Tag: message

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Bishop Donald J. Hying

Christmas message from Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison

This painful year of 2020 has dramatically revealed our vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and mortality. It has also shown the resilience and generosity of the human spirit. So many things that may have seemed so important a year ago matter very little now. Other realities, like faith, prayer, family and friends, health, and ultimately God stand in sharper focus as the bedrock of our existence. This year will be a different sort of Christmas, as we pray for those who died this year, those who are ill and those who heroically serve them.

We will forego many of our Christmas traditions this year, but the central truth remains.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, entered into our broken and sinful world as a vulnerable baby to rescue us from sin and death. In our poverty and frailty, we can most profoundly relate to the Christ Child, who is born among animals and adored by shepherds. How easy it is to romanticize Christmas; the reality was far different. The advent of God is marked by poverty, obscurity, and danger. God quietly slips in through the back door, unbidden and unnoticed, but here with us. This overwhelming divine love is the cause, meaning and destiny of our human existence.

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Good timing: Catholic Charities Sunday focuses on strengthening, supporting families

catholic-charities-logo

Talk about good timing: we just watched the conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family and this weekend we will observe Catholic Charities Sunday in the Diocese of Madison.

The bishops and Pope Francis — along with a number of married couples and other observers — spent two weeks in Rome discussing pastoral challenges facing the family in the context of evangelization. They talked openly about many issues involving families today.

Final message of bishops

In their final message at the conclusion of the synod, the bishops said that we must remember to practice charity by being near “to those who are last, marginalized, poor, lonely, sick, strangers, and families in crisis.”

They reminded us of the Lord’s words, “It is more blessed to give them to receive” (Acts 20:35). They mentioned that Christians should give gifts of goods, fellowship, love, and mercy and be witnesses “to the truth, to light, and to the meaning of life.”

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Cathy Lins, For the Catholic Herald

Baraboo students’ artwork on display

MADISON — Students from throughout the southern half of Wisconsin, including St. Joseph Catholic School in Baraboo, worked on nature-based art “messages” that will be sent to Cuba through the Children Are The Hope (CATH) program.

Students from 14 Wisconsin and Cuban schools took part in the environmental and cultural education program and international art exchange during the 2013 to 2014 school year.

Gallery hosts exhibit

From May 26 to 31, the Common Wealth Gallery in Madison will host a collection of nature-based artwork created by the fourth and fifth grade students and similar-aged students from northcentral Cuba.

 

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Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

Pope’s Lenten message: Follow Jesus seeking out poor, sinners

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.

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John Mulderig, Catholic News Service

Gimme Shelter is moving, realistic film

NEW YORK (CNS) — Perhaps the best moment in the fact-based drama Gimme Shelter (Roadside) comes when its beleaguered, deeply sympathetic protagonist, played by Vanessa Hudgens, wonderingly recites a passage from the Book of Psalms that tells of God’s promises to those who trust in him.

It’s a moving scene precisely because such faith-based optimism seems so far removed from all that Hudgens’ character, teenager Agnes “Apple” Bailey, has previously endured.

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Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Pope’s message: Build unity of minds and hearts

Dear Friends,

By now you’ve surely heard the startling (if not shocking) news of last week — the mass media, celebrities, bloggers, and even pro-abortion groups have reported their decision to aid the Church in our evangelization of the world and in preaching Jesus Christ! Thanks be to God!

Of course, that’s not actually what happened, not even in the slightest. However, I can be left to hope, and here’s why:

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