PINE BLUFF — “I should get up when and drive where for what? For Mass?!? But it’s a Saturday!”
There is a centuries long tradition during Advent called the “Rorate Mass.” These Masses are generally offered during Advent on Saturdays, the customary day to honor the Blessed Virgin.
Mass begins in the darkness before dawn. Remember, Advent is a penitential season after all.
MADISON — Women of the Diocese of Madison are invited to fall vicariate meetings scheduled at parishes in Spring Green, Jefferson, Berlin, Bloomington, and Pine Bluff.
Rosa Roper, president of the Madison Diocesan Council of Catholic Women (MDCCW), encourages women to take advantage of these meetings to connect with other Catholic women in their area.
The half-day meetings offer prayer, socializing, and service and fit into her theme as president: “Live, Learn, Love, and Share Our Catholic Faith.”
As soon as I heard my wife burst out the bathroom door that sunny spring day, I knew she was pregnant. I hadn’t yet opened my eyes but I didn’t need to. Her footsteps told me everything.
My wife didn’t have any particular reason to believe she was pregnant. But after a couple years of praying for a second child, I’d grown accustomed to Laura taking random pregnancy tests — hoping against hope that somehow that second pink line would appear. This time it did.
The days ahead were as joyful as any we’d experienced in our life together. We beamed when friends who knew of our struggle with secondary infertility congratulated us and we devoured all the fetal development materials we could find, eager to mark every last milestone in our baby’s nascent life.
As his Eagle Scout project, Phillip Fonfara — with the help of Boy Scout Troop 333 — built a living Advent wreath for Sacred Hearts Parish in Sun Prairie.
