BARABOO — If you got a Kindle for Christmas (especially the new Kindle Fire), you might want to consider buying a new book that appeals to the whole family.
A Sunny Day at Spring Pond is the first book in the Spring Pond Series by Baraboo author Pamela R. Quinlan. She developed the idea for her series of children’s books while volunteering as an outdoor tour guide at Durward’s Glen Retreat Center in Baraboo.
In the Baltimore of the 1960s, my canny pastor devised a neat scheme for getting “Father Visitor” (as the confessional doors read) to fill in during the summer for his vacationing curates: bring over newly-ordained Australians from their studies in Rome.
There were no language issues (save for those of, er, accent); by the standards of student priests fresh from the Urban College of Propaganda Fidei, the young Aussies were recompensed handsomely and got to see something of the United States; it was win-win, all around.
Thus in the summer of 1967 I met Fr. George Pell of Ballarat, who, with the oils of ordination still wet on his forehead, spent several months at my parish before embarking on doctoral studies at Oxford.
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The season of celebrating the Nativity of Jesus Christ is complete with abundant opportunities for eating, many from long-held family traditions and others might just be questionable habits we have picked up in our daily struggle to make ends meet and jam another activity into our already over-scheduled daily routines.
What if the old maxim “You are what you eat” also included “You are how you eat”?
For instance, when was the last time I ate by myself from a fast-food drive-up window?
In John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but might have eternal life.”
Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote that out of love for us, “The hands that made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle and too tiny to change his own clothes or put food in his mouth. To share God’s love, Jesus experienced infant helplessness.”
Scripture tells us that God created us in his image. Since God is love, we image God best when we love. But sin keeps us from loving.
The annual Madison Seminarian Christmas Caroling Tour will take place at the following times and locations:
The present economic crisis can provide us with an opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, rather than on the materialistic spirit that often permeates our Western culture.
Since so many people are unemployed or under-employed and many family incomes are shrinking, a lot people will have to limit the type and number of gifts they give. This might be a blessing in disguise. It can provide us a chance to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.
Gift giving is a wonderful tradition but too many of us tend to go overboard and often measure another’s love and care by the gifts they give and receive. And some people give gifts out of a feeling of obligation or just because someone gives them one. Many feel embarrassed if a person gives them a gift and they have nothing to give in return.
The present economic crisis can provide us with an opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, rather than on the materialistic spirit that often permeates our Western culture.
Since so many people are unemployed or under-employed and many family incomes are shrinking, a lot people will have to limit the type and number of gifts they give. This might be a blessing in disguise. It can provide us a chance to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.
Gift giving is a wonderful tradition but too many of us tend to go overboard and often measure another’s love and care by the gifts they give and receive. And some people give gifts out of a feeling of obligation or just because someone gives them one. Many feel embarrassed if a person gives them a gift and they have nothing to give in return.
A few years ago playwright/director Peter Rothstein created a theatrical concert and musical radio drama entitled, All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914. This theatrical concert dramatizes a remarkable incident of peace that happened during an unplanned truce during World War I, which some called the war to end all wars.
On Christmas Eve, at certain places along the front, German and British soldiers spontaneously sang Christmas carols. On Christmas day unarmed enemy soldiers met in no man’s land, and exchanged gifts of tobacco, rum, chocolate, and even family photographs. In one section they buried each other’s dead and played soccer.
To the editor:
Thank you to Mary Uhler and the Catholic Herald for your report on Cardinal Raymond Burke’s recent compelling address on the need to counter the “contraceptive mentality” and “advance the culture of life” with “new enthusiasm and new energy.”
As Pro-Wisconsin (PLW) embarks on our 20th year in 2012, we realistically concur with His Eminence Cardinal Burke, in recognition that “the struggle is fierce and the contrary forces are many and clever.”
To the editor:
Thank you for Mary Uhler’s excellent article on Raymond Cardinal Burke’s recent statement on contraception in Illinois. We were blessed to inform Cardinal Burke of the Madison Catholic Herald covering that story after he celebrated Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse on Friday, Dec. 9, the Feast of St. Juan Diego. He was pleased.
My parents gave me 10 brothers and sisters, 20 years from youngest to oldest, and my in-laws gave me my husband, youngest of eight children, born when his father was 40, and his mother was 39. Praise be to God for big families!
