These past two weeks, I was blessed to make a pilgrimage with 53 wonderful people, including Fr. Steve Brunner of our diocese, to Lourdes in France and to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
Category: Bishop Hying’s Columns
The Church’s ‘ultimate trial’
An intriguing paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I have often pondered, is #675: “The Church’s ultimate trial. Before Christ’s second coming, the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution which accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil ‘the mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.”
We’re all in this together
As our priests continue to unpack in their new homes and begin embracing new faith communities, and our people adjust to new leadership and new Mass times, I am certainly aware of the enormity of these changes as we launch Into the Deep.
Growing in love for the Eucharist
This month of June, we Catholics have celebrated both the Solemnities of the Most Holy Eucharist (Corpus Christi) and the Sacred Heart, two mysteries of our faith intimately linked.
Dealing with anti-Catholicism
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a noted United States historian, famously opined decades ago that anti-Catholicism is “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.”
Come, Holy Spirit
Last weekend we finished the Easter season with the celebration of Pentecost, the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples gathered with the holy women and the Blessed Virgin in the Upper Room.
What’s happening in the diocese
This past Saturday, we concluded the third and final piece of our Go Make Disciples Live, the diocesan collaboration with The Evangelical Catholic to provide some practical formation for the lay faithful of our parishes to engage and evangelize others with greater competence and confidence.
Viewing the Second Vatican Council
In last week’s column, I discussed Reinhold Niebuhr’s three-fold model of how Christians relate to the culture around them.
Christ and culture
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), an influential Protestant theologian in the United States, greatly impacted how we think about the relationship of religion and culture.
The need for solitude
The older I get, the more comfortable I am being alone. That feeling is probably a common one because the increasing maturity of years leads to deeper self-knowledge and a confidence in our identity.