain an element of control, even though we realize that dying often involves the very opposite: a total loss of control, over our muscles, our emotions, our minds, our bowels, and our very lives, as our human framework succumbs to powerful disintegrative forces.
Dear Friends,
So much flows from our Holy Week celebration, culminating, of course, in the celebration of the Resurrection. The Easter celebration, in which we now find ourselves, truly is the center and wellspring of our faith and our entire year.
