January 16 saw St. Christopher Parish in Verona host the first of a new series: “Revealing the Mystery”.
Tag: mystery
Christmas and the mystery of time
As we come upon Christmas, I’d like to take a moment to put on my old hat from my time as a philosophy professor — but I’ll try to do it in a way befitting this limited space and broad audience.
The mystery of male-female complementarity
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James Parker came out at age 17 and later entered into a relationship with another man.
He worked as a gay activist for a while, but his personal experiences of intimacy and human sexuality eventually led him to grasp that “same-sex marriage just doesn’t exist; even if you want to say that it does.”
Baptism: Immerse yourself in mystery
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| Patrick Gorman |
Lent is a season of preparation and recollection of our Baptism. This is the sixth in a series of several articles reflecting upon the Sacrament of Baptism.
When I was studying liturgy, there was a running joke with both teachers and students — “If you don’t know the answer to a question, write down that it is a mystery” (because so much of our faith is a mystery — something which we will never understand completely in this life).
The mysteries of our faith are not like the mysteries we read. They are not a puzzle to be figured out if offered enough clues but rather realities that need to be lived and that each of us reflect upon.
Baptism: Immerse yourself in mystery
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| Patrick Gorman |
Lent is a season of preparation and recollection of our Baptism. This is the sixth in a series of several articles reflecting upon the Sacrament of Baptism.
When I was studying liturgy, there was a running joke with both teachers and students — “If you don’t know the answer to a question, write down that it is a mystery” (because so much of our faith is a mystery — something which we will never understand completely in this life).
The mysteries of our faith are not like the mysteries we read. They are not a puzzle to be figured out if offered enough clues but rather realities that need to be lived and that each of us reflect upon.
Core of the Christmas and Easter Mysteries
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
Please let me first wish you every blessing of Christmas, and abundant blessings for the year to come — blessings of joy, health, and above all, always deeper faith.
Live in the glow of Christmas
I hope that you are continuing to live in the glow of the Christmas season, for we should remember that Christmas is not something that begins at Thanksgiving (or even as soon as Halloween has ended) and ends when presents are returned on December 26.
Our commemoration of Christmas should start on Christmas Eve and carry forward through the Epiphany and beyond. For indeed, Christmas should serve as an annual reminder of the tremendous gift and mystery of the Incarnation.
Christmas is a mystery
Christmas is a mystery, and there is a danger, between the commercialism and the outwardness of Christmas (all of the arguments about if and where you can put a Nativity Scene, and how you greet people), that the fact that Christmas is a mystery gets lost.
Christmas is a time when budgets get challenged, when people get defensive about their beliefs or lack of beliefs, and now where people have all kinds of parties as an excuse to eat and drink too much! (Not that I am immune from the fault of eating too much!) But Christmas is so much more!
Living the paschal mystery with hope
Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ and is the most important feast of the Church.
At Easter we renew our faith and welcome new members into the Church.
It is the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil) that is the high point of the Church year.
Paschal mystery
Easter is the fulfillment of the paschal mystery — the suffering, death, and rising of Jesus. This mystery is not a one-time historical event. As members of the body of Christ, we live this mystery throughout our lives.
We entered the paschal mystery at baptism. We were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. This means that we share in Christ’s suffering, death, and rising throughout our lives.
The paschal mystery assures us that the “pain and dying” we experience in our daily lives ultimately leads to resurrection.
It is our Christian belief that God can and does bring good out of evil and suffering.
Jesus’ life is the greatest example of this. God did not leave Jesus in his pain. God raised him from the dead. Death had no power over him.
Our suffering brings us closer to Christ
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear friends,
You’ve been right at the heart of my prayers in the recent days and weeks. In addition to my usual prayers for your growth in the virtues of faith, hope, and love have been prayers for your warmth and safety, as well as for your joy in these frigid days!
I have been very fortunate to take some time for rest and renewal in warmer climes, as I’m blessed most always to do in January. (There are a number of things for which I am grateful to my predecessor, Bishop Bullock, but on a personal level, I’ll always remain grateful for his wise advice — and precedent — that I take my time for vacation in January, and not in the summer!)
I don’t take for granted for a moment the blessings that I’ve received. I’m grateful and I’m hopeful that such moments of leisure can prepare me all the more for my service.
And so it is with only the slightest sense of irony that the Lord has drawn to my mind the following three words and phrases from our readings this past Sunday: purification, suffering, and a sign of contradiction. And each of those words accompanies the readings, in order. Purification is spoken of in the first reading — Mal 3:1-4; suffering in the second reading — Heb 2:14-18, and a “sign of contradiction” in the Gospel reading — Lk 2:22-40.
Mary’s Assumption inspires us to follow her example
On November 1, 1950, more than 500,000 joyful people packed St. Peter’s Square to hear Pope Pius XII proclaim the dogma of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven.
In Munificentissimus Deus, Pope Pius XII proclaimed that “the “Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into Heavenly glory.”
In no. 59 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council affirmed this dogma of the Church.
God’s children in need
Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption to counter the loss of reverence and respect for the God-given identity of every human being.
Redemptive suffering is part of being a Christian
It is not easy to block out the multiple cries of pain and suffering that permeate the world. It is almost deafening.
All one has to do is turn on the radio, read the newspaper, watch television, or go online. We are bombarded with news of pain and suffering, almost to the saturation point. I think of the people in Libya, Haiti, Japan, and others affected by war and natural disasters. It gives me an overwhelming feeling.
Good people suffer
A couple of years ago I attended several lectures on the martyrs of El Salvador who were killed during a civil war that took place there in the 1970’s and ’80s. Archbishop Oscar Romero, four women missionaries, and several Jesuits — only to name a few of hundreds of people — were brutally murdered because they spoke out against the intense suffering of the Salvadoran people and a system of government that perpetuated it.