REEDSBURG — “The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness!” said Pope Benedict XVI.
These words are words that we should all live by as we go about our daily lives. And that is just what the staff at Camp Gray does each and every day.
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MADISON — While in the midst of this Year of Mercy, we are truly given a wonderful opportunity to “Contemplate the Face of God’s Mercy” and reflect upon the ways that God’s mercy will lead us to greater works of mercy in our families, parishes, communities, and throughout the diocese.
We can tangibly contemplate and live out God’s mercy through both the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. One way to support many of those works is through giving to the Annual Catholic Appeal (ACA).
Each year, for the ACA, each parishioner in the Diocese of Madison is asked to prayerfully consider what they are able to give back to the Church. Your pledge to the ACA goes to support many missions and works of mercy throughout the diocese. Some of these include:
• Support Services and Teacher Training in Catholic Schools — Do you know any children that attend a Catholic school in the diocese? The
ACA funds trainings for principals to assure schools are compliant with state and federal laws and accreditations and best practices. It also supports mentorship training, renewing of teachers licenses and trainings for diocesan catholic school teachers.
CROSS PLAINS — St. Francis Xavier Parish invites everyone to take part in their upcoming “Surge of the Heart” Parish Mission.
Guest speaker is Jon Leonetti, an international Catholic speaker and author of two books entitled Mission of the Family and Your God Is Too Boring.
WATERTOWN — Watertown parishes and guests will be challenged with “Paying It Forward” in a mission taking place from March 7 to 10 beginning at 7 p.m.
St. Henry Church, 412 N. 4th St., is hosting the event on March 7 and 8. St. Bernard Church, 412 N. 4th St., is hosting on March 9 and 10.
MONTELLO — St. John the Baptist Parish in Montello and Good Shepherd Parish in Westfield invite everyone to take part in their upcoming “Surge of the Heart” Parish Mission.
Guest speaker is Jon Leonetti, an international Catholic speaker and author of two books entitled Mission of the Family and Your God Is Too Boring.
The parish mission will begin on Sunday, Feb. 7. A light lunch will be offered before Leonetti’s talk from 11:45 a.m. up to the time of the first talk at 1 p.m. in the St. John the Baptist Parish Center, 277 E. Montello St. Each of Leonetti’s talks is one hour long.
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The upcoming canonization of Blessed Junípero Serra in Washington, D.C. — the first ever to take place on American soil — has generated, as I’m sure you know, a good deal of controversy.
For his defenders, Padre Serra was an intrepid evangelist and a model of Gospel living, while for his detractors, he was a shameless advocate of an oppressive colonial system that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Indians.
Even many who typically back Pope Francis see this canonization as a rare faux pas for the Argentine pontiff. What should we make of all this?
For the past seven summers, the middle and high schoolers of Love Begins Here (LBH), along with their leaders, have performed more than 45,000 hours of doing “small things with great love.”
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| Veronica Arntz |
To prepare for the upcoming World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia this September, the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis of the Diocese of Madison is providing a monthly series on a particular theme on marriage and family. Each theme is a chapter in the preparatory catechesis developed for the event entitled Love Is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive, available in paperback from www.osvparish.com or for free online at www.worldmeeting2015.org
The story between God and His creation is a story of love. Being perfect in Himself, He had no need to create the universe, the animals, or even man himself.
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| Andy Galvin |
First in a series of articles on the World Meeting of Families to be held in Philadelphia in September.
The World Meeting of Families (WMOF) is a week-long international event of prayer, catechesis, and celebration that seeks to strengthen the bonds between families and to witness to the crucial importance of marriage and the family to all of society.
There are three parts to the WMOF: a Theological Adult Congress and a concurrent Youth Congress, the Festival of Families, and a Papal Mass.
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Galatians 1:15-18 is not your basic witness-to-the-Resurrection text.
Yet St. Paul’s mini-spiritual autobiography helps us understand just how radically the experience of the Risen Lord changed the first disciples’ religious worldview, and why an evangelical imperative was built into that experience.
Here’s the Pauline text:
