Lent is a time when followers of Christ spend 40 days in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in preparation for Holy Week and Easter.
When I was growing up, the emphasis was on “giving up” things we liked — from candy to favorite television shows. Penance and self-sacrifice are still important aspects of the Lenten season, but they may take on different forms.
Rosary for the Bishop, which started in Madison encouraging people to pray for Bishop Robert C. Morlino, has expanded to include all Catholic bishops in the United States.
Joining memorial services around the world on Sunday, Dec. 13, people in Madison and Evansville will hold candle lighting services in conjunction with the Compassionate Friends, an international self-help support organization for families grieving the death of a child.
In anticipation of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12, Bishop Robert C. Morlino has invited all to join him in a three-day intensified prayer and fasting to build and support the Culture of Life.
Glorious Archangel St. Raphael, great prince of the heavenly court, you are illustrious for your gifts of wisdom and grace. You are a guide of those who journey by land or sea or air, consoler of the afflicted, and refuge of sinners. …
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Editor’s note: Because of its length, this column by Bishop Robert Barron will be published in a two-part series.
One of the most impressive literary figures of the 20th century was the Irish writer Iris Murdoch. You may have heard of her surprising and thoughtful novels such as A Severed Head and The Good Apprentice; or perhaps you are conversant with her more abstract philosophical texts such as The Sovereignty of Good and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.
She reached her greatest notoriety, posthumously, in the work of her husband John Bayley, who penned a moving memoir of his wife’s slow and emotionally wrenching descent into Alzheimer’s disease. To hear the story of one of the brightest women of her time gradually losing her mind is, to say the least, unnerving. But due to Bayley’s artful telling, the experience becomes, almost despite itself, uplifting as well.
