MADISON — In years past, volunteers would walk our cemeteries, placing flags on the graves of veterans in preparation for Memorial Day.
Often, groups of 20 or more, including Marines, Scouts, and other patriotic societies, would gather for this tribute to those who have offered the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the nation.
This year, these tributes are being scaled back or canceled because of distancing requirements — have you ever seen groups of young Scouts stay six feet apart?
To the editor:
A recent letter writer to this newspaper (04/30/20) asked the question, “Do we think that COVID-19 virus is going away soon?” And though I agree with him that it is not, I do disagree with his view that we should have been more concerned about the economy.
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The Bible is so rich and vast that we can never fully fathom or remember the totality of the Scriptures, which allows for constant pleasant surprises when we discover a text which bears a new divine revelation to our hungry hearts.
This phenomenon happened to me recently as I was reading the Letter to the Hebrews. This New Testament letter was addressed to Jewish Christians to strengthen them in the practice of the faith and not to grow weary or become indifferent.
Two central themes of the text are the Priesthood of Jesus Christ as Savior and Redeemer and the pilgrimage of the people of God to the heavenly Jerusalem, where Jesus ministers in the heavenly sanctuary.MADISON — Pregnancy can be both a joyous and stressful time for new mothers. It can come with health hurtles, worries about the future, but usually not to the level of a global pandemic.
Three new and expecting mothers — Tabitha Hansen, Diana Bur, and Kristin Dvorsky — talked about what it is like to be expecting a child during this time and how their faith has been supporting them in their struggles.
Tabitha Hansen, a convert to Catholicism and member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Madison, had already lost three children to miscarriage and has four living children. Her daughter, Julia, is due to be born in September.
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One silver lining for me during this weird coronavirus shutdown has been the opportunity to return to some writing projects that I had left on the back-burner.
One of these is a book on the Nicene Creed, which I had commenced many months ago and on which I was making only very slow progress, given my various pastoral and administrative responsibilities.
The last several weeks, I have been working in a rather concentrated way on the Creed book, and I find myself currently in the midst of the section on the Church: “I believe in one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.”Following is information on additional livestreaming Masses and other services offered by parishes in the Diocese of Madison.
Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Sun Prairie. Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary offers the following:
1) Livestreamed Masses on Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 10 a.m. on Facebook.
2) Daily homily posted on Facebook and daily Masses recorded and posted on website and YouTube.
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Questions often raised during these weeks of social isolation and pandemic are: What am I learning from this experience? How will my life be different going forward? How will society change as a result?
I have heard from many people who are feeling a greater need for God in their lives. When we confront suffering, fear, loneliness, and privation, we gain greater insight into the essential nature of life’s meaning.
During this challenging pandemic experience, I have been meditating lately on power and the lack of it, the fear of vulnerability and dependence, the need to surrender control and accept what is beyond one’s ability to change.
Since the definition of power is “the capacity to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events,” we have probably all felt an ebbing of power and influence in our lives. The social restrictions, the loss of health or employment, the cancellation of activities and events have all thrust us into this opaque existence of limitation and diminishment.
During the coronavirus pandemic, many Catholic parishes throughout the country have experienced a decline in weekly collections.
