MADISON — “Hey, J. Gregory!” said a teen over the video conferencing platform Zoom. “Don’t you own a pair of scissors?”
Jaymes Gregory Curran, the youth director of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Madison, certainly wouldn’t have envisioned sitting in his parish’s empty youth room talking over Zoom a few months ago.
“I’d heard of Zoom before the pandemic hit,” he said. “But I have never been a fan of FaceTime, Skype, or other similar apps.”
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.
To the editor:
I read with great interest Bishop Hying’s column on faith during this COVID-19 pandemic. God has used this to gift us with the gift of empathy with persons with disabilities!
Following is information on some of the livestreaming Masses and Rosaries offered by parishes in the Diocese of Madison.
Cathedral Parish, Madison: The Cathedral Parish invites people to join them in prayer online. Each weekday, Monday through Friday, Msgr. Kevin Holmes, rector, leads the Rosary in a livestream from the rectory at 12:15 p.m. Sunday Mass at 11 a.m. is also livestreamed from the Cathedral Parish at St. Raphael Church. Visit the cathedral Facebook page to join in these moments of prayer (@CathedralParishMadison). Note people can view the public posts on the page even if they don’t have a Facebook account.
To the editor:
Do we think that COVID-19 virus is going away soon?
How is it that the flu virus shows up every fall throughout the United States and the world?
During the coronavirus pandemic, many Catholic parishes throughout the country have experienced a decline in weekly collections.
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Last week, Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, made a rather interesting theological observation.
Commenting on the progress that his state has made in fighting the coronavirus, and praising the concrete efforts of medical personnel and ordinary citizens, he said, “The number is down because we brought the number down. God did not do that. Faith did not do that.”
SINSINAWA, Wis. — […]
MADISON — Ordinations, whether to the priesthood or the diaconate, are usually very busy events filled with making sure everyone is in their right seats; lining up the men to be ordained, priests, and others in the processional before the Mass; and dozens of people doing their parts during the Mass to make sure the sacred rites are done correctly and reverently.
However, on April 15, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, as Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison said during his homily, “It’s not the ordination that any of us would have anticipated.”
He added, “By being winnowed down to its essence, we see with greater clarity the beauty of what is about to happen.
MADISON — St. Thomas Aquinas Parish on Madison’s westside has recently installed a 72-panel solar array on its roof.
The 335-watt panels were installed in February and became fully operational on March 4 after being commissioned by Madison Gas and Electric.
The installation launched Phase 1 of the parish’s Make Disciples Capital Campaign. The new installation is expected to lower the parish’s carbon footprint by six percent and provide 10 percent of the electricity needed to power the church.