A few weeks ago I learned that my lung cancer had crept into my bones and is likely to take my life within six months. That’s the bad news.
Author: Kevin Wondrash
Core of the Christmas and Easter Mysteries
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
Please let me first wish you every blessing of Christmas, and abundant blessings for the year to come — blessings of joy, health, and above all, always deeper faith.
Live in the glow of Christmas
I hope that you are continuing to live in the glow of the Christmas season, for we should remember that Christmas is not something that begins at Thanksgiving (or even as soon as Halloween has ended) and ends when presents are returned on December 26.
Our commemoration of Christmas should start on Christmas Eve and carry forward through the Epiphany and beyond. For indeed, Christmas should serve as an annual reminder of the tremendous gift and mystery of the Incarnation.
Christmas is a mystery
Christmas is a mystery, and there is a danger, between the commercialism and the outwardness of Christmas (all of the arguments about if and where you can put a Nativity Scene, and how you greet people), that the fact that Christmas is a mystery gets lost.
Christmas is a time when budgets get challenged, when people get defensive about their beliefs or lack of beliefs, and now where people have all kinds of parties as an excuse to eat and drink too much! (Not that I am immune from the fault of eating too much!) But Christmas is so much more!
Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration begins January 1 in Sauk City
SAUK CITY — “Spending time before the Blessed Sacrament is the gift we can give to God this Christmas,” according to Fr. John Blewett, pastor of Divine Mercy Parish in Sauk City.
The parish has been working since May to expand its current, two-day a week Eucharistic Adoration Program held at St. Aloysius Church to a Perpetual Adoration program slated to begin January 1.
Bishop Robert C. Morlino is scheduled to dedicate the new chapel, called the “Mary, Mother of God Chapel,” fittingly on the feast of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, January 1.
Events at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish
MADISON — St. Thomas Aquinas parish has two upcoming events open to all interested persons.
• Saturday, Jan. 10: “Six Dates for Catholic Couples” — Consider making a New Year’s resolution to spend more quality time with your spouse. All married couples are invited to participate in “Six Dates for Catholic Couples,” an opportunity to invest in your loving, happy marriage.
These once-a-month evenings begin with an opportunity to attend 4:30 p.m. Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas (602 Everglade Dr., Madison). Immediately after Mass, come to the social hall for a brief social and presentation. By 6:15, couples leave for a date night with a marriage-enriching topic for conversation. This is the first of the “Six Dates.”
Christmas and the humbling of the wise men
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It might seem that everything that could be said, has been said, about the shepherds, the wise men, and the Christ Child.
But that’s one of the marvels of Scripture: the unfolding history of the Church draws out of the inspired Word of God allegories and images previously unrecognized.
A God-haunted film
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The great British physicist Stephen Hawking has emerged in recent years as a poster boy for atheism, and his heroic struggles against the ravages of Lou Gehrig’s disease have made him something of a secular saint.
The new bio-pic A Theory of Everything does indeed engage in a fair amount of Hawking-hagiography, but it is also, curiously, a God-haunted movie.
Religion for atheists
In an opening scene, the young Hawking meets Jane, his future wife, in a bar and tells her that he is a cosmologist. “What’s cosmology?” she asks, and he responds, “Religion for intelligent atheists.”
#whatspercolating: Podcast keeps youth ‘freshly brewed’ in their faith
MADISON — “I love ‘Freshly Brewed.’ Topher, Lindsay, and Sara are the perfect combination.”
Like most trends and anything else that is “cool,” the youth, like the one quoted above, are on top of the latest creation of awesome for teens in the Diocese of Madison.
Rorate Mass: an Advent tradition
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.
Believing and trusting in God’s plan for us
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
The timing of this column falls into one of those awkward periods that comes with the schedule of our weekly publication.
As I write, we are still at the height of preparation for Christmas, yet this will likely be the edition of the Catholic Herald that is in your homes on Christmas Day. As such, I’m going to look forward joyfully and reflect upon the goodness that is “already, but not yet.”
I suppose it’s appropriate to be stuck in this place of anticipation, as it does speak to our lives each and every day, and it’s made especially clear at Christmas.
Rejoice at Jesus’ coming
At Christmas we celebrate and rejoice in the reality of eternal life made possible for us by God’s coming into the world.
We celebrate that everything is now changed for humanity. We celebrate God with us, a light in the darkness, the Word made flesh, God’s Kingdom at hand.
And yet, we remain in a period of waiting and of laboring. The world is not right. We may be redeemed, with hope for forgiveness, but we still fail, and falter, and sin.
When Jesus came into the world, it meant redemption from sin and the hope of an eternity of joy, but it did not mean mankind would be unable to choose otherwise, it did not mean everything would be peachy for us at all times.
Lessons and Carols in Beloit
BELOIT — Our Lady of the Assumption (OLA) Parish will celebrate Lessons and Carols on Saturday, Jan. 3, beginning at 7 p.m. in the church, 2222 Shopiere Rd.
The 30-voice OLA Parish Choir, under the direction of Randy Gracyalny, will be joined by instrumentalists from the parish and area to provide an uplifting prayer and musical experience.