Faithful Catholics attend Mass every Sunday and hear the Word of God read and preached to them.
Our challenge as Catholics is to take that Word and live it out in our daily lives the rest of the week.
One of the ways we can see how our faith can be lived out is by reading about how it can be done.
During my own 12 years of Catholic school education, students were encouraged to be involved in service projects at school, in our parishes, and in our communities.
I can still remember Aquinas High School students in La Crosse in 1965 sandbagging along the Mississipi River. Severe flooding had caused the river to crest at 16 feet, nearly four feet above flood stage. Many students came out to help save the community.
On December 7, 2016, there was a quiet announcement that few people probably noticed. But it carried some significant news that can help save lives.
On that date, the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles announced that Choose Life Wisconsin Inc. is now an authorized group for the purpose of requesting a specialty license plate.
In this era of emails and texting, hand-written letters still have a powerful — maybe even stronger — impact.
As work gets underway in Congress and state legislatures, citizens are often urged to contact their elected representatives on various issues.
Although some of us still like to send hand-written “snail mail” letters, I thought perhaps they might be considered obsolete. Not so, says advice given by Catholics Confront Global Poverty (CCGP), an initiative of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services.
Just before Christmas, we learned of more violence in the world. In Berlin, Germany, a truck drove into a crowd of holiday shoppers at a Christmas market, killing at least 12 people and injuring as many as 50.
This attack came just hours after the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey. The gunman was identified as a Turkish police officer who yelled, “Don’t forget Aleppo. Don’t forget Syria,” after he shot Andrei G. Karlov in the back.
As I put out the Nativity scene in our home this year, I thought about the meaning of this familiar Christmas decoration.
It is actually more than a decoration, but instead is an important reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.
In looking into the history of Nativity scenes, I was reminded that the first Nativity scene supposedly appeared about 800 years ago, more than 1,200 years after the birth of Christ.
When astronaut John Glenn made his first orbit around the earth in 1962, I was in the seventh grade.
At that time, I was very interested in space exploration. In the sixth grade, I remember writing an essay about why it was important that we discover what was happening in the “final frontier.”
It was exciting to learn about Glenn’s experiences as one of our country’s first seven astronauts. He was the first to orbit earth aboard the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule. He traveled around the globe three times in a flight that lasted just under five hours on February 20, 1962.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35).
All of us (except Native Americans) who live in the United States are descended from immigrants.
My own ancestors came from Ireland, Germany, and Belgium seeking a better life in this country for themselves and their families. Most of them were Catholic, so they also wanted a place where they could worship freely.
Immigrants have continued to come to the United States. Many are welcomed by the Statue of Liberty in New York City’s harbor with words inscribed on the statue’s pedestal that say: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Which would you rather hear first, the good news or the bad news?
When it comes to homelessness in Wisconsin, let’s talk about the good news first.
According to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the number of homeless people in Wisconsin has decreased. In one category — homeless and unsheltered veterans — Wisconsin has one of the lowest rates in the country at 3.6 percent.
Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (Nov. 29 this year).
Since its founding in 2012, millions of people have come together to support and champion the causes they believe in and the communities in which they live.
